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It’s toast for dinner for Angela Jones after another long day on the river. She’s now now not swimming or fishing although – she’s gathering data on water pollution from sewage, agriculture, and industry.
When she realised she’d been swimming among floating human faeces seven years ago she began a campaign which has grown beyond anything she imagined. She started training up tons of of volunteers along the Usk and Wye rivers in southeast Wales who gather data from the water and file back to her after they state pollution.
Her team of citizen scientists are monitoring the watercourses per week at extra than 300 locations. They gather thousands of samples and submit the outcomes, which are consistently alarming, online.
She’s spent much of her life savings on campaigning and prime-spec tools for herself and many volunteers to “take on the spacious polluters” who continue to cancel rivers and wildlife. They’ve now grown tons of strong and are made up of academics and river health specialists as nicely as concerned locals. It is far groups like them which have introduced the UK’s appalling river health into sharp center of attention.
Their data published in 2024 uncovered areas of the Usk being pumped into instantly by Welsh Water from its sewage treatment works and blended sewer overflows (CSOs) are failing drastically against targets state by the regulator Natural Resources Wales (NRW). You can read extra on their work right here. Welsh Water blames farmers among others for the majority of river pollution in Wales and claims it contributes a small percentage.
At the same time Angela’s adventure and wild swimming business, which depends on river health, has regressed to an unrecognisable level – a lot so she has exiguous left. “I have chosen to have no water, no heating, no internet, no cooker,” she said. “I’m now now not neglecting myself – I don’t consider I am. I’m actually content in my thoughts with the decisions I’ve made. I live a vastly minimalistic life now because I consider what I am doing is so important.”
Angela making an attempt out the river for phosphates at a subject state along the Usk near Usk town
(Image: John Myers)
She said 95% of her business has now gone because large swathes of Wales’ river programs are now now not safe to swim in. Internal 10 years she’s considered her thriving business decline. Now she says her life is “practically 24/7” centered on river health – from making an attempt out to giving lectures at faculties and faculties to highlighting the crisis at Westminster.
“It’s now now not about my business. For me it’s about what that is doing to our rivers and the wildlife – our ecology,” she said. “It started around seven years ago. I was in a section of the Wye and I realised there was a metallic taste within the water. It was a section where I’d dive regularly into the water crowfoot and I’d explore eels and exiguous fish. But I realized that the crowfoot was dying. I always research at the stones at the bed of the river because I admire purchasing for the invertebrate but I started to watch the stones have been muggy. So I slept there that evening. To that level I’d by no means heard of a blended sewer overflow (also known as blended storm outlet) but this factor unfolded and started releasing and it didn’t conclude gushing out of it for ages. I couldn’t consider it.
“In the next weeks and months the water started to sting my eyes. I certain I was going to have to train myself up scientifically to be taken significantly. I knew I had to procure academics onside too. I’m now now not academic within the slightest. I’m dyslexic and always struggled in faculty. I saw faculty as an 11-year prison time frame. Dyslexia wasn’t understood back then and I’d be punished terribly.”
She said of her business: “I can’t enact much of it at all anymore. Certainly now now not in south Wales. I am fortunate I have one small clean lake nearby but I have nothing else right here anymore which is safe to swim in. What I’m doing is taking folks on trips away want to Snowdonia (Eryri) where the water is clean. But I’m shedding money by doing that.”
Angela says she has barely anything left but she will be able to by no means regret to placing her savings into funding her campaign
(Image: John Myers)
Most of her trips are no longer attainable because the water is simply too dangerous to enter, she says
(Image: Angela Jones)
Now she says her life is ‘practically 24/7’ centered on river health from making an attempt out to giving lectures at faculties to highlighting the crisis at Westminster
(Image: Angela Jones)
Why hasn’t she walked away from it? “I’m 58 now and I research at it as: ‘Right here’s the third chapter for your life v how enact you want to live it?’ I have had to wrestle the question of carrying on in my thoughts. I have a very bad credit rating, I’m shedding money, my business is dire. I may hump and enact one thing else and make money. But what I assist coming back to is that this fight is greater than me and it’s extra important than me. If I have to sacrifice every part to bring change for our rivers then that’s what I’m prepared to enact. I near home and reflect: ‘Right here we hump again – toast and cereal for dinner.’ Winter comes around again and I reflect to myself: ‘What are you doing lady?’ And then I pull myself back and remind myself why.”
All her life she’s felt instinctively connected to nature – a lot so she made her daughter the first exiguous one ever to be christened on the stay of 12 months Wyddfa (Snowdon). “Ahead of my daughter was born the doctor there advised me she’d have a excessive chance of being severely disabled and they advised me to terminate,” she recalled. “I said no and when she was born after three weeks I was advised she was completely healthy. I don’t watch much TV but that morning I was and I saw Bishop Jonathan Blake on This Morning talking about bringing the church to the folks. I phoned the programme and advised them: ‘I’m 30 next week and I’d love the bishop to climb Snowdon, the roof of Wales, with me and christen my daughter on the summit to thank mother nature for this beautiful exiguous lady’. I went up along with her on my back and we did the christening on the stay. I’ve climbed that mountain 100 instances since and I’ve by no means considered it as clear as it was that day. I don’t regret it but I didn’t know that the bishop had invited all the click. It was a spacious shock once we acquired there and the cameras and photographers have been there.
Angela made her daughter the first exiguous one ever to be christened on the stay of 12 months Wyddfa (Snowdon)
(Image: Angela Jones)
Angela says she now receives extra threats than earlier than but no-one is going to conclude her
(Image: Richard Swingler)
“My kids have been introduced up on enjoyable and adventures. After they have been young I went to an auction and bought a barn within the geographical region which wished a lot of labor. I had £500 left so we bought a very cheap caravan and lived in that for 2 years whereas we renovated the barn. I wanted my kids to grow up in freedom. We had a rank time – lived there for 17 years with emus and sheep and geese beside the water. We would have all the local kids arising to feed the emus and play games within the field. We’d chuck the kayaks within the water and paddle around until late. It was great instances and was where my wild swimming business was born really. The parents and kids have been saying: ‘Will you take me out Ange?’ I became certain to assist those that hadn’t had those alternatives and it fair constructed into this amazing factor. Over the years our youngest member has been three months and the maturist is 96.”
Knowing her campaign to clean up Wales’ rivers wished to attract attention she threw herself into the ‘Wild Woman of the Wye’ persona she has since become known for. A Google search of her is met with strange photos of her including her pulling a coffin with the Grim Reaper along the Wye, standing beside a giant field of eggs which reads “crappy eggs”, and others displaying her in all manner of strange fancy dress at protests across the nation.
Knowing her campaign to clean up Wales’ rivers wished to attract attention she threw herself into the ‘Wild Woman of the Wye’ persona
(Image: Angela Jones)
She is normally arising with creative ideas to take on polluters and attract attention to her campaign for river health
(Image: Angela Jones)
“For this to be successful, to create change which we’re still pushing for, I knew I had to attract attention to the campaign and rattle some people,” she said. “I never envisaged this for my life. I didn’t think I’d be doing all this shouting and protesting and marching through Westminster but I’ve had to do it. I didn’t feel that comfortable giving presentations and lecturers on river health but I knew I had to do it.
“I don’t care if folks reflect I am crazy – that’s beautiful. Of us have thought that about me all my life. I don’t thoughts the threats – I am feeble it. I procure vigilantes. I’ve had to change my address. But no-one is going to position me off. I procure it extra now. Now folks know I am now now not talking garbage. We now have acquired that data, we have now acquired the enhance of very clued-up folks, and I am now now not giving this up.
“It’s not going to happen overnight. Since I started seven years ago I’ve seen so many deadlines come and go and seen so much waffle about cleaning up our rivers. It’s a long fight and it’s one where people power is so important. People power can and will change things and we can all do our little bit to make a difference.”
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