Perhaps you have read about or even noticed how unclean our waterways have become. This is something that we have been discussing at FrANC meetings and generally talking about as individual members. Thankfully, there was an opportunity to take action.

Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) run a citizen science project called River Detectives. Each month, trained volunteers take samples of water from their allocated site and record the water temperature, the quantity of dissolved solids and the phosphate and nitrate levels. The results are uploaded to the River Detectives interactive website.

Testing on some of the local rivers has been active for some time and BART were keen to start including the central Bristol area, including the Floating Harbour and the New Cut. Following discussions with BART, three FrANC members received their training this week. A fourth member, attending as a representative of Friends of Bathurst Basin, was also trained.

It will be interesting to follow the results as they emerge.