Rivers are awash with manure, fertiliser and pesticides from farming. This is more polluting even than sewage, so what can be done?
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THE rolling English farmland of Dorset, Somerset and Devon might look like a bucolic idyll, but looks can be deceptive. These three counties in the country’s south-west are home to hundreds of intensive dairy farms, producing almost a. Thousands of cows create a smelly problem for farmers: what to do with all the dung? As I drive along the winding country lanes, the stench drifting off nearby fields offers a clue.
My nostrils aside, it is local rivers that bear the brunt. In wet weather, slurry overflows from silos where it is stored and runs off land into waterways, wreaking havoc on their ecology. The situation is particularly bad in the south-west, but this is a nationwide problem – and it isn’t the only damage that agriculture does to rivers.
As in other countries, the UK has legislation to reduce the ecological damage caused by farming. But enforcing these rules isn’t always easy, even when environment agencies make them a priority. No wonder the UK’s rivers are in such a bad state. It sounds like the perfect storm, but, in my …
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