The River Wharfe is one of the county’s best-known and much-loved waterways
“I thought it was a ridiculous suggestion. I thought the river was never going to achieve that status because it was not clean enough. I didn’t think we would be successful because we knew what the quality was already because we’d been measuring it.
“Downstream of Ilkley the pollutants are almost certainly 100 per cent coming from the sewage works, but upstream the pollutants come from a combination of sources, from sewage, from agriculture, from becks that flow into the Wharfe. The amount that comes from each depends on run-off and rainfall.Rick said that livestock plays its part in river contamination upstream of Ilkley, but that he’s more concerned with the pumping station in Addingham.
“If a cow and cows can get down to a beck, urinate and excrete this causes problems. In dry weather it is not much of a problem but if you get, as we get frequently, a rainstorm after a period of dry weather the becks come up quickly and wash down the edges of the banks transferring soil, bacteria and nutrients into the water.“I could take you to hundreds of points where there’s livestock accessing becks and where in wet weather these problems are exacerbated.
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