We Spend the Equinox Testing Local Waters

Over the equinox weekend, members of New Forest Friends of the Earth and friends fanned out across the Forest, from Fordingbridge to Beaulieu and Southampton Water, and from Cadnam to Milford on Sea, testing rivers and streams for nitrates and phosphates.

The good news: freshwater bodies in the heart of the New Forest showed strong water quality, with particularly low phosphate levels.

But not everywhere told the same story. Higher readings turned up on the Avon at Fordingbridge, in a stream feeding the Lymington River at Walhampton, and along Danes Stream at Hordle and Milford.

For the first time, we also tested the combined sewer overflow (CSO) that discharges into the Lymington River. Surprisingly, it showed only moderate nitrate and phosphate levels.

Yet these chemical results don’t explain the ongoing E. coli contamination—a situation that is deeply alarming. Our next blog will reveal just how serious and widespread this threat has become.

See live results as they come in here:

https://www.freshwaterwatch.org/pages/great-uk-waterblitz-results