Paul Whitehouse: Our Troubled Waters - What we can do.

Although our rivers are in trouble there are things we can do ourselves to help them.

​The river Worth and it’s tributaries certainly fit into the picture of widespread river pollution outlined in the Paul Whitehouse programs. A look at the River Trust Poo Map, which details all the combined sewage outflows (CSO’s) in the country, shows that the Worth catchment has its fair share of CSO's and that they are regularly discharging raw sewage into the river. If you zoom the map to around Ingrow and click on the largest spots you will see that the South ​Street Keighley CSO (Permit no.WRA8110) discharged 83 times for a total of 1390 hours, Ingrow Lane CSO (Permit no. 3054 ) discharged 57 times for a total of 917 hours. You can also see that there are not full records for Ingrow Lane as there were technical problems, so the discharges may have been longer. In all there were 23 CSO’s discharging for 4,563 hours into the Worth catchment.

 A CSO which we are concerned about at the moment is at Long Lee Lane (Permit No.WRA910 SE of Park Wood), the maps says it only discharged 22 times for a total of 285 hours in 2021 but technical issues mean these figures may not be the true picture. The area around this CSO smells badly and we can also see sewage fungus on the riverbed. ​

Sewage fungus.

So the river has pollution problems. Some may say “Well it’s always been like that what’s new, it’ll never change”. We would say that shows limited ambition, the river has improved immensely since the days of heavy industrial pollution, with some TLC it could develop further to be a green ribbon running through our communities.

How do we achieve that? One way is through constant monitoring of the water quality and local people can get involved in that. River Worth Friends, in association with Aire Rivers Trust, have set up the Worth Valley River Monitoring Hub and we are looking for volunteers. Monitors would take regular samples of the invertebrates (bugs) in the river, they can indicate pollution problems, and also check on CSO’s close to their monitoring site. It’s OK we won’t ask you to snorkel in the sewage like the guy in the first episode! We also hope to start sampling for phosphate pollution, a problem highlighted in the second of Paul’s programs. If monitoring indicates a pollution problem you would report it to us and also on the Environment Agency Hotline 0800 80 70 60. In this way we can build up a profile of the pollution hot spots on the catchment and make sure that action is taken to remedy them.

​​If you would like to be part of the Monitoring Hub please contact us. No previous experience is required, you will be fully trained in invertebrate river sampling. For more on river sampling see the River Monitors page at Aire River Trust.
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Taking a sample below Woodhouse Bridge.

Checking the sample.

In the sample was a healthy stonefly nymph.

​Even if you are not part of the Monitoring Hub you can still look out for pollution and other river issues. If you see anything you think looks wrong go to our Report an Incident page to find out how to report it. Failing that you can always join one of our weekly litter picks, contact us to find out when they are
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We hope that by a combination of local volunteer activity combined with pressure on our government to do the right thing nationally we will be able to improve conditions on the Worth and all our rivers.