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- Pollution of the Wye River in the United Kingdom
Problems
Causes pollution in the Wye River
One of Britain's longest, most beautiful, and best-loved rivers is «dying» as heavy pollution kills its wildlife, say, experts, who warn that the Wye's plight is a wake-up call for the rest of the country. The river runs 155 miles from its source in the Cambrian Mountains in mid-Wales to the Severn Estuary in the Bristol Channel and has been voted the nation's favorite. Intensive chicken farming has developed along the banks of the Wye over the past 20 years, and campaigners say the runoff is killing life in the river. UK rivers near livestock farms are awash with superbugs and antibiotic residues, including in the idyllic River Wye, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found. Testing commissioned with World Animal Protection and the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics has found evidence of drug resistance in waterways near poultry and pig farms and in cattle farm waste, highlighting the risks of slurry leaks contaminating rivers. The tests found antibiotic-resistant strains of E coli and Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause serious infections in humans, among other superbugs. Some of the samples showed resistance to antibiotics that are classified as “highest-priority critically important for human medicine”. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious health threat because it makes illnesses harder to treat. Residues of controversial medicines known as ionophores, widely used in Britain’s intensive chicken industry, were also found. Livestock farms generate large quantities of animal waste, which is often spread on land for use as fertilizer, or discharged into public waterways, where superbugs can accumulate. Superbugs can then reach humans through drinking water, fish and mollusks from contaminated water, or crops grown with contaminated manure. Even washing or swimming in contaminated water can put people at risk. In the Wye Valley, the river water contained a version of MRSA and residues of ionophore antibiotics, which are widely used in the chicken industry. Campaigners said that among the most worrying findings were E coli resistant to cefotaxime and S aureus resistant to vancomycin. Both drugs are classified by the World Health Organization as being the highest-priority critically important in human medicine.
Gallery
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Timelines
2023
February 03
Avara Foods, a leading supplier of chicken to Tesco, is being urged by campaigners to pay reparations to help clean up the River Wye. The Wye, a river that flows from mid-Wales to the Severn Estuary, has been affected by increased algal blooms. That's partly because poultry farms spread more manure than the ground can absorb, scientists say, leading to excessive phosphorus leaching into waterways. Avara Foods is responsible for more than 16 million of the 20 million chickens raised in the Wye catchment, which has seen dramatic growth in chicken numbers over the past two decades.
2022
October 09
Campaigners have released the results of farmland testing which provide new evidence of a potential link between intensive poultry units and the decline of the River Wye. Community scientists sampled farmland along public footpaths near a river tributary in Herefordshire. They found that the soil with the highest phosphorus content, which can harm the river, was located near places of intensive poultry keeping. Volunteers took samples from 22 sites around Harren Brook, a tributary of the Wye, and analyzed them using the Olsen P test, a standard test for soil phosphorus. The four sites with the highest levels were near large poultry farms. The second largest polluter in the Wye is untreated human sewage, which is disposed of when water treatment works are close to capacity.
2021
October 20
High levels of dangerous pollutants have been found at almost all stages of the River Wye, from near its source in the mountains of mid-Wales, through Herefordshire, and into Gloucestershire, before washing out into the sea at the Severn Estuary. Water companies dumping sewage into the waterways is one culprit but there is also the huge increase in the number of poultry farms adding to the problem throughout the Wye catchment area. There are an estimated four million chickens being reared in mid-Wales, and, it’s thought, another 16 million in Herefordshire. Chicken feces is notorious for being high in phosphates, and in some cases is actually used as fertilizer the chemical aids for plant growth. But while that may be of benefit on land, if it washes into the rivers it becomes a nutrient source for algae, and large algal blooms - such as those seen along the Wye in recent years - choking off other plant life and robbing fish of both food and places to lay eggs.