Tonal - Rivers Beyond Sewage

When we heard that Mónica Feria Tinta was coming to Bath to promote her new book ‘A Barrister for the Earth’, we grabbed our chance to meet her for a conversation on the banks of the Avon. Mónica is a leading expert on environmental and climate change law. She has crafted daring new legal arguments that draw on constitutional, human rights, and international legislation. We talk about her winning...

We join Richard on his monthly visit to River Tone in Runnington, to learn how riverfly kick sampling works. For three minutes, Richard kicks up the mud/gravel/stones of the river and catches the creatures that float free in his net, then we count and identify them. Like pond dipping, it’s great fun, but somewhat fiendish because most of the minibeasts are, well, tiny, especially in the winter. It...

Join experienced water guardians Dot and Mike as they conduct their monthly survey of the Standle Stream and Westford Stream, to the west of Wellington. Dot and Mike are fellow members of Transition Town Wellington’s Water Guardians group. Many of us in the group are volunteer citizen scientists testing the water quality in the rivers and streams near us. Managed by the Westcountry Rivers Trust, v...

One for the poets, artists, dabblers and ponderers among you (all those watery allusions). We visited the Tone above Clatworthy Reservoir with Fire River Poet Graeme Ryan and we jumped straight in to comparing our artistic processes and philosophies. How do poets and artists reach out towards the living world or look to their inner living world, and how these connect. What and where is consciousne...

Clatworthy Reservoir is a leisure fishery and the main water supply for people in the Tone Valley. It is sparkling but low when we meet there in the summer drought. Simon spent much of his youth fishing on the River Tone and, once it was created, on Clatworthy Reservoir. He is, in his own words, “obsessive” about weather and about fishing. He has kept detailed records on both these topics for deca...

Olly’s job is to find and solve the causes of river pollution. Every misconnected pipe contributes to damage. In a rural area like Somerset, with thousands of small farms and houses with private water, slurry and sewage systems, it’s challenging to stay on top of it all.  As we walk around the lanes and fields about a mile upstream of Taunton’s official bathing place he points out some recent...

Soil scientist and environmentalist Jo says she has her dream job, because working for the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group is where she can make the most difference. If the Environment Agency is the stick, FWAG are the carrot, helping farmers find ways to work with nature as they grow food, and access the funds they need to support the changes. We get granular (pun intended) about soil, farmin...

Love Our Ouse made headlines all around the world when their motion to develop a charter of rights for the River Ouse was passed at a Lewes District Council meeting back in 2023. “It was this torrent of interest… globally. I’ve lost track of all the stuff we’ve done, but one that stands out is talking to Al Jazeera about rights of the Sussex Ouse!” Two years and innumerable hours of work later, wi...

Peter Reason generously invites us into his (normally solo) ritual visit with the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Frome at Freshford, sharing his mantra and his invocation to the rivers. He speaks movingly about his solitary practice of meeting with rivers as living beings, and the ongoing co-operative enquiry that accompanies it - 'Living Waters'. In the two hours we spent together with the riv...

We spent a morning with Matt Wheeldon, Director of Infrastructure Development at Wessex Water, at the Bradford on Tone sewage treatment works. He’s a passionate advocate for change in our sewage system – ‘We’ve got a rainwater problem, not a sewage problem.’ As we got deeper into the topic, it seems we have a politics problem, a development problem, a consumer problem, a carbon footprint problem,...

Vanessa Becker Hughes is the founder of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project. As we walk along the riverbank at the confluence of the Tone and Parrett near Burrow Mump we discuss the mysteries of eels, who begin and end their lives in the Sargasso Sea on the far side of the Atlantic, yet need to find their way back to a stream or waterway near you. Vanessa went eel fishing as a child with her grandfa...

Anne Marie Culhane is an artist who works with Jo Salter and others on the wonderful project Tidelines , which brings together arts, science, action and research, working with communities and the public, to celebrate and care for the Exe estuary and coast, and to find ways to adapt and respond collectively to the changes caused by climate breakdown and species loss. Anne Marie relates the poignant...

Dr Liz Chadwick has led the globally important, 35 year-long study and archive called the Cardiff Otter Project since 2004. She and her colleagues and doctoral students autopsy and preserve samples from the bodies of otters who have been found dead (usually they have been run over) across the UK. As Liz shows me the lab and the archive, we discuss the main focus of their research - toxicology, cri...

Jane introduces her work - as a river pilgrim, healer, wise woman, spirit practitioner - through telling the story of how the river called her one Winter Solstice, through the actions of three dogs. As we walk along a disrupted part of the river in Nynehead, Jane offers insights into her path, her profound connection to land and river, and describes the significance of healing work at the level of...

An inspiring conversation about how DIY action is the driving force behind changes in the law. If you want your river to have legal personhood, to have rights, act as if it already did! Paul Powlesland is one of the founders of Lawyers for Nature. He fights and campaigns for the rights of nature, especially trees and rivers. He is also a River Guardian for the River Roding in London, and Founder o...

This episode deals with the difficult topic of flooding, and how to build resilience: in people, buildings and communities. Dr Bel Deering is the community engagement officer for Somerset Rivers Authority. Her PhD was on the recreational uses of graveyards, a hint that the conversation contains many flashes of quirky humour alongside the serious stuff. Somerset Rivers Authority is a partnership or...

Feral Practice goes backyard exploring around the waterways of Wellington in Somerset with Anita Roy, one of the dynamic leaders of Transition Town Wellington. Anita shares her passion for the watery history of woolen cloth making in the town, and the current (and currant) successes and future plans of TTW, including the forest garden in Fox's Field and plans for a new wetland. Don't miss the end,...

MP for Taunton and Wellington Gideon lives in central Taunton and swims most Saturdays after Park Run, so he is passionate about the River Tone. He helped to run the successful campaign to gain bathing water status for the river in French Weir Park. Gideon and Fiona discuss the Lib Dem calls for Ofwat to be abolished, plus a gamut of water-quality issues including sewage, planning, farming, dogs,...

Feral Practice walks and talks with artist James Aldridge. Exploring an area of recently flooded land to the east side of Taunton, the artists discuss Aldridge's 'Queer River' project and other ideas that intersect in their work - around water, diversity and creativity. Being recently flooded, the Tone was embodying the ‘de-canalisation’ of thinking that the artists discuss - how it is important t...

A generous and wide ranging conversation about water, mostly dirty water, with Director of Water for the Environment Agency Helen Wakeham. Tackling in detail and giving historical context to the (all too literal) topic of shit in the river, as well as road runoff, farm runoff, PFAs chemicals and plastics. Including practical tips and future ambitions, this is a realistic and well informed deep div...

Feral Practice learns to spot signs of otters - that is slides and spraint 💩 - along the Taunton-Bridgwater canal and finds out more about otter life from Jo Pearse of the Somerset Otter Group. Question - what does otter poo smell like? The answer may surprise you! Jo goes into delighful detail about the otter's life and habits, including how anal jelly (😳) helps protect the otters gut from fish...