RIVERS AND STREAMS

RIVER AIRE

The River Aire rises high in the Pennine Hills near Malham in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It flows in a south east direction through limestone moorland areas passing Keighley, Bingley, Bradford
and Leeds.
At Castleford the river turns eastward to Goole where it meets the River Ouse.
From Keighley to Goole the river flows through heavily populated and industrialised areas. For the last 26 kilometres upstream of Goole the river is tidal.

RIVER CALDER
The River Calder rises on the Pennine Moors west of Todmorden in West Yorkshire. It is predominantly an urban and therefore industrialised river, flowing through Halifax, Brighouse, Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Wakefield before it joins the River Aire at Castleford.

Until the seventeenth century, the rivers were used by people for drinking water but the onset of the industrial revolution and the dumping of sewage waste into the river made this a hazardous pursuit. The Victorians had realised that open sewers and the disposal of 'night soil' (human waste) on land around the towns was causing outbreaks of cholera and in a bid to deal with the problem the started a water-borne sewage system.

Waste from homes and streets went directly into rivers without any treatment. But it wasn't only sewage waste that was being dumped into the river, industrial and factory waste found its way there too.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the water quality was still good enough to support salmon downstream of Bradford, but by 1825 the rivers were practically devoid of life. By 1840 the River Aire in Leeds was described as a 'reservoir of poison, careful kept for the purpose of breeding pestilence in the town.' The battle back from this low point was to be a long and arduous one but thankfully today the picture is much brighter for Yorkshire's rivers.

Strict controls on what could be discharged, or released, into rivers came into force in the middle of the last century. But it is only in recent decades there have been improvements in water quality in the lower sections of the Aire and Calder and their tributaries. This is due to a combination of tougher regulation (undertaken by the Environment Agency) and major investment by water companies and industry.

Industries today are continuing their work to minimise pollution in the catchment however farm wastes and fertilisers can cause problems for rivers and the life they contain as they run off the land into watercourses. By careful housekeeping, companies throughout the area are successfully reducing the volume and strength of their wastes and finding that they save money too.

· Over 50% of the River Aire and over 60% of the River Calder has good or very good water quality (May 2006). This is clean enough to be used for drinking water and for salmon and trout to live in, as well as a range of coarse fish which feed on worms, insects and mayflies in and around the water. Less than 3% of these rivers are classed as badly polluted.


The River Don and pollution in the bad old days
(© Environment Agency)

How clean are your rivers?

Did you know you can check out the state of your local river on the Environment Agency's website. Check out your river at....

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk

By accessing the "What's in your backyard" section you can choose any one of the 7,000 sites where samples are taken to test the water quality. All you need is a place name or postcode.
(© Environment Agency)