River Pollution Early spring is when the river Mel is arguably at its most attractive, with early flowering marginal plants along its banks and the trees coming back into leaf. It is also a time when river levels are high, and we await the exciting first sighting of trout hatchlings. Yes, the river is looking good, but it is increasingly under threat from various factions. One thing that has been of concern for some time is the quality of effluent released into our river by Anglian Water’s Waste-Water Treatment Plant, otherwise known to most of us as the Sewage Treatment Works (STW). Increasingly we have been concerned about the normal, everyday, discharges into the Mel, as we now see a change in the colour of the water in the river when the sewage treatment works are discharging into the Mel. Moreover, in times of high rainfall, raw or part treated sewage is also frequently discharged directly into the river. Published data show that in 2020 this occurred 62 times. These worries are not excusive to the Mel. The Environment Agency has been quoted in the local press as saying that downstream of us in Cambridge, the Cambridge (Milton) Water Treatment plant has been releasing more treated sewage effluent into the river Cam than its permit allows since 2015. Even the national press has taken up the call to arms, reporting on widespread pollution of rivers and other chalk streams across the country. With this background in mind, we were very interested to hear that the Cam Valley Forum (CVF), a Cambridge based environmental group that campaigns to protect the River Cam and its environs, had last summer carried out a pilot study to monitor the water quality on the River Cam, as well as at points further upstream in the Rhee. Preliminary samples were taken to test for E coli and other faecal pollutants in the river and at the sewage works at Milton and Haslingfield. Unexpectedly, the results showed that the River Rhee was much more contaminated than the Cam, and that this seemed just as bad further upstream towards the Meldreth-Orwell Road bridge in
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