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River Wye and Poultry Farming again

Neil Blood

Neil Blood

Senior Member
There was a half hour feature on the BBC News 24 channel earlier covering the River Wye and issues with Poultry Farming. I’ve checked on iPlayer, but it’s not listed unfortunately. Worth a watch if it’s repeated and I took a few things from it.

  • Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, did his usual trick of sitting on the fence. I guess if he admits there is a problem, the Welsh Assembly will need to give NRW some proper funding! Probably also doesn’t want to upset the farming community!
  • John Mercer of the Welsh NFU, gave his usual denial and stated that there’s lots of other issues facing the River Wye, but yet again he fails to state what they are. I have a real dislike for this organisation, they love to tell us that farmers are the guardians of the Welsh countryside, but it’s utter bollocks and I’m sure they see environmental issues as ‘green crap’. They even objected to initiatives to save breeding Welsh Curlews on farmland, stating that the priority had to be food production ( sorry I’ve digressed there) 😡
  • There was a really great feature on how Scotland have turned round the fortunes of the River Ayr. Here the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) have worked closely with farmers. They have 6 full time officers, plus support staff, whose job it is to check how farmers manage slurry storage and use. They have 99% compliance 👍🏻 Compare this to Wales, where no one monitors and enforces the rules!
 
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I would liked to have seen that programme although such items do tend to increase my BP levels 😡.
This forum has covered the pollution of the Wye many times but like so many things in life the perpetrators get away with it. Local politicians want to increase local employment (although pre Brexit, labour came from abroad) the councils want more business rates paid into their coffers and the farmers want to increase their "bottom line". The environment comes a long way down the list sadly.
Farmers always argue that "the public" want cheap food and the only way to produce it is to cut corners and destroy the local environment as treating slurry properly costs money.
 
I sat in on a river Wye Zoom meeting last year where a Welsh / Wye chicken farmer told some truths. Her chicken farm managed, controlled and complied with all rules,regulations etc. She explained that the vast majority of farmers not just chicken ones wanted to do things right. Rather than help these farmers the EA and Welsh equivalent just come onto farms and fine them. Sometimes vast amounts that struggling farmers could not pay. This then made farmers who were looking for advise and help keep their heads down for fear of prosecution. Farmers need educating and help rather than hitting with a big stick. To me it seems like the usual crap from the EA management, fining the smaller people and avoiding the Water companies. Understandable whilst the EA pension funds are invested in Water companies dumping filth through out the country. When I asked none of the scientists at the Zoom could agree the exact percentage of Human waste to agricultural damage on the Wye. Some said 60/40 others 70/30. Not one of the presenters suggested the water companies were at fault. After seeing a canoeists video of 6 dead Salmon and tons of chocolate coloured filth pouring out of Monmouth STW last year its not just farmers and their gradual field runoff.
 
I’ve been fishing the Wye since the early 90s and used to keep logs of levels , temperatures , weedy areas etc. I found a couple the other day and a couple of things are noticeable

The river is a shadow of former self now as we know , one of the most noticeable changes is the lack of level and flow rate even before abstraction for the crop watering kicks in - the river is on its arse. I recorded river levels at the start of the season and we always seemed to have a good flush through with a healthy rise in June more often than not just before the season opened , then a steady drop to a real low in august , we are not having that flush through anymore and the river hits that august drought level now long before the season even starts

I can remember the crops like potatoes and the use of chemicals to burn the tops off and the river drains fizzing when that chemical finally filtered through

The water crowfoot is nearly all gone , areas where you could virtually cross the river without getting wet are devoid of any weed , some of the holding areas died when the weed went and are now barren silty dead spots where even the chub are missing.

Changing farming habits and methods won’t make any difference for years , the high nitrate levels stored in the fields will take years to reduce to where the difference can be seen , changing historic sewage discharge drains where there is no other infrastructure in place isn’t going to happen any time soon either not with these water companies lack of consideration old places where there is no sewage plants and just river sewage discharge drains and septic tanks will never change

What needs to change is society and the infrastructure to support a growing country - the dams at Rhayader were to provide water for Birmingham area - expansion of that city has not resulted in increased water storage / reservoirs to catch and store in times of heavy rainfall - resulting in more wasted floodwater and subsequent crap water levels and flow rate when it’s needed most in the summer especially when the extraction starts

I remember last year when the WUF had to appeal to the water company to give some controlled releases of water to get the flow rate up a bit and flush the warm toxic algae filled water along and down to the estuary , they gave 2 short releases over 2 days when really pushed and it made little if any improvement And you don’t have to ask why when you see such apathy towards our river and others in the country treating them no more than open sewers and dumping grounds and not something precious worthy of looking after and to waste valuable stored water on.
 
Simon Rolph said:
I’ve been fishing the Wye since the early 90s and used to keep logs of levels , temperatures , weedy areas etc. I found a couple the other day and a couple of things are noticeable

The river is a shadow of former self now as we know , one of the most noticeable changes is the lack of level and flow rate even before abstraction for the crop watering kicks in - the river is on its arse. I recorded river levels at the start of the season and we always seemed to have a good flush through with a healthy rise in June more often than not just before the season opened , then a steady drop to a real low in august , we are not having that flush through anymore and the river hits that august drought level now long before the season even starts

I can remember the crops like potatoes and the use of chemicals to burn the tops off and the river drains fizzing when that chemical finally filtered through

The water crowfoot is nearly all gone , areas where you could virtually cross the river without getting wet are devoid of any weed , some of the holding areas died when the weed went and are now barren silty dead spots where even the chub are missing.

Changing farming habits and methods won’t make any difference for years , the high nitrate levels stored in the fields will take years to reduce to where the difference can be seen , changing historic sewage discharge drains where there is no other infrastructure in place isn’t going to happen any time soon either not with these water companies lack of consideration old places where there is no sewage plants and just river sewage discharge drains and septic tanks will never change

What needs to change is society and the infrastructure to support a growing country - the dams at Rhayader were to provide water for Birmingham area - expansion of that city has not resulted in increased water storage / reservoirs to catch and store in times of heavy rainfall - resulting in more wasted floodwater and subsequent crap water levels and flow rate when it’s needed most in the summer especially when the extraction starts

I remember last year when the WUF had to appeal to the water company to give some controlled releases of water to get the flow rate up a bit and flush the warm toxic algae filled water along and down to the estuary , they gave 2 short releases over 2 days when really pushed and it made little if any improvement And you don’t have to ask why when you see such apathy towards our river and others in the country treating them no more than open sewers and dumping grounds and not something precious worthy of looking after and to waste valuable stored water on.
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Interesting, well constructed & considered post Simon.
It makes depressing reading though.
Sadly, I think the Wye (and several other UK rivers) are past the point of no return. The riverbed is covered with brown slime and the fronds of life giving ranunculus is now a rare sight. I have personally witnessed swans grubbing desperately for food and they end up eating grass by the rivers edge (hardly very nutritious)
It will get worse before it gets better.
The current public outcry is loud, but not deafening. Those to blame will continue to ignore advice and are happy to pay modest fines rather than make the large investments needed to improve water quality.
UK rivers will turn into open sewers and then, when humans start to die as a result, steps will be taken to rectify matters.
It will really take something as serious as that to put things right.
I am not being melodramatic. I know how Big Business works and how politicians & decision makers look at spending money from the "public purse" and, quite simply, pollution is NOT as important as Cost of Living and HS1!!!
 
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Without over simplifying a very complex issue the base problem is the failure of successive governments to adequately provide for population increases. The effects are seen in housing , NHS, food requirements, water shortages and pollution . The northern hemisphere can expect, it is admitted, to receive and extra 400 million people over the next 30 years. It's a major issue which cannot be ignored.
 
My partners daughter was swimming in the river on Mon. eve. with her friends, they all love the river, but we're practically all struck down for a day following.
I would be careful whilst fishing it.
 
Damian Kimmins said:
My partners daughter was swimming in the river on Mon. eve. with her friends, they all love the river, but we're practically all struck down for a day following.
I would be careful whilst fishing it.
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Roger of peregrine told me a month ago how dire it looks!
 
Simon Rolph said:
Changing farming habits and methods won’t make any difference for years , the high nitrate levels stored in the fields will take years to reduce to where the difference can be seen , changing historic sewage discharge drains where there is no other infrastructure in place isn’t going to happen any time soon either not with these water companies lack of consideration old places where there is no sewage plants and just river sewage discharge drains and septic tanks will never change
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Changing farming practices could bring about a huge improvement, and fairly rapidly. But this could only happen if the collective will existed in Govt. And more to the point if the English and Welsh Governments put their money where there mouth is. And now, not later.

Nitrate is much easier issue to address than phosphate btw. The legacy of high soil P exists for decades if not centuries, soil management is the key to addressing it. But as time goes by and the soil P builds up on the pastures in the headwaters of the Wye, the issue will become much more difficult to resolve.
 
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