Our rivers have to be protected

WALKING along the River Ellen a few miles from the Cumbrian coast it's often hard to miss the haziness of the water due to the sewage that's regularly deposited from nearby waste water treatment works.

- ROB PARSONS

Not long ago, local Green party councillor Jill Perry tells this newsletter, a bag containing five dead turkeys was pulled from the river, a sign of how the pollution has encouraged others to take less care of the waterway which flows into the sea at Maryport a few miles away.

For those living near the Plumbland waste water treatment site, just outside the town of Aspatria, it may not be a surprise to know there was more sewage overflow there last year than any other site in England.