NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Thanks to user-friendly tech and an army of volunteers, anglers are using citizen science to take on pollution. This week, Dom Garnett rolls up his sleeves to join the Water Quality Monitoring Network (WQMN)
IT’S EASY to feel powerless about the current state of our rivers, but what if there was a fairly easy way to help? Mention water testing to most people, and they imagine bespectacled experts and laboratories.However, that’s all changing.
As someone whose last science experiment led to a class detention in 1995, I am perhaps a good test case here. Before calling Angling Trust WQMN manager, Kris Kent, some common fears arose.
I’m certainly not a scientist or a “techie” type of any kind. Detailed instruction manuals can send me into full-blown fight or flight mode.
Was I really a suitable candidate to monitor pollution?
GAME-CHANGING TECH
As soon as the rather nifty, yellow-boxed testing kit came in the post, my worries began to evaporate. A series of quick YouTube videos were a doddle to follow. The actual gadgets looked quite simple and appealing. But where should I start testing? Close to home on the River Exe made sense. Like so many other rivers, it’s in decline. It once held far more quality coarse fish, including big roach. By testing either end of the city centre, perhaps I’d find some answers?
It comes to something when the biggest hazard in your quick risk assessment is the actual river water! South West Water, in spite of their self-congratulatory PR guff, recently faced huge fines and investigations. I wouldn’t even trust them with my garden pond.
Right from the off, I found the testing kit a great conversation starter with locals.
“What are you up to?”
“Shouldn’t that be the job of the authorities?”
“What’s wrong with the river?”
All bloody good questions! Taking a container’s worth of Exe, and using little strips and sample bottles, I was able to check levels of nitrates, ammonia and the most common enemy of all, phosphates, which comes from sources like sewage outlets and farm run-off.
EASY AS PIEON AN APP
I simply logged the numbers on a phone app. It was not only easy but quite enjoyable.
Anglers assume such projects are either dead boring or time consuming, but testing two loc
