ANGLERS have given their backing to the launch of a hard-hitting campaign to save the River Wye from being “poisoned”.

Ross-on-Wye Angling Club (ROWAC), whose members have been fishing the river for 110 years, say they are right behind the ‘Plan to Save the Wye’ produced by campaigning charity River Action, which calls for “radical and immediate action” to halt the “environmental destruction”.

As reported in last week’s Gazette, RA and its board – who include chart-topping fishing fan Feargal Sharkey – have called for immediate action from government and regulators to address seven key areas of concern affecting the river.

The plan proposes a planning moratorium on all new livestock units in the Wye catchment, and binding manure management and run-off mitigation plans for broiler and free range intensive poultry units (IPU) to be in place by the end of 2023.

It also demands the lowering of the current licensing threshold to include mid/small-sized IPUs, and mandatory nature-based river buffers separating phosphate suffocated fields from watercourses throughout the catchment.

The plan calls for extra funding for the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales to manage the plan co-operatively on a catchment-wide basis, and the inclusion of anaerobic digestors in nutrient management requirements.

And finally it urges “uncompromising enforcement” of new regulations, with IPU closure for non-compliance.

Rob Leather, chairman of ROWAC, said: “The Wye is being systematically poisoned by unchecked agricultural pollution and sewage discharge and is facing the real prospect of complete environmental destruction.

“While the government and water authorities stand impotently by, River Action is taking the lead in calling for radical and immediate action to address this appalling situation.

“They have the complete backing and endorsement of the club and our membership.”

River Action say poultry numbers have doubled to 20 million birds in Powys and Herefordshire in just five years, and the region’s fields are saturated with phosphate from muck spreading the manure, which is leaching into the river and poisoning its eco-systems.

The Wye has suffered a 95 per cent decline in aquatic weed, and the algal blooms which result have turned it into “pea soup”, say campaigners, making it a “wildlife death trap”.

Meanwhile River Action has far raised more than £30,000 to date from a crowdfunding campaign to fund equipment for citizen scientists to sample and analyse water quality in the Wye. River Action’s Plan to Save the Wye is at www.Riveractionuk.com and to support the fundraiser go to www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/river-action--1194995.