A few times a week, a group of volunteers dotted along the Yazor Brook, which rises in a rural catchment and flows into the River Wye at Hereford, brave the brambles and muddy banks to take samples of the gently flowing water.
They conduct the tests on at least four sites along the brook and upload their results online. They are now among more than 200 citizen scientists who regularly test the River Wye from its source in the Cambrian mountains to the Severn estuary, compared with the sporadic testing by regulators.
Anne Cottringer, 71, a former documentary-maker who lives in Hereford, takes a break each Saturday from tending her runner beans, lettuces and raspberries on an allotment to take a sample. She then disappears into a garden shed to do a small battery of tests, including monitoring for phosphate levels and water turbidity.
Cottringer, who is a member of the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust Yazor Brooks Restoration Project, said she started testing about two years ago after an appeal from the group Friends of the Upper Wye. There was growing anger over the decline in the ecological health of the river, and campaigners wanted better evidence for what they considered an unfolding environmental crisis.
“The fact that so many people are now testing means there is an accumulation of evidence,” said Cottringer. “We want it to reach a tipping point so it just can’t be ignored.”
Jane Denny, 69, who samples the brook each week in the village of Stretton Sugwas, north-west of Hereford, said: “I’m heartbroken at the state of the Wye. It’s just awful to see it as it is. I thought it was something I could do which was positive.”
Martin Janes, managing director of the nonprofit body the River Restoration Centre, said Natural England and the Environment Agency did not have sufficient resources to effectively monitor and protect the nation’s rivers, with volunteers now plugging a gap.
He said: “Individuals are taking up the banner and saying: ‘We want a better river system.’”
The scale of the challenge in the country’s most precious rivers systems is formidable. An analysis by the Observer this weekend of 256 freshwater habitats on 38 river systems which are sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) found just 23 (9%) are in “favourable” condition.
Natural England, charged with protecting what should be pristine areas of biodiversity, said this weekend that the government has a target to restore 75% of protected sites to favourable condition by 2042, and all SSSIs will have an updated assessment.
Three years ago, campaigners sounded the alarm over the decline of the River Wye in England and Wales. They warned that phosphate-rich runoff from intensive poultry farms in the supermarket supply chain was sullying the Wye’s waters and devastating the ecosystem with the spread of thick algae blooms.
Natural Resources Wales blamed sunny weather for the proliferation of algae blooms. It said there was no evidence of a link between river pollution and intensive poultry units.
Furious campaigners were already counting the many millions of chickens being housed across the Wye catchments in the supermarket supply chain. The Brecon & Radnor branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales mapped more than 760 chicken sheds containing more than 20 million chickens.
Vast quantities of manure were being spread across farmland and spilling into watercourses across the Wye catchment. In the face of a lack of effective action by the regulator, anglers, conservationists and local residents started to test the water.
Stuart Smith, chair of the Wye Salmon Association, said a small group of anglers first started testing the river in England and Wales in June 2020 because of concerns over the decline of salmon, the spread of algae and the reported deaths of cygnets.
He said: “Traditionally, algae had been limited to the lower river, but we began to get it across the whole of the catchment.”
The tests found that phosphate levels in the water were regularly breaching guideline targets.
Gordon Green, 70, an angler and retired industrial physicist from Thornbury, Gloucestershire, works as an adviser on the association’s sampling regime and also tested farmland, showing that higher levels of phosphorus in the soil were close to poultry units. The research supporting the findings of a 2021 report by Lancaster University which concluded that chicken litter was the main source of manure-causing phosphate pollution on the Wye.
“The regulators were asleep at the wheel because this has unfolded over 30 years,” said Green. “There are catchment reviews from the mid-1990s which say the planning process needs to get a grip on poultry units and manage the spread of manure.”
Other groups began testing the water, and monitoring points spread rapidly along the river. Friends of the Upper Wye started its programme in 2021. Volunteers at the CPRE, the countryside charity, and Friends of the Lower Wye also started testing. The real-time data gathered by volunteers is uploaded by an app, and in the next few weeks will be combined for the first time on one platform. It will be called the Wye Alliance Citizen Science dashboard and is likely to be a model for volunteers on other river catchments blighted by pollution.
Tom Tibbits, chair of Friends of the Upper Wye, said: “I hope the dataset will be a resource for pinpointing places where significant action should be taken to curb pollution. Where we look, we tend to find it.”
Pat Stirling, citizen science manager of the Friends of the Upper Wye, said the volunteer testing and scrutiny of the planning process highlighted the plight of the Wye and pushed the regulators into action. He said: “We believe the citizen scientists made a difference.”
It is not just volunteer conservationists who test the river but also farmers alarmed at the threat to the River Wye. David Watts, 62, who farms 350 acres near the town of Bromyard in Herefordshire, regularly tests the water and land for phosphates.
He transports chicken litter from his 40,000 laying hens out of the country and has reed beds to help filter any runoff into the Frome, a tributary of the Wye which runs across his farm. “Rivers are a lifeblood,” said Watts. “Without a healthy river, you don’t have a healthy farm. We do everything we can to protect the river.”
Natural England and the Environment Agency are working with Herefordshire council, Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, the farming community and other stakeholders to improve water quality in the Wye and reduce phosphates.
Avara Foods, the Tesco supplier which has a poultry plant in Hereford and accounts for between 12 million and 15 million chickens in the Wye catchment, published a roadmap in January to ensure its supply chain no longer contributes to excess phosphate pollution in the Wye. Campaigners want more radical action, with stricter curbs on poultry units. A spokesperson said: “Avara Foods is not a direct polluter of the Wye; however, farmers in our supply chain sell or use poultry litter as fertiliser on other land in the catchment.
“We recognise the role phosphates play in the river’s deterioration and are committed to ensuring our supply chain contributes no excess phosphates in the catchment area by 2025, through our roadmap.”
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) now acknowledges that poultry litter has caused pollution in the face of overwhelming evidence gathered by the citizen scientists, supported by university research. Gavin Bown of NRW said: “Our understanding of these issues is improving as we undertake more monitoring and analysis. NRW is committed to play our full part in improving water quality in the River Wye.”
