For a thriving countryside that benefits everyone

What do the public need to do? I have emailed my MP and the minister for the environment and shadow minister. Only heard back from MP with words and no meaningful action!!

The NRW as a governing body, who claim to protect the water and the environment have not been fit for purpose for the last 20/30 years. FEBs decimate the salmon and trout stocks, sewage and phosphate discharges killing the rest, water abstraction, poaching, the list goes on and on. Meanwhile the NRW sit in offices compiling reports to try and baffle the general public and make Welsh Water look good !! Go to NZ and see how it’s done!!

My wife and I live just one hundred metres from the Wye and during the three years that we have been here we have noticed the slow decline of river life such as fish wild life the thousands of tons of flotsam like trees old and new plus plastic etc. No river management whatsoever. The establishment as ever talk the talk but do nothing. I was born and bred on a dairy farm farmed for decades have a huge love of the countryside and don’t like the way things are going.

If the river is so polluted why are more people than ever using it, wild swimmers, canoeists, paddle boards etc.. This year it's been like a free for all water park.

Is there a link providing the figures and information you have quoted? Thank you.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chicken-waste-polluting-river-company-admits-56tv2293v?fbclid=IwAR2P6l...

Fished and canoed from Hereford to Hoarwithy Thursday - Saturday some cracking fish coming out !! Barbel and decent sized Chubb xx

Morgan Jones

Johanna Jones for Lotty

While it is tempting to blame farmers and they do share some of the blame, the failure of the water companies to prevent raw sewage discharge and the failure of the environment agency to police all the polluters is at the root of these problems. But people along the Wye vote parties in that will allow pollution until that changes nothing else will.

This is why the Herefordshire Construction Industry Lobby Group - who also sit on the Nutrient Management Board (we are the guys, 1000's of us, who have been stopped from working for a pollution problem everyone agrees we didn't cause and cannot fix) voted AGAINST the adoption of the revised Nutrient Management Plan. The plan has empty pages and no action to tackle the cause - despite years of experts and responsible agencies knowing where the pollution comes from and what impact it is having. HCILG felt they simply could not support a plan that did not restore river ecology and its wider habitat. As you say - we can all see how sick the River is - and yet the empty pages and endless hours and hours of meetings are maintaining and facilitating its terrible predicament. We need brave, bold and radical change. Quickly.

CPRE are absolutely right. No one has the right to destroy living ecosystems, and very soon the act of ecocide will be enshrined in international law as a capital crime against humanity on the same seriousness as Genocide and other war crimes. Deregulated industrialisation of agribusiness and the drive for ever bigger global markets have created this situation. There is a overburden of pollution generated by intensive factory food production and the way to stop the pollution is very clear. The doctrines of current economics has over many decades deliberately lifted regulations from these businesses, at the same time de-funded the bodies charged with enforcing and monitoring standards. It is a political choice that has us all swimming (literally) in sewage and drinking from poisoned river water, and it's not only our river that is dying.

And here you are talking with no action plan. Maybe a few people could produce an action plan of their own and do something. You know actually get off your collective rears and do something. I don't mean have a meeting, I don't mean wander about with a few placards but actually get out there and do something. Speak to farmers, speak to businesses, get the public on board, formulate a plan between yourselves and physically do something. There is no better way to get something done than by rolling up your sleeves, getting your hands dirty and doing something. Words and banners do nothing.

Stop the chicken waste being spread on the ground. Job sorted.

What a terrible saga, Merry, when there are examples of effective change like the Curl brook and many others. Who is standing in the way? I can't see you letting this go on much longer. Fight on❗

Where are our MPs who should be safeguarding our future, not corporate profit

That's great Do you need anymore vols Hopefully I will be living in Herefordshire spon.

Hi. This is really excellent and provides great data to support challenges to NRW and others . However, as an environmental scientist myself, I'm a bit concerned that the use of hand held monitoring devices is itself open to challenge. Do the devices log digitally and record the readings with time, date and gps data to add to the veracity of the reported results? Are the devices regularly calibrated against standard solutions and the calibration results recorded? Last but not least, are periodic samples sent to third party laboratories holding UKAS quality accreditation to double check the monitoring results are accurate? I understand that this all adds cost and complexity. But such verification information may become invaluable if for example it came to a legal challenge. . .meanwhile I'm happy to volunteer to help out if you need. .I am in llandogo in the lower catchment below Bigsweir.

Well I grew up on the wye and have seen lots of it’s problems First we’re the mink in the 80s Let out at a farm in Ross by do gooders that ruined the ducks Moore hens voles and both bird life and animals all the way up and it’s tributaries Then in the late 80/ 90 came the barbel They spread up the river feeding on the spawning grounds All the trout and salmon eggs hovered up along with the large perch shoals and chub that were every where By the late 2000 and over the next 20 years the stocks of original fish have been cleared by the introduced species Now will be the time of the Weekend warriors that will have meeting at themselves any money that can from grants and The river will not do any use out of it but they will get lots of data Moan use any funds that are available to have a meeting but not solve the issues 🙄 Maybe a large restocking of native species of both fish and animals would be a better use of your time and our money Then the wye would not bad as the water is far cleaner now than it was fourth years ago It’s just baron of life 🦆🐣🐸🦇🦋🐛🪱🐝🐞🐜🐌🐟🎣 Instead we have the HIFI 👏

Brilliant - we need to work together

Well done.

Bravo!

Brilliant news.