Water Water Everywhere but ..........

 

This Autumn 3430 fresh water sites were tested by Water Blitz.  60% of these showed poor water quality with unacceptable levels of nutrient pollution.

The four last Water Blitz investigations have shown that water quality throughout UK  was at its worst in England.  This Autumn’s tests revealed that 66% of the water sites tested had unacceptable levels of nutrient pollution.

Tyrone in N Ireland, Mid Glamorgan in Wales and Scotland sites had the best water quality.  Trent Lower, Trent valley and Staffordshire were found to be the most polluted waterways, and fell within the cohort of the worst polluted waterways in UK.  Cambridgeshire had the lowest water health standards of all, with 91% of the sites tested showing poor ecological status.

It was reported that in this blanket test, additional contaminants showed pollution from sewage discharges and agricultural run off.  Concentrations of  antibiotics which suggested that anti-microbial resistance was developing in fresh water.

Illicit drugs such as ketamine were also prevalent in the waterways tested – although these were thought to pose minimal risk to aquatic life.  (They might have a more chilled approach to being poisoned.)

The insecticide imidacloprid, however, found in high concentrations in some samples from across UK, did pose a moderate to high risk to aquatic invertebrates which are vitally important to ecological health.