It's #WorldRiversDay today and my pledge to the River Darwen is that I will continue to fight for better control of stormwater pollution in British Rivers. What pledge will you make to your local river today?

Exciting times! Working with Aquawatch, we have a pair of water quality monitors in the River Darwen, measuring the size of the pollution caused by the M6 runoff. We want to see if simple analysis of turbidity & conductivity can pick up the pollution caused by the motorway runoff. 🧐

Yesterday, we witnessed caseless caddis fly larvae biting the caudal llamellae off a Banded Demoiselle larva and apparently eating them. I wonder if any entomologists working on aquatic invertebrates have ever seen this before? Thanks Samuel Gibson who helped me with the sampling

This discharge from the M6 near Wigan enters the Leeds/Liverpool canal. Highway runoff should never discharge to canals because all the contaminated sediment & dissolved toxins accumulate around the discharge point, poisoning the local environment.

If you’re interested to find highway outfalls that are polluting your river, now’s the time 🕰️. In a few weeks, this one will be concealed in undergrowth, but by locating it now, I’ve given myself the best change of finding it again in the rain ☔️ in the Spring when the vegetation is up to my ears 👂🏻

Forget Black Friday - try Buy Nothing Day instead. Today I will buy absolutely nothing. No plastic, no packaging to throw away, no tat, no food waste and nothing to add to our rubbish. Less consumption is the answer to so many of our problems - try it, just for a day. Image: nationaltoday.com

I spotted this solution being installed today for a car-park extension at a farm shop. The owner was happy with it and the installers said it was light & easy to handle. A good solution for permeable parking 🤔 I like it, but what do you think? #SustainableDrainage

There are ~40 motorway outfalls into the upper reaches of the River Douglas catchment in Lancashire. Together, they drain 157 hectares of motorway surface into the River. That’s about 470 tonnes of toxic sediment washed into the River every year. #StormwaterPollution

Why, Oh why will it take until 2027 to deliver a Deposit Return Scheme? I despair. 700,000 plastic bottles are littered EVERY DAY in the UK. Some of them wash into rivers and oceans. What on Earth are we waiting for?? #PlasticPollution

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This discharge from the M6 to a tributary of Syd Brook causes horrific, toxic pollution every time it rains. We could only find water fleas & blood worms living here. A complete failure of regulation. #ItsNotAllAboutTheSewage

We had the best ever ‘gatecrashers’ during our recent site tour of the excellent SuDS wetland at Firs Farm in Enfield. I hope they were listening carefully while Jamie told us all about the design and installation of the scheme 🪿🪿🪿

Applications of road salt mobilise toxic metals that are lurking in the drainage system. They are washed into rivers & streams as the snow melts and they are toxic to fish & aquatic insects #StormwaterPollution

Something a bit different for me today, talking about dirty water from construction sites. Another source of #StormwaterPollution that is often overlooked. Well done to RVT Group for bringing this event together 👍🏻

Don’t be fooled by the beauty. Snowmelt causes #StormwaterPollution too 🌨️

Rats in SuDS 🐀 I’ve started to notice more rat-bait-boxes in SuDS devices. I wonder how we manage our rapid roll out of urban green spaces without bringing ‘unwanted’ wildlife along-for-the-ride? Or should we just learn to embrace the rats? 🤗🐀

Highway runoff causes horrific pollution of rivers every time it rains. This outfall in Lancashire discharges toxic, hazardous substances into the River Lostock, causing it to fail to meet env. standards. These substances are toxic to the invertebrates living in the river. #StormwaterPollution