The River Wharfe at Ilkley in Yorkshire was the first river to be designated as a bathing site in 2020 and as such is an important test case.
“When it rains, there can be tens of thousands of E.coli units per 100ml,” Karen Shackleton from the Ilkley Clean River Group tells me.
E.coli is one of the bacteria linked to faeces which the Environment Agency tests for. Anything over 900 units per 100ml triggers advice to stay out of the water.
Fellow campaigner Di Leary points at the sewage overflow pipe on the other side of the river. “We’re basically swimming in other people’s poo,” she says, before taking a quick dip.
The River Wharfe in Ilkley’s has stubbornly rated “poor” every year since its first designation, but the campaigners are hopeful that’s about to change.
Yorkshire Water is in the midst of a £60m investment programme it says will reduce the amount of sewage that flows into the river.
“This wasn’t about wild swimming,” Karen Shackleton says.
“It was actually about putting something in place so that the Environment Agency had to come and test the river, because they don’t test rivers as standard. Then when they find the results that are poor, that drives the investment by the water company,” she says.
Both agree there is a certain madness in a system that appears to encourage people to swim in a polluted river in the hope it will create the pressure to clean it up.
“It’s very much a Catch 22 situation,” Di says.
Karen nods: “It’s disgustingly bonkers”.