Donation helps pollution group with monitoring river

A group which aims to stop the River Ure being polluted has received a donation of £500 from the Wensleydale and Swaledale Quaker Trust to purchase testing equipment and reagents.

Stop Ure Pollution was set up in June 2024 and its citizen scientist volunteers, with the help of the Yorkshire Dales River Trust, carried out two river-length water-testings last year. That in October showed that the E.coli levels at Aysgarth Falls were eight times higher than is officially allowed for safe bathing.

Thanks to a grant from Surfers Against Sewage and a donation from the Jervaulx Fly Fishers the group has bought monitors for checking the levels of such pollutants as phosphates and nitrites. But it also wants to purchase equipment to check levels of E.coli and to work with Save Our Swale on DNA testing. And it now has its own website:  https://stopurepollution.co.uk/

It aims to follow-up on the water sampling carried out last year and to check specific sites regularly so that a clear and balanced picture can be obtained of the levels and causes of pollution.

Its chairman, Professor Richard Loutoka, said: ‘We hope to continue to raise public awareness of the state of the river and address the causes of the pollution with the polluters. We will also try to raise funds for our water-testing projects and possibly other projects including measuring bacterial endotoxin levels and looking at invertebrate life in the river.’

The Wensleydale and Swaledale Quaker Trust has its origins in the 17^th and 18^th centuries with bequests in Wills which sought to provide for the poor and the maintenance of local Quaker Meeting Houses. The money was mainly invested in dwellings in Wensleydale which are maintained and rented to those living and/or working locally. The objectives of the Trust include assisting local charitable work and maintaining the Quaker Meeting Houses at Bainbridge, Countersett and Leyburn.  Last year it donated £500 to Save Our Swale.