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Just read this news article:
https://thestrayferret.co.uk/rivers-nidd-and-ure-named-among-britains-worst-polluted-rivers/
Having lived in the catchment for both of these rivers, I’d point the finger at farmers spreading manure / chicken faeces / contents of their septic tanks on their land at inappropriate times.
Casual observation suggests that they wait until absolutely torrential rain is forecast before they nip out to spread, and then act surprised when six hours later the river downstream of their land is running brown.
It might be more stinky to spread on a dry day, but at least it doesn’t immediately end up in the river.
Best practice is to keep the crap in a drystore then either burn it for heating (chicken sheds) or process into proper fertilizer, mixing with other ingredients. This can be sold as a by-product with particular NPK content appropriate for the soil+crop you want to grow. However, this is expensive (£1m+ for the buildings/machinery). Most farmers therefore do the above. The short answer is either eat less chicken/eggs/dairy - or pay more for it.
Genuine question. How do the most polluted rivers now compare to the average 50 or 100 years ago?
If you sample every river in the land, one river will be the most polluted, that's how statistics work. Headlines like that don't really tell you anything useful. A more important question is, how many are polluted enough to be a threat to health?
Put it this way, I wouldn't swim in any UK river downstream of the first town / where it's deep enough to do so. In the uplands/tributaries it is probably OK.
During or just after heavy rainfall, I would advise nobody swims in a river.
Most pollution is Agricultural - that is run-off/leaching, essentially from fertilizer or bad management of manure.
Second is sewage, essentially from storm overflows when it rains - throwing raw sewage straight into rivers.
Third is industrial pollution, so chemical spills or factories breaking their licence conditions.
Last is the kind of casual plastic bottles, shopping trolleys etc you actually see the most of.
Nearly all of this has happened in the last 50 years, exacerbating factors are industrial development, demand for agricultural productivity, privatisation of the water industry and an absence of regulation/oversight or blatant collusion.
It's not an issue which can be fixed quickly, easily or in isolation.
Please don’t shoot me. But I was thinking about this recently, and I figured that I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect to have pristine rivers to swim in. Maybe it should be, but I’m not sure most of the world works like that. I lived in India for a few years. Without exception, the rivers in our town were smelled long before you saw them. They might look good from a distance, but you’d go near them at your peril. So this makes me think that rivers have been dumping grounds for millennia. I remember when I was a kid, my mum scared us to death with threats of polo from swimming in rivers. So I’ve always had the subconscious feeling that rivers are not really for swimming.
now, having said that, I’d love rivers to be swimmable. It’s a lovely idea. I’m just not sure it’s actually very practical.
also, everyone seems to blame farmers. But from what I can see, for hundreds or thousands of years - farmers have relied on spreading shit on their fields to make stuff grow. Manure is as old as humans. And if it happens to rain heavily after you spread said shit on your field, then it is clearly going to make its way to the river. I’m not sure it’s realistic not to ever spread anything on fields. It might not be smelly shit anymore. I see farmers going to extreme lengths to inject shit into the fields to avoid anyone having to actually smell it, and to prevent run off. But I’m not sure 100% of run off can be avoided 100% of the time.
You either work for the NFU or a water company. 😉
India is a develop-ING country.
The UK is a develop-ED country.
We do not have masses of heavy industry. The money is around (in the pockets of wealthy, particularly landowners) to mitigate the negative externalities of livestock rearing. A wealth tax or 'make the polluter pay' is the basis I would use.
I'm not suggesting a ban on using manure - maybe grants for machinery to turn the high nitrogen chicken crap into something else. It's the concentration of it which is the problem. There are around 1 million chickens reared within the river Wye catchment - this happened within the last 10-15yrs
With the water industry a good start would be to separate surface water runoff from sewerage e.g. have gutters which lead to soakaways instead of into drains. This kind of thing is beginning to happen, it just takes time and effort to make a noticeable difference.
The other contributor I forgot is transport pollution e.g. tyre dust, particulates etc from vehicles. But this isn't measured at all so nobody knows the true effects.
We would actually all benefit from having cleaner rivers. IMO, we should sack off private water companies and create a national water network.
Any spreading of slurry or manure at this time of year is waste disposal. Farmers are meant to have 6mth of storage under Farming Rules for Water, but they don't and the Regs are not enforced. So they spread just before heavy rain to get rid.
My mate works for UU and one of their intakes, nowhere near a WwTW, showed a massive spike in coliforms. The farmer had spread slurry all around. So that intake was closed until the levels returned to safe. Pesticides too wash in, I've seen spikes of MCPA, glyphosate and even Dieldrin (banned in 1998). It's a heady mix.
Now I get that the market drives non-compliance, but I feel that's a shoddy excuse, especially for the regulators. It's interesting how in every other sector, market forces and efficiencies drive the businesses, but we're somehow wedded to the myth of the small farmer. Perhaps some should go to the wall to allow fundamental change to take place.
I won't hold my breath though and will have to run the risk of catching some godforsaken bug if I do take a dip in a river or stream.
It's incredibly simple for the farming industry to reduce its impact on our watercourses and the fact it wilfully refuses is a disgrace.
There's a significant disconnect between the popular image of a farm as portrayed on the egg box and the reality of a lot of food production.
sad thing is it's all fixable just by changing behaviours, unlike combined sewage spills which will take years and cost billions (not excusing the water industry, just stating the facts).
To be fair, the balance of power is probably with supermarkets (pretty much a cartel), although farms are consolidating rapidly (probably as a result of this).
I think there is plenty of deviation between farmers on how land is managed. Some will embrace biodiversity and attempt to minimise pollution e.g. investing in drystores, adding wildlife buffer zones etc. some are megalomaniacs with 10,000 dairy cows and slurry tanks fit to burst, some in-between just trying to do the right thing + make a living.
I'm stretching my knowledge a bit here, but what makes most sense to me is better monitoring and levies on pollution, so each farm pays per tonne of unwanted discharge. Financial aid for capital expenditure would help those who need to transition.
Manure and slurry have high fertiliser value, anyone spreading them knowing in conditions when they'll wash away is making a forced (that is, in the short term) decision because they don't have the storage space.
Synthetic fertilier has shot up in price in recent years with energy costs, so there's more incentive to put shit fertiliser to good use. But at the same time, construction materials and labour to make extra storage have also shot up in price.
Genuine question. How do the most polluted rivers now compare to the average 50 or 100 years ago?
I can semi-informedly comment on the agricultural shit perspective of small family livestock farms. Timescales will vary wildly based on size, profitability, and whether the man in charge is the son/dad/grandad.
Pre-70s - feed is hay, cattle shit dry muck. Doesn't really wash away. Heap it up and spread later.
70s-80s - silage is the new feed, cattle shit liquid slurry. No storage for this generally, so push it straight into the muckspreader (which was designed for solid muck) and spread it pretty much every day - you have to. So it goes on all the time, but in small batches.
90s - construction of pits/lagoons to store slurry. Now spread it using vacuum tankers with forethought of fertilising crops, but also when the storage is getting full - you have to really. Lot of storage is uncovered and poor water management on yards so lot of rainwater ends up in the slurry filling up the storage faster. Because we now have storage, spreading is now occasional but the batches are big - the whole farm land might get done over a week to empty the tank. Things like cannons get invented to spray from the road over hedges, for when the ground is too wet to travel on but the storage is full and spreading is forced.
Later - being a bit smarter and more investment/grants. Thinking of it more as a resource than a waste. Fixing above issues. Better machinery to inject for more effectiveness of it as a fertiliser and runoff prevention.
Of course, and as usual STW ignores the elephant in the room. We have too many people!
Where I used to work the water board used the Mogden formula for calculating waste water costs. It used volume and a multiplyer of BOD , COD and solid loading.
I should imagine that if the same formula were applied to land drains that alot of farmers use to keep their fields drivable year round, the costs would be astronomical.