Nature Watch with Ron Freethy

IT is a popular pastime in the 1990s for people who should know better to a attack the state of our rivers and to say that they are the most polluted in Europe.

This may have been true a few years ago but it is certainly not true these days.

Neither should we say that everything in the water garden is lovely - but we should tell the truth.

One of the worst of Lancashire's rivers had been the Darwen. This is why I welcomed the chance to meet an impressive group of people who run the River Valley Initiative for the River Darwen.

At one time the idea of getting a water company, the environment agency, local industry, politicians and the people of an area together would have been unthinkable.

Yet this is just what an RVI co-ordinated by the Mersey Basin Campaign has achieved.

I met Dave Crowley, who is the chairman of the project; Tom Sharrat, a local councillor; Tony Hollows, site manager of Akzo-Nobel (which used to be Crown Paints); Paul Holt, operations manager for North West Water in East Lancashire, and Dave Hortin, co-ordinator of the Darwen project. The main factor here proved to be that everybody was working together and there is plenty of evidence that the Darwen is getting cleaner.

My one worry is not pollution as such - this is being dealt with by the experts.

What angers me is the rubbish which some people throw into the water.

Tin cans, crisp packets, fish and chip papers and cigarette packets do not cause pollution problems.

Such rubbish, however, looks untidy and if it all collects together it causes flooding.

The answer is simple. If we want to enjoy our streams, rivers and canals to the full we have to help the people who give up their free time to work on RVIs like the Darwen.

We can best do this by taking our rubbish home or by placing it in the bins provided.

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph is involved with the Grimewatch project, which has gained national recognition. We can all do our bit by watching where we dump our rubbish.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.