Olly’s job is to find and solve the causes of river pollution. Every misconnected pipe contributes to damage. In a rural area like Somerset, with thousands of small farms and houses with private water, slurry and sewage systems, it’s challenging to stay on top of it all.
As we walk around the lanes and fields about a mile upstream of Taunton’s official bathing place he points out some recent problems – a nursing home that had wastewater pipes going straight to the river, a vast dairy farm which leaked slurry, an illegal dump of soil in the river. From wild swimmers to migrating salmon and the invertebrates and gravel they depend upon, the whole ecology can suffer 'death by a thousand cuts'.