18 March 2025, 07:44
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Part of the River Trent had 50 times the bacteria of safe swimming water on average last year, data shared exclusively with LBC shows.
The shocking findings come from six months of testing done by Burton Phoenix Canoe Club upstream and downstream of a Combined Sewage Overflow in Staffordshire from February to August in 2024, with the analysis funded by Paddle UK.
The average reading during that time was 4,538 E. coli bacteria per 100ml of water.
Some 83% of the results exceed the recommendations for safe swimming, which ideally should be 88 E. coli per 100ml.
The Environment Agency’s less strict recommendation for safe swimming in inland water is 500 E. coli per 100ml.
The samples peaked on two separate dates at 20,000 bacteria per 100ml, which is the maximum reading possible on the equipment used.
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LBC shared the results with Dr. Joshua Larsen, a water quality specialist and senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham.
He said: “E. coli is the best measure, because that’s very specific to faecal contamination.
“You’re getting raw or partially treated sewage in the river itself, so you’re at risk of anything that’s transmitted with faecal matter, so that could be gastrointestinal pathogens, that could be antimicrobial resistant bugs, so anything from human guts, and then, of course, anything else that’s coming in with the untreated sewage.
“So there could be antibiotics, remnants that could be any other pharmaceutical products, that could be a whole range of things that are transmitted with untreated or partially treated wastewater.”
Bill Lawrenson, the head of Burton Phoenix Canoe Club, told LBC: “We go out paddling virtually every day and we have noticed there have been a number of incidents where we’ve seen, floating down the river, these big foam blankets, and the river is very brown during these incidents as well.
“We’re thinking there’s something wrong with the river here.”
The samples were analysed by at Waterman Environmental.
Managing Director John Lewis told LBC the results showed higher levels of pollution than in the River Seine at the 2024 Olympics, when the men’s triathlon was postponed due to the poor water quality.
He said: “You’ve actually seen a couple of athletes over in Paris that have been taken various stages of illness through to basically stomach illnesses as a result of drinking or ingesting water while they’re swimming.
“You can get skin infections, you can certainly get gastro infections.”
Gareth Mead, River Ranger Manager at Severn Trent Water, said: “While there are many factors that contribute to river health, we’re making progress in playing our part to reduce our impact on the River Trent.
“This includes investing millions of pounds improving our network across Staffordshire to reduce spills from overflows and upgrading our treatment works at Tamworth. We’re also committing to spend around £640m to make improvements in Staffordshire.
“All of this is alongside our industry leading plan to reduce spills – that saw us install 900 solutions on overflows across the Midlands in the last six months alone.”
