On February 17th, 2024 in Southampton, there was a protest by wild swimmers over the levels of the pollution in the River Itchen, which have been caused by the sewage treatment works at Southern Water's Portswood facility.
This report featured in Voice FM's Surround Sport and was conducted by Josh Bellchamber and Jack Peskett
Transcript
Protesters: Clean the Itching! Clean the Itching! Clean the Itching! Clean the Itching!
Voice FM: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what is your role here today?
Rachel Jones: My name is Rachel Jones and I help to run Hampshire Open Water Swimmers and we've organised this event. It's a community event based around wild swimming and where we have art music that celebrates the water and our love of swimming and the amazing impact on our mental health.
We normally have a community swim but this year the water is so polluted it will be dangerous to put people in it so instead we're having a protest.
Voice FM: I'm Josh and I'm joined here today with Jack and we're also joined here with Christelle and Gavin, and please could you tell us a little bit about yourselves and your role here today?
Gavin: I'm chair of Friends of Itchen Estuary and we're a campaign group campaigning for the health of the river and uh The, all the benefits of this wonderful space that we can see here, um, for mental and physical well being.
Christelle: And I'm Christelle, I'm secretary of Friends of the Itchen Estuary, I'm also a local GP and a keen open water swimmer.
Voice FM: And can you tell us a little bit about the charity work that's going on here?
Gavin: Last summer we started testing the water and sending off water samples to an accredited laboratory. We got a lot of results back and the results showed unequivocally that the river is highly polluted with sewage, which we're very concerned about.
In particular, they were concerned about the levels of sewage bacteria or faecal bacteria that there are in the river and the health risks that they pose to the people that use this river every year for, sailing, kayaking, rowing, paddle boarding and swimming.
Christelle: Swimming in the river has loads of benefits for physical and mental health. Not only is it time in nature, which is calming and relaxing and um, exercise, but it's also good for memory and to decrease stress levels. And for weight loss, for those who are looking to lose weight. So there's all kinds of benefits. Um, and it also kind of makes you feel connected to your local area and your local nature.
And makes you, um, feel that you're a part of that and you want to help and protect it, and respect the wildlife that lives here as well.
There's also health risks from swimming in polluted water such as diorrhea and vomiting, ear infections and respiratory tract infections. So although it might not be illegal to discharge those in the water, we believe that water companies have a duty of care to the public, especially in places where people do regularly, not only swim, but do water sports as well, which definitely apply to this stretch of the river.
Alice Kloker: Yeah, so my name is Alice Clocher and I'm a member of Hampshire Open Water Swimmers. It's such a treasure that we have here and it, it makes me so sad that it's not clean enough for us to be swimming in, because this is really the perfect, Swimming pool.
I mean, this is something where we could have families and Children and all sorts of folks going and driving all the mental, physical, spiritual benefits of being in green blue spaces. And it's here. And this is a precious chalk stream. We need to be protecting our environment and the investment in infrastructure to keep this clean is really critical.
It's unacceptable to continue having these levels of pollution in 2024.
Voice FM: Also, who is it that, you're trying to protest to, to affect and help the change?
Anon: So I think, you know, we addressed our protest to Southern Water, we'll address it to the people that are causing the issue. I think it's also really important to raise awareness though that a lot of people don't realise that there is untreated sewage going into our rivers, that people let their children paddle in rivers, that their dogs go in there, that they're, you know, eating shellfish that might be coming from the rivers, and it is a human health issue.
Voice FM: Where can people, um, find out about donating? Is it online or?
Christelle: If you go to, Crowdfunder and it's Friends of the Itch and Estuary sewage pollution, if you search for that.
Gavin: But also, if you go onto our Facebook page, Friends of the Itch and Estuary, there's a post there and a link to the Crowdfunder site on our Facebook page.
Clean the Itchen! Clean the Itchen! Clean the Itchen!
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