Change X and Freshwater Watch have had a massive impact on us, the Avon Otters, and fellow riverine dwellers. In the simplest sense our river living community is now an empowered group of citizen scientists.

The process of testing our river water for clarity, nitrates and phosphates is a practice that has deepened our concern for the lifeblood of our land and the need to better care for this much loved but neglected artery, the River Avon.

We produced a film to share our new knowledge and inspiration that we shared with Freshwater Watch. The film starred our two most junior citizen scientists, Yasmin and Souad, two young girls who love this river, who play and swim in it regularly, and who risk getting sick as a result of the pollution if unchecked. Yasmin and Souad continue to test the river and they have spread word of their hands on, fun scientific work to their school mates in the local area.

The testing has encouraged us all to find more ways to share this important research and raise awareness of the poor condition of our beloved river. As such we have purchased even more thorough water testing kits to detect and measure E-coli and other bacteria as well as other metal, mineral and chemical contaminants.

We will continue to work to protect our river and encourage others to engage in the restoration of our vital waterways.

Action plan:

Avon Otters is a group of boaters living on the River Avon in Saltford.  There are three key areas we wish to work on.

1. Measuring water quality of the River Avon and the streams that run into it here in Saltford.


2. Litter picking to clean up the filthy debris that collects on the branches and banks of the river.


3. Monitoring river biodiversity.

Timeline: 

We can start the project immediately.  We plan to meet once a month though it’s more likely (as we’re all neighbours and live on boats on the river) that we’ll meet more often.  There are no key dates but the sooner we can get water quality measuring kits the better.  The river is running very high and we’re deeply concerned by what we’re seeing in the river and streams.

Budget: 

We need the citizen science water measuring kits.  As many as is possible to monitor as much of the river basin and as often as possible.

We need to get a rainwater monitor measurer to correlate water runoff quality.

We need to purchase litter picking equipment (quality pickers, gloves, nets and sacks) for a team of 10 people minimum and ideally as many as 15-20 at a cost of approximately £50-100

For monitoring wildlife we’d like to purchase 2-3 wildlife camera traps (with night vision) which cost approximately £100 each

Impact:

The community will benefit from real data that reveals actual water quality levels and what’s in the water that so many people here paddle board, canoe, fish and swim in.

We have a team of 12 people but hope that it will grow to about 20 or more. 

We would like to share all the data we get on the water quality in various river and stream locations as far and wide as possible so that our citizen science is registered and factored in to as many river quality discussions and clean up initiatives as possible.

Location: 

As boaters we all have river licenses and need no other permission.  We have all the physical space we need.

We can’t wait to get cracking!