RE: Just a question12 Aug 2020 08:51
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/12/government-britains-rivers-uk-waterways-farming-water-companies
You can judge the state of a nation by the state of its rivers. Pollution is the physical expression of corruption. So what should we conclude about a country whose rivers are systematically exploited, dumped on and bled dry?
I’m writing from the Welsh borders, where I’m supposed to be on holiday. It’s among the most beautiful regions of Britain, but the rivers here are dying before my eyes. When I last saw it, four years ago, the Monnow, a lovely tributary of the River Wye, had a mostly clean, stony bed. Now the bottom is smothered in slime and filamentous algae. In the back eddies, the rotting weed floats to the surface, carrying the stench of cow slurry.
A few days ago, part of another tributary of the Wye, the Llynfi, was wiped out by a pollution surge, for the third time in five years. Hundreds of trout, grayling and bullheads floated to the surface, while rare white-clawed crayfish crawled out of the water. In the Ewyas valley, I discovered, out of sight of any vantage point, that part of the Honddu, another beautiful little river, is being illegally quarried for loose stone. Ancient alders and ashes on its banks have been ripped out to make way for the digger.
The Wye itself is dying at astonishing, heartbreaking speed. When I canoed it 10 years ago, the stones were clean. Now they are so slimy that you can scarcely stand up. In hot weather, the entire river stinks of chicken ****, from the 10 million birds being reared in the catchment. We made the mistake of swimming in it: I almost gagged when I smelled the water. The free-range farms are the worst: the birds carpet the fields with their highly reactive dung, which is then washed into the catchment by rain. Several times a year, algal blooms now turn the clear river cloudy. The fish gasp for breath. Aquatic insects suffocate.
Similar disasters are happening across Britain. In the east of the country, the main issues are human sewage and water extraction. The privatised water companies, granted local monopolies on supply, extract vast dividends and salaries while not investing enough in pipes, sewage systems, reservoirs and pollution control. Instead of stopping leaks or discouraging overconsumption, they draw down the groundwater that feeds our rivers. Many now run dry for part of the year. There are only 225 chalk streams in the world, and 85% are in England. Yet several of these rare and precious ecosystems could disappear altogether.
Critics argue that the water companies blatantly abuse the “exceptional circumstances” rule, which allows them to discharge raw sewage into our rivers during extreme storms and floods. Official records show that the companies dump untreated sewage into many of our rivers and chalk streams for thousands of hours a year.
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