‘Our volunteers are always looking out for our rivers’

We are always looking out for our rivers, writes Ian Simmons, co-lead of Grantham RiverCare. They often say “the more you look, the more you see”. This is certainly true for litter pickers everywhere.

Once the eyes are tuned for cigarette butts, they are everywhere! The same can be said for the state of our rivers. For us, as the river Witham flows through the urban metropolis that is Grantham , it does look surprisingly clean. For ‘clean’ read also ‘clear’.



We do have an ‘outfall’ upstream, so there is always a risk of an unplanned release of less desirable fluids, but, so far, nothing visible. However, the Witham has an interesting reaction when it reaches the white bridge into Wyndham Park. It meets the Mow Beck combined with the Barrowby Stream - or rather they both meet the Witham.

The latter is a larger volume of water. Consequently, it pushes towards the bank as it flows into the light (well, during the day). This has the effect of slowing the contents of these two steams, concentrating them briefly before they are subsequently diluted and merged with the waters of the Witham for their journey towards the North Sea.

All this happens seamlessly most of the time. The ‘fun’ starts when the Mow Beck, which flows for a mile and a half under the streets of Grantham, has been contaminated with something that shouldn’t be there. As the virtual eyes and ears of the river, our volunteers are always on the lookout for abnormalities to its natural state and it is most likely to happen where the confluence of the Witham and the Mow Beck provide the ideal conditions should the worst happen.

Readers of the Journal will, no doubt, be familiar with past horror stories of this patch of water turning various colours over the years. We have experienced bright red pollution (twice) and, more recently, a delicate milky blue contamination . Again, twice.

This time within three days. We report these incidents to the Environment Agency Hotline (0800 80 70 60). It helps if they get a postcode (NG31 8BX) or a What3Words and, if possible, a photo of the issue.

Note any wildlife affected and get a reference number from the call handler. Please let us know as well. We also make Anglian Water’s Pollution Watch Team aware of incidents (0345 714 5145).

Frustratingly, the perpetrators have not yet been traced due to the subterranean nature of the Mow Beck, but, with every incident, the net is closing in on whoever - deliberately or unwittingly - is putting our rivers at risk..