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Writer's pictureCrone

Water testing

There's not much to worry about here. Except for falling in.


Today I met a man from the Environment Agency. He was scooping up water from the river and putting it in bottles. He told me he does some of the testing but he also sends it to labs. He's not involved in prosecutions and what not. Just drives around bottling up water from the rivers.


He said he was devastated during lockdown last year, 'Such lovely weather,' he said, 'and I was stuck inside!' I said I hoped the water quality hadn't suffered in the interim and he said that if he wanted to get rid of toxic waste, he'd have done it last year when no one was testing.


I asked him what the water here is like and he said, 'It's pretty good. But I wouldn't drink it.' I used to drink water from Dartmoor streams all the time. Then I'd walk up river and see a dead sheep rotting in the water.


Apparently this man started out in Nottinghamshire and he said the River Trent is still polluted by years of heavy industry. There are heavy metal particles in the sediment. 'Here,' he said, 'there wasn't anything like that. Tanneries, but they weren't as bad.'


He seemed so happy to be doing his job. I wonder if you need a science background? Would journalism get me in? Philosophy?

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