SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE BIG SWIM UP THE THAMES DISRUPTED BY…..SEWAGE
A group of 8 swimmers are doing a swim from Gloucester to London to call for action on sewage pollution
A 200k swim up the River Thames by eight world class swimmers to highlight the issue of sewage pollution was consistently disrupted by .. sewage before they finished at Teddington.
They were welcomed and supported by the local campaign group SOLAR (Save Our Lands and River) which has been protesting about a proposed Thames Water flood resilient scheme dubbed localy as The Thames Sewage Pump.
Organised by Surfers Against Sewage, the challenge began on Monday in Lechlade, Gloucestershire, and finished yesterday at Teddington Lock, passing through Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Surrey.
The team comprising Olympians and record-holders tested water quality along the way and are calling for urgent action to protect rivers and seas.
Campaigners say stronger policy and public support are needed to stop Britain’s waterways being treated “like open sewers.”
“It’s been incredibly difficult. There’s been moments doing this where I have not been sure that I’m going to finish the challenge,” said Amber Keegan, 28, who in 2024 became one of the fastest women to swim the Channel told The Times newspaper.
Between Marsh Lock and Hambleden Lock, a family including a young boy had waited on a pier hoping to get in the water and join the swimming expedition. But the water quality was so poor that the athletes were in the boat by then, leaving the family disappointed and unable to join.
Toby Robinson, 29, who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, estimated the team had been forced to skip about 15 kilometres of their route as a result of pollution concerns.
He told The Times: “As we got closer to London there’s just much more debris in the water and I’ve been bumping into a lot more stuff,” he said. “The water changes colour. Towards the source it was greenish, but further down it’s changed to a more browny colour.”
Professor Mike Bowes at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, an independent research institute, said: “My message would be that the water companies were largely responsible for improving the [Thames’s] water quality in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But it has stagnated since 2010 and I would say sewage is still the major source of pollution.”