Tonal - Rivers Beyond Sewage

Soil scientist and environmentalist Jo says she has her dream job, because working for the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group is where she can make the most difference. If the Environment Agency is the stick, FWAG are the carrot, helping farmers find ways to work with nature as they grow food, and access the funds they need to support the changes.We get granular (pun intended) about soil, farming practices and crops, as we circle and visit the rather sad Hillfarrance Brook - one of the tributaries of the River Tone in ‘poor ecological status’. In this seeming rural idyll problems can be harder to root out, because they are widely dispersed and easily hidden. FWAG’s new project “Upper Tone 360’ hopes to do just that, and so bring health back to the brook, and the river it feeds.

Love Our Ouse made headlines all around the world when their motion to develop a charter of rights for the River Ouse was passed at a Lewes District Council meeting back in 2023. “It was this torrent of interest… globally. I’ve lost track of all the stuff we’ve done, but one that stands out is talking to Al Jazeera about rights of the Sussex Ouse!”Two years and innumerable hours of work later, with the support of a passionate team of collaborators and organisations, international lawyers and local citizens, the Council passed a pioneering charter that enshrines eight rights of the River Ouse. Matthew talks about how it came about, and what needs to happen next to bring these words into practice. The charter is an inspiration and perhaps a blueprint for other communities seeking to celebrate, protect and act for their river.

We spent a morning with Matt Wheeldon, Director of Infrastructure Development at Wessex Water, at the Bradford on Tone sewage treatment works. He’s a passionate advocate for change in our sewage system – ‘We’ve got a rainwater problem, not a sewage problem.’ As we got deeper into the topic, it seems we have a politics problem, a development problem, a consumer problem, a carbon footprint problem, a farming problem, a knowledge problem. Lots of problems!As far as actual sewage goes, it isn’t rocket science, but it is expensive, in carbon terms as well as in ££. Follow our trip around the treatment works and our wide ranging conversation about it all.

Vanessa Becker Hughes is the founder of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project. As we walk along the riverbank at the confluence of the Tone and Parrett near Burrow Mump we discuss the mysteries of eels, who begin and end their lives in the Sargasso Sea on the far side of the Atlantic, yet need to find their way back to a stream or waterway near you.Vanessa went eel fishing as a child with her grandfather and now inspires and educates people to help eels (now on the ‘red list’ for species in danger of extinction) and connect to nature through building a relationship with them. SERP’s work includes bringing tanks of glass eels into classrooms and making straw ropes that help young eels climb up the many river barriers that currently cut them off from their homes.

Anne Marie Culhane is an artist who works with Jo Salter and others on the wonderful project Tidelines, which brings together arts, science, action and research, working with communities and the public, to celebrate and care for the Exe estuary and coast, and to find ways to adapt and respond collectively to the changes caused by climate breakdown and species loss.Anne Marie relates the poignant story of the Salmon, who hang out in the Exe estuary while they adapt from salt to fresh water, before they swim upstream, or try to, where the few extraordinary survivors who leap over fifteen weirs and escape the predatory seal get to spawn in the beautiful shaded upper reaches of the Exe. The Tidelines project Salmon Run is a community relay race, and ultramarathon for the ultrafit, along that 45 mile route, that raises awareness of the salmon and their plight.

Dr Liz Chadwick has led the globally important, 35 year-long study and archive called the Cardiff Otter Project since 2004. She and her colleagues and doctoral students autopsy and preserve samples from the bodies of otters who have been found dead (usually they have been run over) across the UK. As Liz shows me the lab and the archive, we discuss the main focus of their research - toxicology, critically important to our understanding of rivers because chemicals accumulate in otters bodies, and reveal the changing state of the rivers over time. Liz talks about the worst kind of pollution - Persistent, Cumulative and Toxic. Sewage, for all its faults and yuk factor, is none of these per se. PCBs were banned in 2001 but still turn up in all the otters. Otters were nearly wiped out in the UK by DDT type pesticide use, and though populations have recovered since they were banned, these toxins are still present in all otters livers, just in lower concentrations. PFAs are the contemporary equivalent, the ‘forever chemicals’ of our pans and waterproofs. Fire retardants are another source. As one specific chemical is banned, another is invented. We urgently need to CHANGE this terrible game.The Otter Project stores tissue from the otters collected in a freezer archive, as a resource for future investigation. Questions will arise and techniques will be invented that make the collection a potential time machine of otter, and river, knowledge. We talk about difficult choices, the hormones and medicines people take that would be hard (impossible?) to give up, but leach into rivers and negatively impact on aquatic species. We also talk about the much more fun enquiries they are leading on, such as how DNA testing of otter spraint has built a picture of otter diversity around the country, and given some glimpses into individual otter activities.

Jane introduces her work - as a river pilgrim, healer, wise woman, spirit practitioner - through telling the story of how the river called her one Winter Solstice, through the actions of three dogs. As we walk along a disrupted part of the river in Nynehead, Jane offers insights into her path, her profound connection to land and river, and describes the significance of healing work at the level of spirit.Jane lives in Ashbrittle, at the headwaters of one of River Tone's tributaries that forms a boundary between Somerset and Devon. As a healer and pilgrim she has walked the Tone three times, from source to sea, sea to source, source to sea.Tonal explores water issues nationally with a special focus on the River Tone in Somerset. Each podcast episode is a riverside conversation with someone who has a specific personal or professional relationship to water and the river, building a broad base of knowledge from many distinctive perspectives.

An inspiring conversation about how DIY action is the driving force behind changes in the law. If you want your river to have legal personhood, to have rights, act as if it already did!Paul Powlesland is one of the founders of Lawyers for Nature. He fights and campaigns for the rights of nature, especially trees and rivers. He is also a River Guardian for the River Roding in London, and Founder of the River Roding Trust. He acts on the river's behalf by contesting planning applications, planting trees, litter picking, creating habitat for biodiversity, walking the river to find problems such as the influx of Japanese knotweed and the unlisted sewage outflows, hassling the Environment Agency...