during the conservative leadership campaign. the government has refused to comment. now on bbc news, what's killing our rivers? you see herons and dragonflies. see lots of little shellfish in the shallow parts. sometimes you will see a salmon jumping out of the water. you start to realise that how many people don't have stuff like this, particularly in lockdown, when we were very grateful to have it. these school friends have made the most of a record—breaking summer. like thousands of others. but there is something wrong with our rivers. a sad sight to see. it's absolutely devastating what with finding out here today. in the water, look at this. just look at it. this is algae. it's taking over our rivers and waterways. and when human and animal waste gets into a river not only is it bad for our health it is also full of nutrients like phosphate which act as a kind of super food for the algae. and his algae gets into the river, it strips the river of oxygen, killing off of the plant and animal life. one third of rivers in wales are now failing phosphate targets. while in some areas is mainly from the sewer system, in others it's largely agriculture. the river why is a case in point. here more than 35% of phosphates come from rural land runoff. as our demand for cheap food have grown, farming production has intensified. and that has led to a growing mountain of muck. i'mjemma price, i'm 22 and i lived on this farm all my life. me and my sisters would always help with the jobs, even when we were younger we would always be amongst it. it's always been something that i knew that i would want to do, which is why i'm still here now and i'm wanting to carry on the farm. jumbo works on her family farm next to one of the rivers that feeds into the why, along with her dad they raise cows, sheep and chickens. feeding them keeps gwen busy as does dealing with a mountain of manure. that muck is gathered underneath this barn. so what happens to it then? some of the manoeuvre is collected and they are but there's always a bit of runoff. where it is a go? see the stretch year? down that trench there, down through the grid there. there is a manhole there. it holds about 3000 gallons. you see that muck floating on the top of the water? in a month or six weeks that'll run in. this muck is full of phosphates wasn't vital for growing the crops we need. it goes by tanker, but it sucked up by tanker. actually, you go up on that dry hill there, it's dry, it is dry as a cork, there's no land drains, there's no nothing for that we have the right, we have a licence to spread there. the prices can't see how muck could be getting into our rivers when there's so many rules and regulations governing how farmers like them can safely use it. we are just down the valley from the price's farm. which runs eventually into the river wye itself. we tested the water here for phosphates, and as expected, phosphate levels are very low. but further down river they are too high. and that's putting wildlife at risk. auditors have thrived in parts of the wye, along with other many rare species. it's one of the most protected rivers in britain because of this rich wildlife. all of our rivers in wales are now at risk of extinction from salmon and sea trout. gail has over 20 years experience in the water industry. she says that farming and sewage are having a combined affect. it's much more than that direct species and habitats within the river. so our river is the source of drinking water, is used by farmers as crop irrigation, it's used to feed cattle. we've just reach a point where rivers cannot cope any more with how they are being used and what we are putting into them. 0ur agricultural land use has changed. poultry units just did not exist at the top of that catchment 15 years ago. what we've seen is a huge burst of poultry units in a very short amount of time, which is saturated that landscape. short amount of time, which has saturated that landscape. there are startling figures on the number of intensive poultry farms that have sprung up. council only started keeping records from 2018. but we discovered the rapid growth in intensive farming started a decade earlier. since 2008 planning has been extended to bar since 2008 planning has been extended to dozens famrs and extensions every year. today there are now more than 300 intensive poultry farms with the capacity for 9.6 million chickens. many believe this rapid expansion is causing pollution in the wye. but with poor water quality monitoring across the uk there is currently no evidence of a direct link. hi, how we doing? scientist here approach the problem from a different angle, looking at how much muck is being produced in the wye catchment. where you have these high areas of intensive livestock production you end up with too much phosphorus are available in the manure there to go on to the land. they estimate that around seven and a half thousand tonnes of phosphorus gets into the soil around the river wye every year. much of that by spreading muck from poultry farms. but only some of that is absorbed by crops. the rest is extra. you're left with a difference of about 3000 tonnes of phosphorus that is above the crop requirement of what we would call a surplus. which is naturally very high, it's about 60% greater than the national average. fundamentally, if you have a surplus, you are too much phosphorus in your environment it is likely that you are going to have worse water quality. the data shows quite clearly, there are parts of the catchment where phosphorus levels are very high, if not a little bit too high. so those areas do not need phosphorus at the moment. they do not need muck inpuspreading? no, they don't need muck or fertiliser or any phosphorus input. sciences here are clear, to start fixing the problem muck spreading should be stopped completely in some parts of the wye. there's a lot of algae. oh, you don't have to go in, it's all slimy. for those who get out on the river regularly, the current state of the wye is having a real impact. ew. we like swimming and jumping offa rock and stuff when everything looked 0k. i think about a year and a - half, maybe two years ago there the whole river went green in the water. i then one of their friends became ill. we all get a bit scared so we kind of stayed on paddle boards rather than going in and accidentally consuming the water. as well as driving people out of the water pollution from animal and human waste is having a wider impact. we estimate that we've got around 11,000 houses that are we estimate that we've got around 1100 houses that are held up in the planning system currently. housing at this site has been put on hold. the plans that have been prepared for this site show 25 affordable homes. we've got quite a lot of people on the housing waiting list here. barry davis helps developers and housing associations to build new homes. so this is a brownfield site? what is holding this development back right now? the planning application is ready for submission and it has been ready for 18 months or so. unfortunately, there is the current phosphate situation affecting the river wye, special area of conservation, which means developments like this can't currently proceed. last year phosphate was tighetened for special protection for that that meant all new developments in that area were affected. the moratorium affectively came in overnight with little or no consultation with the development industry. which we found to be very frustrating, particularly given that the amount of phosphate that new development contributes to this phosphate issue is relatively low and we felt that it was very much a sledge hammer to crack a nut. and here we are 20 months on end this site is still laying furloughed. what we need is for all of the public bodies to work to gather with the development industry to come up with a solution together. we are not really seeing that. in total, 12 councils and all three national parks in wales are affected by the new phosphate targets. we contacted all of them and they estimated at more than 5000 new homes are impacted and could be delayed or even abandoned. if 5000 homes aren't built the loss to economic activity would be in excess of £700 million. this tough new planning guidance has also been brought in over the border, where an estimated 100,000 new homes across 7a planning authorities in england are affected. and the loss to economic activity here would be more than £15 billion. and it's become a hot political topic. the royal welsh show is a major event on farmers calendars. one of the big talking points is the ban on building in rural communities. the first minister has called an emergency summit here to try and reach a solution. the need to provide homes in those communities is urgent and a priority for us. when you put all those things together, this is an issue that has rapidly gained in public attention, it deserves that proper political attention and that's what today's seminar it was designed to create. the show is over and the crowds have left. but farmers are still dealing with a raft of changes facing their industry. and president alexjones wants more proof that farming is causing pollution before asking his members to invest in costly solutions. i feel it is part of the problem. it is very complex issue, there is so many other contributors to the water failing in these rivers. there is no simple answer, i'm afraid. because obviously population growth is such that there needs to be housing development. at the same time, those people need to be fed as well and we need to go with the evidence. and when that evidence is clarified clearly, then we will respond. it certainly seems to be on the agenda but could authorities work more closely to find asnwers? in another parts of the uk, they've been doing just this. around a polluted river. but here on the west coast of scotland locals and scottish environment officials say the benefits are already being felt on beaches like this one because of the work to do with farmers on the river eyre. ian was is one of three farmers who all have dairy farms who all have firms in this part and that water run straight off the streams that feed the nearby river. but unlike most farmers in wales he is regularly inspected by wales checking how he stores and spreads his slurry. we will just we willjust go on here. these inspectors are from sepa, the scottish equivalent of natural resources wales. they started noticing problems with phosphates and their rivers as far back as 200a. farmers always say they want to be compliant and comply with rules and regulations. it's only when you show them where they're not compliant will they take some regulatory improvements. compliance in this area has risen from 34% in 2010 to 99% 110w. seeing a difference in nutrient concentration on the river isn't going to happen overnight. it's good number of years for for a rise in the phosphate levels but it can be done. it is something that has to be started sooner rather than later. scotland's environmental regulator spends £900,000 a year on a dedicated team of 12 inspectors and support staff just checking water pollution from farms. so what about in wales? natural resources wales of the environmental regulator but while they do inspect some farms they don't have a full—time, fully—funded team like in scotland. in charge of water quality at nrw is sean williams. we know there are problem areas in the wye catchment. what we've done is a lot of targeting different bars so that we had a dairy project that we ran, which we now are looking at how the role of that dairy project into different catchments and looking more around nutrients and phosphates. it's key having people on the ground to deliver it is so important that is why we are looking into it notjust externalfunded programmes, that are temporary, but were also looking at our baseline funding with welsh government. your budgets have gone down about a third since its inception. does it sometimes come down to resources? we would like to do more. we will do more. we can work with others as well. the welsh government has been facing new laws to tackle water pollution from farms and is currently talking to nrw nrw told us they have yet to receive any funding to enforce those new rules. this is a simple solution around investment and funding into that. scottish government have invested in that and we need to look at how we can achieve that in wales. we can put in as much change in policy and legislation as we like. it is only as good as the strength of our regulation and enforcement and against the policy. if there is little enforcement of the new regulations in wales, it would stand to farmers to follow the rules as best they can. this chicken farmer is birds for their meat. this year it was granted permission to double its capacity to 180,000 broiler chickens. once that new shed is built, this farms's muck will be taken off—site to an anaerobic digestion. he is following the rules. that digester is licensed to take animal waste from farms and after producing energy it sends the phosphate rich leftovers to be spread on the land. we've followed some of that waste product. it's being spread on this field. but as we were filming, we noticed that on this occasion muck appears to have been spread here around two metres from the water in this culvert. legally, this gap should be at least six metres. i took a walk in the field a few months later. it's been a bumper summer. crops have been planted, harvested and taken away already. and over there is the culvert that runs on the edge of the field and it finishes just over here. and this is what we are looking for, this is a culvert or gully right on the edge of the field. this is where we saw apparently muck being spread far too close of the edge of the field to the culvert. and the concern is that whatever is in the culvert, water and muck and goes down here into the riverjust there and then three miles downriver to the big old river wye itself. so who was responsible for the questionable spreading? we asked the digester company but they didn't respond. the farmer whose land it is didn't want to comment. we followed muck to just one farm and found that rules appeared to be broken. the question is, could this also be happening elsewhere? who is actually responsible for inspecting this? powers council says it isn't them unless there's been a breach of planning conditions. and it's actually nrw�*s job to check in and force regulations around muck management. when it comes to muck spreading itself, they told us they don't proactively check how it's done. if you are not inspecting the actual spreading of muck, isn't there an obvious loophole in the system? it's about how we can be better at doing a lot of the stuff so monitoring will pick up issues in catchments. we are monitoring better now that we have done before. so it's important that were using our evidence, using the data, and responding to that in targeting our business in the right places. even if monitoring finally improves, is that enough? we have failure on lots of different parts of the system. it's not just about land spreading, have we got sufficient enforcement and regulations on sewer overflows and waste water treatment discharges? is a huge cumulative impact to the river wye and i think all of our rivers. and perhaps that is not what's being understood at the minute. ijust think, i would like to carry on and i would like to stay farming here. farmers like gemma continue to try and make a living. but decisions made by policymakers will have an impact on theirfuture. and at the moment, the messages are mixed. you can't go far without being not very far from a chicken shed. if they stopped giving planning permission for chicken farmers in this area, if they supposedly thought we were the main contributors, i think it would have an impact on the families around here who are wanting to diversify, wanting to make more money, and it is slightly unfair. the labour—lead welsh government has made much of its plan for a greener wales. but amid all the targets and regulations, is there an effective plan to support farmers and to protect our rivers? we know we had an issue around too many poultry farms, for instance, being put in the same place. we need to work with our local authorities... do you agree there are too many poultry farms? we saw certainly in the previous administration there, we saw a lot of planning permissions allowed. it was your government to give the grants for the poultry farm. what i'm saying is the local authority needs to know all these poultry farms. you are the authority. what i'm saying is it's about working together to make sure that where you can get perhaps quicker wins, i see is a long—term issue, we look forfor quick gains too. nrw, who oversees much of this, has had its funding consistently cut. if nobody�*s policing things like muck spreading, are you prepared to tell farmers that they can't spread muck on their land because it's too much phosphate in the river already? we have to look at the regulations. we have to look at the individualfarmer and one of the things and bring forward in relation to delaying the one regulation is a licensing scheme. if a farmer wants to apply for a licensing scheme and think is not pertinent for that farm, we can do that. a lot of this is legacy phosphorus was up at that as part of the problem. we are now. if that's part of it, obviously we can look at it. do you take responsibility for what's happening to our rivers? well of course i'm part of the solution just as other people are. we all have to take responsibility, each and every one of us. the scale of the problem is daunting. there is a sewage as well as a slurry problem to fix. so is there still time for the wye and other iconic welsh rivers to be saved? yes, it is salvageable but it's going to take a huge amount of working together and it's going to require all of those sectors to play their part in this. what we see at the moment is actually quite a lot of delays in that happening. and we cannot wait any longer. quite simply, if it carries on as it is now, that river ecosystem will just collapse. gemma hopes to be the next generation of her family to make a living from the land. and the friends hope that they once again will be able to get out on the water. the pace of modern life is killing our rivers. the situation is retrievable, but the longer we leave it, the more likely it is to slip through our fingers. this hello. saturday was a super mild day across many parts of the uk and really quite warm in the south—east. in the kew gardens, temperatures reached 22.9 degrees celsius to be exact — really quite exceptional for this time in october — and the reason for it is this warm air that's been coming in from the south for quite some time now. of course, it's going to be mild out there through the early hours, temperatures between ten and 1a degrees celsius. clear spells but also a few showers and actually, right from the word go, blustery winds and showers for many western parts of the uk and there could be some downpours, particularly across the northern half of the country during the course of sunday. further south, i think, fewer showers and predominantly spells of sunshine but not quite as warm — 17 in the south, more like 15 in the north. and you can see the showers continuing there into sunday evening. a quick look at the weather for monday, for halloween. it's going to be mild, predominantly bright weather, rain later in the west.

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