Anglers roll out their own testing for dirty rivers

ANGLERS have taken the problem of pollution into their own hands, accusing the Government of failing to detect dirty rivers.

A national water quality testing network has been launched by the Angling Trust, designed to measure levels of nutrients including nitrates and phosphates in river water.

Stuart Singleton-white, head of campaigns at the trust, said: “It will show and indicate that there are far more problems in our rivers than the Environment Agency is prepared to admit, and the Environment Agency doesn’t actually know what is going on in our rivers, because they have so rolled back their own monitoring network. They have vastly reduced the amount of samples they take. They only take spot samples, they tend to only take them during the working day.

“It’s really just us continuing to use this data and show to the Environment Agency that you have got a really serious problem here, and you are just not taking enough action, and you are not taking action quickly enough.”

Volunteers will carry out the same tests in the same locations on at least a monthly basis and in some cases weekly, to build up a picture over time of pollution levels in a particular stretch of water. The project is being launched in the River Severn initially but will be rolled out across England and Wales later this year. Tests will also be carried out for water temperature, algal blooms, flow rates, and water levels, and electrical conductivity – a measure which can help identify problem that may harm fish.

The Government has been criticised for failing to keep track of river pollution, with citizen scientists, anglers and wild swimmers on rivers such as the Wye beginning to carry out their own tests after noticing the growth of algae and the decline of wildlife, including swans and salmon.

Nutrient pollution primarily comes from two sources – runoff from fertilisers used on farmers’ fields and the sewage treatment activities of water companies, which release both imperfectly treated waste and raw sewage into rivers and the sea.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “Monitoring water quality is essential to keeping our rivers clean. We have been collecting data from waterways since the 1980s and have spent over £180m on environmental monitoring since 2016 – in 2019 we took more than 90,000 water quality samples.”