NATURE COLUMN: Bill Cawley

MY LATE mother lived as a child by the Fowlea Brook in the centre of Stoke.

It was culverted as it passed by her family home in Peel Street (now Eleanora Street) before it joined the Trent near the old Victoria Ground.

It goes without saying that the brook in the 1930s was grotesquely polluted.

It was devoid of life of any kind as it passed through some of the most heavily industrialised areas of the Potteries.

It was lethal and its noxious contents may have played a part in the death of two young relatives from typhoid.

Perhaps Foul-lea Brook would have been a more appropriate name as raw sewage was dumped in its waters during the 19th century until adequate sewage treatment systems came into being.

A few years ago a BBC documentary on the Trent reinforced how derelict the river was as it passed through Stoke. The programme – which traced the river from its source to its mouth – was very dismissive about the river as it limped through the Potteries devoid of life and full of rubbish

Recently however, another BBC programme, Countryfile, showed the Trent and its tributaries in Stoke more favourably.

Over recent years the City Council and Staffordshire Wildlife Trust have been working to recover the quality of local waterways with a considerable investment in time and money.

The cost of the enterprise is £3.6million.

This has involved improving the flow of the Trent by rerouting the river by excavating sections to moderate its flow and reconnecting the river to local flood plains.

Countryfile concentrated on a section near to the old Stoke City ground with staff taking samples of the water quality and observing what insect life was stirring in the waters.

As was pointed out the key to a healthy river system is diversity and the river’s passage should include different environments of fast and slow moving water and deep and shallow areas so as to ensure that different species thrive and needs can be catered for.

There were encouraging signs that the approach was working.

One indicator to the Trent’s health was the presence of mayflies, which have been recorded in different stretches of the river.

Mayflies are very sensitive to pollution, and as such are usually only found at high quality, minimally polluted sites.

Along with caddisflies and stoneflies, they are one of the three most commonly used indices of aquatic ecosystem health.

Because they are found in a wide variety of habitats and are so widely sensitive to pollution, they are a valuable indicator of water pollution.

Their existence in an aquatic ecosystem is a strong indicator of a healthy body of water. They need clean water to survive.

Several larvae of mayfly were trawled by the conservationists, indicating that the signs of recovery were evident – which looks very promising for the Trent.