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HomeA View On The WorldGoing Back To The Brown Stuff

Going Back To The Brown Stuff

A few years ago, we were all congratulated on how well we had been doing. Trade was up, crime was decreasing and everything was looking quite rosy.

Animal species were thriving, air quality was improving and the Government had signed deals to stop the use of fossil fuels and prevent a global warming catastrophe. Pollution levels in our rivers and around our coastline was was almost non-existent. People were told that it was safe to swim in rivers again and that whilst you were swimming in near tropical-clear waters, your eyes would be spoilt with an abundance of wildlife all around you.

Things had improved so much, that in 2017 a group of caring people from Kingston in London decided it would be a good idea to re-introduce water voles to local rivers. The water vole was reported to be the fastest declining mammal in the country at the time, so it seemed like a good idea and the caring people could talk to other caring people down at the pub about just how caring they had been.

They crowdfunded £18,000 which was enough to buy 200 water voles. ‘Hang on a second’ I can hear you cry. When have you been able to purchase a number of near extinct animals?

Apparently a rewilding professional had a plentiful supply. Rather than donate them to the cause they decided that they wanted to see the colour of money first. That’s capitalism for you.

So the project got funded and was soon underway. Sixty volunteers were trained to carry out a basic water vole habitat survey, with a heatmap of good, bad and average habitat across the catchment. Next, Thames Water and the Environment Agency got involved and agreed to remove a weir in the river. Everything was ready for 2022 when the voles would be released into the wild.

Then, as with many projects, it began to let in water. Back in 2004 a wise scientist discovered the problem of micro-plastics. It took some time for the seriousness of this issue to be appreciated, which only delayed the inevitable panic until years later when even more harm had occurred.

The next bit of bad news to come bobbing down the river, was that we are not as clean and careful as we had been led to believe. A report published in July 2022 said that over 40% of the world’s rivers could contain harmful levels of drugs.

These drugs can enter our river systems either by improper disposal or being excreted into the environment, as wastewater treatment facilities are not often designed to filter out these chemicals, so they end up contaminating sewage.

A 2021 study found that cocaine being excreted in the urine of Glastonbury festivalgoers was reaching levels known to have an impact on the health of European eels. So now we have a bunch of eels with a crack habit!

If that was not bad enough, in August 2022, our water companies decided it was appropriate to release raw sewage into our rivers and seas. They said it was ‘the fault of the Victorian sewage pipes’ they have to use and so they were not to blame.

Queen Victoria died in 1901, but not one serving MP has so far decided to approach any UK water company to ask them what they have been doing for the last 121 years?

Despite 2022 having the worst European drought in recorded history, a few thunderstorms completely overwhelmed the water systems. Pollution warnings were put in place across more than 40 beaches and swimming spots in England and Wales, as a flow of sewage poured into our waterways. The water companies said everything would be okay and the stinky sewage would literally float away in a few days.

Raw sewage was pumped into rivers and coasts around 375,000 times in 2021. The government previously said it wanted to reduce discharges into bathing waters by 70% by 2035, and eliminate 160,000 incidents of sewage overflows by 2040.

So the poor little water voles will be released into a river environment that is more polluted than it was a few years ago. They don’t really stand much chance of surviving for very long.

And for the next 13 years at least, if you decide to enjoy a UK river, you may not be joined by a water vole by your side, but by something soft, squidgy and floaty that has been left by your neighbour!

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