WtF has happened to our chalkstreams??

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Utectok

Utectok

Well-Known Member
So I booked a week in the Avon for my dad’s 80th birthday. Nice and easy I thought no wading and easy access sight fishing with dry flies……. Except it’s like the Mersey canal and on arrival we were told it never clears due to sewage pollution and if we wanted to catch any thing blind casting nymphs was our best chance….
Very sad and almost no upwinged flies about two mayflies and two olives per day and one rising trout in 4 days what a sad state of affairs….
Here is some pics of the soup ……
IMG_5015.webpIMG_5018.webpIMG_5016.webpIMG_5058.webp
 
Sewage spills into England's rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023.
The UK is no longer bound by EU environmental legislation.
Funding provided by the EU to improve water quality has dried up.
Monitoring funding has also dried up.
They have taken back control, this is a direct result of the government giving a green light to the water companies to do this.
The shareholders must be protected.
This makes me unbelievably angry.
Sorry to hear about your fathers birthday present Utectok, this also makes me sad.
 
It’s totally outrageous, they’re actually driving tankers full of sewage and then dumping it in the River Test, they literally don’t give a dam about it . I read that there isn’t a single river or waterway in England that isn’t polluted now, shameful, but you don’t see any hammer wielding OAP’s smashing up the water companies art work…..
 
LarryLightFoot said:
It’s totally outrageous, they’re actually driving tankers full of sewage and then dumping it in the River Test, they literally don’t give a dam about it . I read that there isn’t a single river or waterway in England that isn’t polluted now, shameful, but you don’t see any hammer wielding OAP’s smashing up the water companies art work…..
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That doesn’t correct but If that’s the case take pictures and inform the EA immediately followed by the press.
 
theriverstrust.org

Sewage in our rivers

Sewage is discharged into rivers across the UK and Ireland on a daily basis. This isn’t an isolated problem; it occurs up and down the country, affecting…
theriverstrust.org theriverstrust.org

Click on the interactive map to see how much shite you’re in! 🤣
 
enfieldspares said:
As MR TREE says it's just another Brexit bonus.
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I would be looking for the companies/people illegally dumping sewage in the rivers, personally, rather than attacking legitimate voters. 🤷‍♂️

Has the river been over full recently? Or left to silt up over time? There's quite a few potential reasons for the sediment I'd have thought?
 
Very sad indeed. I used to live near the Test and fished it a bit in winters for grayling - I could watch schools of sea trout come in the with tide. I fish rivers and lakes in Wales and Ireland for wild trout now and leave English rivers for occasional coarse fishing. Even the rain-fed rivers of the South West are all-but empty now and regularly polluted with sewage during spates.
 
It is a tragedy that this has been allowed to happen. I think it is typified by Thames water response that the government needs to bail it out to the tune of roughly what it has paid out in dividends to its share holders. Something is very wrong in this country.
 
enfieldspares said:
They don't give a fiddler's **** as if there's a fine it comes from the shareholders' pockets and nobody goes to jail. As MR TREE says it's just another Brexit bonus.
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I remember watching the Paul Whitehouse programme that Utectok shared, I think it was Yorkshire Water that was getting hit by big fines, but could be wrong - was definitely one of them. Their solution was to lobby to put the bills up, so the shareholders could still pocket their profits and it was the public paying off the fine.
 
Everyone is blaming the water companies but farmers, governments and eco mentalists are equally culpable of polluting the water ways.

When you look at European rivers which are not just waterways but freight carrying arteries it makes you realise the decades of not centuries of neglect the UK has endured the EU has nothing to do with it.
 
Mr Tree said:
Sewage spills into England's rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023.
The UK is no longer bound by EU environmental legislation.
Funding provided by the EU to improve water quality has dried up.
Monitoring funding has also dried up.
They have taken back control, this is a direct result of the government giving a green light to the water companies to do this.
The shareholders must be protected.
This makes me unbelievably angry.
Sorry to hear about your fathers birthday present Utectok, this also makes me sad.
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Really?
How much funding did the EU provide to the UK to improve river water quality (say, between 2010 and 2020)? I suspect the answer is zero.
The UK and water companies are still blind by the same body of environmental legislation as when we were in the EU. I do not believe that the government has radically altered the laws.
What exactly is this "green light" which the government has given? I am well aware that the regulator has been disgracefully and perhaps corruptly useless, but that is not a part of the government.
The state of rivers is an outrageous disgrace, but pretending this is a consequence of Brexit is looking in the wrong place for causes and solutions.
 
chriswjx said:
I remember watching the Paul Whitehouse programme that Utectok shared, I think it was Yorkshire Water that was getting hit by big fines, but could be wrong - was definitely one of them. Their solution was to lobby to put the bills up, so the shareholders could still pocket their profits and it was the public paying off the fine.
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That is an unattractive but fairly basic element of how services are delivered. When state owned businesses and services underperformed or get fined, then it is the taxpayer footing the bill. If we had nationalised water, the public would still face bills at least as high. It would be different, the Government would invest much less in maintenance and upgrading the systems.
This is why privatisations happened in the first place - because governments of all stripes had been consistently seriously under investing in the services they ran and largely incompetent in running them.
If with the current system, you have the investors footing the bills for these fines, then you won't even get the existing, inadequate levels of investment, which are considerably higher than the investments that were made in state owned utilities.
You can't have a water system where the public doesn't pay for it.
 
Apthorpe said:
Really?
How much funding did the EU provide to the UK to improve river water quality (say, between 2010 and 2020)? I suspect the answer is zero.
The UK and water companies are still blind by the same body of environmental legislation as when we were in the EU. I do not believe that the government has radically altered the laws.
What exactly is this "green light" which the government has given? I am well aware that the regulator has been disgracefully and perhaps corruptly useless, but that is not a part of the government.
The state of rivers is an outrageous disgrace, but pretending this is a consequence of Brexit is looking in the wrong place for causes and solutions.
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Sewage spills into England's rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023. Tells me all I need to know.
On a personal note, I used to fish the beaches back in the seventies, you had to pick the shredded loo paper off the line to stop it clogging your reel.
The EU gave enormous sums to the water companies to improve infrastructure. The amount of blue flag beaches shot up. Water clarity improved. That is a fact. I dont want to start a Brexit pro or cons debate here, it won't solve the problem. Lack of any investment in infrastructure is the problem, despite making massive profits.
 
Apthorpe said:
Really?
How much funding did the EU provide to the UK to improve river water quality (say, between 2010 and 2020)? I suspect the answer is zero.
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But you don't know.
Apthorpe said:
The UK and water companies are still blind by the same body of environmental legislation as when we were in the EU. I do not believe that the government has radically altered the laws.
Click to expand...
Dunno
Apthorpe said:
What exactly is this "green light" which the government has given? I am well aware that the regulator has been disgracefully and perhaps corruptly useless, but that is not a part of the government.
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Of course it is. It is called the small state. Cut budgets so that the Quango still technically exists but can do **** all. So still available to blame but anyone can do whatever they want as there is nobody to stop it. Bit like the Police. Speeding and Murder are illegal, everything else is effectively decriminalised.
Apthorpe said:
The state of rivers is an outrageous disgrace, but pretending this is a consequence of Brexit is looking in the wrong place for causes and solutions.
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Quite right, its the ****ing Tories wrecking the countryside for shareholders profit (sic) or (sick :D )
 
What happened ? Closing down the old local river boards and then giving the biggest polluters control over all our rivers . Back in the 70-80s there where professional poachers netting salmon and sea trout in Lancashire regularly . Now even a skilled angler might not manage a salmon a year . Sea Trout ? It was difficult to blank if you fished the night through but most only fished till midnight to make a night successful
 
Let's also not forget that we've had an excessive amount of rain recently. Heavy rainfall is more likely to colour a river like that than sewage. I was on the Test yesterday, main bit of the river there was 5-6ft of clarity, but the carriers were gin clear. As far as I am aware they are still pumping sewage in upstream from the beat I was on. 🤷
 
olliehopes said:
Let's also not forget that we've had an excessive amount of rain recently. Heavy rainfall is more likely to colour a river like that than sewage. I was on the Test yesterday, main bit of the river there was 5-6ft of clarity, but the carriers were gin clear. As far as I am aware they are still pumping sewage in upstream from the beat I was on. 🤷
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Yep the so called custodians are the very worst of the lot
 
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