cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4450355

My TL;DR:

Five years ago, when Mark Barrow started his project to film along the 65-mile River Wharfe in Yorkshire, he captured footage of majestic shoals of grayling, the fish known as “the Lady of the Stream”, some 200 or 300 strong.

Recently, Barrow returned to the same spot, near the historic Harewood House on the outskirts of Leeds, to reshoot some video because he wasn’t happy with the quality of his earlier attempt.

What he found shocked him. The water was cloudy with pollution and the numbers of grayling, with their distinctive red fins and pewter scales, were reduced to pockets of no more than 30 or 40.

As well as grayling, the Wharfe is home to perch, chub, trout, barbel and even mussels. But Barrow said that he swam through sections of the river “completely devoid of life”.

The main culprit for pollution is combined sewer overflows that empty directly into the river. “There are areas where the sediment makes visibility very poor. Where I was once seeing widespread shoals of fish, there are now just pockets of them trapped in the clean water between the sewage overflows.”

He said there were 46 such overflows on the Wharfe, and on more than one occasion, he swam by just as they discharged into the river – leaving him emerging from the water covered in human waste.

Earlier this year, Nicola Shaw, CEO of Yorkshire Water, publicly apologised about the state of the Wharfe and said the utilities company was investing £180m to build more capacity to store wastewater and reduce sewage overspills. She also said she was not taking any bonus from the company because of the situation.