Hormones from human medicines are also having an effect, along with the build-up of everyday chemicals used in homes and businesses.<\/p>\n
DWT also manages the county’s Water Guardians – a year-round project funded by Wessex Water involving 86 volunteers who, between them, walk nearly 100 miles (160km) of their local river banks each month looking for visible signs of pollution.<\/p>\n
Ms Divine, the project’s co-ordinator, said: “We have got a hotline to report to Wessex Water and they come and investigate, usually within 24 hours, and they keep us updated.<\/p>\n
“We do lots of additional training, like aquatic plant ID. The teams also do Himalayan balsam pulling so they are involved in invasive species management as well.”<\/p>\n
Monitors have also detected other problems, including acute spills and farm pollution, which have been investigated by the Environment Agency.<\/p>\n
Ms Zimmerman, who volunteers for both projects, has spent her entire career in science and environmental education but says anyone with an interest can take part.<\/p>\n
“It’s a nice thing to do if you are passionate about the rivers,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got several sites I monitor and do it with different people. I’ve made lots of new friends, it’s a great social thing.<\/p>\n
“Having taught about the environment for so many years, it was something I wanted to keep doing when I retired.<\/p>\n
“And what could be nicer than sitting beside a river on a sunny day?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hormones from human medicines are also having an effect, along with the build-up of everyday chemicals used in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-265741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}