Mail Online: Revolutionary app highlights toxic levels of sewage in Britain's beautiful rivers and lakes
“The astonishing levels of raw sewage dumped into Britain's lakes and rivers has been laid bare as campaigners are now set to introduce a new forecast which lets swimmers know if it is safe to take a dip.
Shocking photos showed how Lake Windermere in the Lake District turned bright green last Autumn as great swathes of it were covered in toxic algae, caused by phosphate 'nutrients' which largely enter the water through sewage overflows.
Blue-green algae, which is not actually algae but cyanobacteria, can cause severe skin rashes, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, eye or throat irritation and allergic reactions or breathing difficulties - and it can be fatal to animals and, in rare cases, humans.
The Save Windermere campaign, along with local business, will use the British-made microscopes combined with AI to determine cyanobacteria levels in the waters within just a few minutes.
The Environment Agency will often need one or two weeks to get results on the toxic levels, by which point an algae bloom could have cleared up.
The new system will allow the levels of the harmful blue-green algae to be known in real time, letting wild swimmers and lake users know if it is safe to go into the waters.
And Save Windermere have now started an £8,000 fundraiser to pay for the IO light microscopes, which will be sold at a discounted price, and for the AI software by partners Bloom Optix which can identify the harmful cyanobacteria 'as well as a trained scientist'.
Campaign director Matt Staniek, 27, has criticised water company United Utilities for the high levels of untreated sewage that ends up in the lake, either being directly dumped there or from from rivers upstream.
Last year, South Lakeland District Council, which owns the Windermere lake bed, told families on holiday to keep themselves and their pets away from potentially toxic blue-green algae.
Fish were also spotted swimming in circles at the water's surface, prompting concerns that they were suffocating and 'struggling for life'. The algae uses up oxygen dissolved in the water, which fish need to breath. As oxygen levels continue to deplete the fish can die, causing devastating consequences for other local wildlife that rely on them for food.
'By their own admission United Utilities is the single largest input of phosphorous into Windermere which is causing its decline. There are 16 point sources of pollution from United Utilities in the Windermere catchment,' Mr Staniek told MailOnline.
'We have known about the decline of Windermere for decades. We need the damage rectified.'
Mr Staniek added: 'Last year from just a handful of sites we saw 5,900 hours of discharge of untreated sewage into the catchment, all of which has gone into Lake Windermere.
'Much of the damage has already been done to Windermere as we have a layer of sediment at the bottom of the lake which is an accumulation of decades worth of pollution.
'And it's simply because we have not seen enough investment to ensure that in 2023 no sewage discharge is going into England's largest lake and the jewel in the crown of the Lake District National Park. This is unacceptable.'
Mr Staniek told us: 'Last year the north basin of Windermere, an entire five mile stretch, turned bright green - and I saw a girl aged 12 or 13 swimming in it with no warnings given that it might be unsafe.'
But the environmentalist says that with the new technology, which is hoped to be able to forecast blue-green algae blooms in the future, people will feel safer when they visit as they will have real time confirmation of Windermere's safety.
As the results of sewage in the lake become more apparent, tourists may begin to become more wary of coming, dramatically impacting the local economy.
He said: 'We do not want to put off tourists by saying: 'You can't come to Windermere because there are toxic algal blooms all the time.'
'We want to make sure that people can continue to visit our greatest natural resource that brings £750million a year to the community.'
Mr Staniek added: 'Windermere is a symbol of what the government, Ofwat and United Utilities have failed to do for decades, but also for what could be done. If you removed the sewage Windermere will recover.
'I was shocked last summer by just how few warning signs there were warning people of the risk to their health from the blue-green algae.
'It's startling that as this summer approaches that it's up to lone campaign to ensure that people can come here and swim free from fear.
'We need to pull out heads out the sand. It is happening, it is real.
'To the water companies the message is: 'Stop pumping sewage into Lake Windermere'.'
And Pete Kelly from Swim the Lakes, who will be monitoring the lake for the project once it is live, said: 'It's important to get involved in it for me. No lake, no future for me and my business.
'And future generations won't be able to experience one of the most beautiful lakes in the country.
'Windermere is a very safe, beautiful place to swim but if the level of nutrients keeps to get pumped into it at the current level and global warming continues, it's bad new for the ecosystem.
'There's a ticking time bomb of nutrients that have been going into Windermere for decades as it has two very distinct, very deep basins of around 70 metres.
'As water temperatures increase, it provides breeding grounds for algae and blue-green algae. We don't know, unless we do advanced laboratory tests, if it is toxic.
'I have been coming to the Lake District since I was a child. It's a beautiful environment and we're screwing it up - it's unacceptable. My business aside I'm very passionate about saving it.
'When I'm not working on the waters guiding clients, I'm swimming in the waters, kayaking and canoeing. It's a major part of my life. I live and breathe Lake Windermere. I'm very rarely not on or near it. I moved here 20 years ago to be near this kind of thing.
'The big thing is, it's not a new story. With the massive influx of people and the post-covid interest in watersports people are more aware of what's going on. I have been in business for 18 years and I have been trying to get in touch with organisations that are trying to do something about it.'
Talking about the Save Windermere campaign Mr Kelly said: 'Matt Staniek is a force of nature and he is holding people that are the biggest polluters to account - which in our book is United Utilities.
'We pay them to deal with our water, they do a crap job of it, and we pay them to give it back.'
He said that businesses around lake saw a downturn in business last year after reports of the blue-green algae covering Windermere.
He said: 'Last year Windermere went green for so long you couldn't miss it and we did see a downturn. Luckily there's a lot of lakes so I can go to others. But other businesses associated with Lake Windermere did see a downturn in business.
'On most days of the year Lake Windermere is the best place to swim in Britain - but on some days it is not.
'I've only ever had to reschedule a swim because of that issue once. I do regular tests with a bacterial testing kit. I do this every time before I take a class and it has only come positive once.
'If things continue as they are, I will see these tests come up positive every day.'
He said the new kit is 'brilliant' as you can test the water' there and then'.
'People aren't often satisfied with the answer I give them as I haven't got a laboratory in my basement, but now we can point to a set of data and say 'if it looks like that don't go in the water'.
But he said it was 'outrageous' being forced into needing this system: 'I'm really glad we have the opportunity now to do something which will hopefully put pressure on politicians and United Utilities to do something about it.'
'We're paying them to do the water and they cut corners and and don't do a good job - we have proven this in Ambleside area that the levels of pollution go through the roof.
'We have to make a stink about it. The amount of profits they make are obscene, when you look at the dividends paid to shareholders. They've shafted out countryside for profit and it can't go on.'
The approximately £1,000 digital microscope can fit in your jacket pocket, making it more portable than heavy and fragile laboratory microscopes which can cost tens of thousands of pounds.
And Mr Monk says it is so simple a child can use it: 'You put some water on a lake under a slide, and you pair the microscope with your phone. Anyone can do that, we've trained kids to do it.'
'The second element, developed with our partners Bloom Optix in the US, is to find whether what is in the lake good for the environment or if it it is cyanobacteria as they look identical.
The microscopes generate a picture on your phone screen and the AI will process the image and tell you whether it's algae or cyanobacteria - and what kind of bacteria and whether or not it is likely to be toxic.
And it can also tell how much is in the sample, as one cell is not going to do any more 'but if there's billions we're in trouble'.
And the process only takes about five minutes, compared to potentially weeks for official tests.
'The problem with that, is by the time you process it, the bloom is gone and the question is irrelevant.'
The process has already been tested by researchers at America's Great Lakes, which are suffering from algae blooms.
He said that the ease of use and affordability of the system means that potentially millions more samples can be collected and studied, to produce models which include data from your phone, such as location, weather conditions and more.
