I'm Photographing Polluted Areas.........

[NicolaB]

We've got plenty of polluted rivers here in South Wales...it's my job to see how the invertebrate life is doing in them!!

some of the orange rivers round here where we've had minewater breakouts from old coal mines are very impressive!

[AntiPollution]

Hi guys,

Firstly wild man of the woods, totally agree, we have "manufactured" the landscape i.e Hedges, rivers, forests, beaches......And then we have the roads, rail, power lines, So what is a natural landscape? (Perhaps a worth while Discussion). Im actually doing a Brownfield vs Greenfield as part of this work I am looking at the land ear marked for developement (so again thank you Kayleigh for your info!) and land that is unused brownfield which could easily serve the intended purpose. Obviously London is full of unused "brownfield sites" but they are either heavily polluted and no-one wants to spend £££ to clean it up or some fat cat is sat on the land waiting for a pay day ££££.

Nicola B, Could you give me more information? Sound really interesting, I had heard of a river in N.Ireland that had been polluted by a company dumping concrete in it (v.clever ) so would be interested to hear more.

Thanks for the input, and as always I am intersted to hear your stories, regardless of what it may be, and however far away!

J

[NicolaB]

I'll have to ask around at work...I think most of them have got filtration schemes on them now to remove the ochre before it enters a watercourse...but you'd still get some nice shots of orange contained reed beds rather than rivers

More of them appear all the time though, because of the coal-mining legacy we have round here.

[AntiPollution]

Hi Nicola,

Ive been photographing polluted rivers in London and wanted to check how polluted they are, to back to up the eimages. Any advice for ways of testing the water?

J

[NicolaB]

Your best bet is to contact your local Environment Agency office, and ask them for their latest Water Quality results. The Public relations Dept is your best bet, as they'll ask the scientific teams for you

I can't help with that one personally as I'm based in Wales...and haven't a clue about particular issues in London!!

Hope that helps!

[Weztaraba]

Hello ,

I am very interested by your work myself I am doing a similar job but I record a video. And I would like know wich are the most polluted areas in London.
If somebody can help me it is very urge

Thank

[EnviroCop]

depends how polluted you mean, illegal dumping, unconsented development and general questionable agricultural practise are destroying our natural areas all across the UK and Ireland. All the national EPA's face a uphill struggle to police the tide of damage. Even if you catch the offenders the courts are a joke, multi-million £££ business's getting fined £1000 for damaging ASSI/SSSI and Natura 2000 sites. Play golf with a magistrate or sleep with your MP and you get do what you like....no names!!!

i visited a site today inside a saltmarsh/ mudflat which is designated an SPA were the landowner has infilled the salt marsh foreshore with several thousand tonnes of quarry stone....over 1500m2 lost habitat...no consent no planning permission, but what is £1000 fine when you sell a new house on the beach for £800K?

sorry for the rant...but there are no shortage of sites to photograph...

[wanlock dod]

Well I'm a bit at odds with EnviroCop, I think that most of the serious pollution issues have actually been dealt with years ago, although obviously as we clear away the mess we start to observe problems which were obscured by the other, bigger, problems that were just dealt with.

Most of the serious pollution is quite difficult to see I suspect. I've heard of an estuary in the South which has no molluscs, apparently due to metal pollution. The Mersey and Tees estuaries are both pretty contaminated, but it's hardly as though they're flowing with blood.

My recommendation, however, is for you to head off in the direction of Avonmouth. I've heard that around the former zinc smelter (yes it's closed) is the one place in the UK that you can really see pollution (i.e. sufficient contamination to cause toxicity or other effects). As I understand it there's basically nowt to see, and that's basically because nothing can grow there.

I'd be interested to see how you do though, I've often tried to find a good picture of dreadful pollution, but always failed so far to find one that was quiet appaling enough.

[EnviroCop]

wanlock dod

while you make a valid point that major environmental disasters are thankfully few and far between in the UK and most of Western Europe, we are suffering a environmental disaster "almost silently" a death by a thousand cuts. In the recent flooding how many domestic oil tanks where uprooted from gardens, how many WWTW and pumping stations flooded pouring raw sewage across the land and into our rivers...the fields are currently water logged across the UK and Ireland and yet the farmers have little choice but to load the fields with slurry and dirty water. Policitians suggest we pay for every bin of domestic waste...have they any clue how much illegal dumping currently occurs ?

Ok its not seabirds drowning in crude oil or bright green lake as we saw in the Soviet block when the wall came down but its all serious environmental damage....step back from the view finder and look around you?
E