Save the River Usk Our River is Slowly Dying

The River Usk rises in the mountains of mid Wales, flowing 120 kilometers through stunning scenery with a vast wealth of flora and fauna to the strong tidal waters of the Severn estuary. It is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation. Nevertheless, in 2021 Natural Resources Wales found that the Usk had the highest incidence of phosphate pollution in all of the Welsh rivers.

Fertiliser run-off from agriculture, human and animal waste and industrial effluent are all contributing to the rise of phosphate levels and dismal decline in the health of the river.

We are a growing group of volunteers that formed in 2021 to campaign to improve the water quality of the River Usk.

Now we have over 90 trained water testing volunteers taking samples in 52 locations with over 3000 samples begin taken along the Usk river.

Aims:

• To restore the River Usk to good ecological status

• To monitor and expose pollution from agriculture and Water Companies in the Usk Catchment

• to Train volunteers to take samples and complie database of water quality test.

• To raise public awareness of the importance of the River to the community as well as threats to our health and wellbeing

WHAT WE DO

Testing (Citizen Science)

We train volunteers to monitor water quality, particularly for phosphates, which are entering our watercourses so that we can identify pollution hotspots and use that information to drive change to clean up our rivers

Weekly readings of water quality samples are taken near farmland) above and below combined storm overflows and in former glorious swimming and sporting spots along the river.

Protesting

There is nothing as compelling as group of like minded humans coming together to make change..

Recording

Once the data has been collected, volunteers upload to an App as an independent record. As a community group we are pleased to have our data collated and examined by a local Scientists and local Universities.

www.savetheriverusk.org