It is NOT inevitable that the River Wye is polluted with chicken manure.
Justine Evans, a wildlife filmmaker who lives near the Wye and is lead claimant in a “poisoned river” legal action, was explaining to a BBC interviewer why 4,500 claimants have just commenced a lawsuit against privately-owned Welsh Water and Avara Foods, a nearby large chicken producer.
The claimants say they have evidence to show that the Wye and two nearby rivers, the Lugg and Usk, have become toxic, smelly, slimy and green. Why? Because chicken manure spread on fields has leached into the adjoining rivers. There have also been repeated Welsh Water sewage spills.
The case began in the High Court in London on 27 April 2026. The claimants want the three rivers cleaned up and compensation paid.
The numbers of chicken raised near here “has grown and grown” on an industrial scale from a few hundred chickens to over 24 million in the rivers’ catchment area, Evans told the BBC interviewer. That is almost 25% of all chickens grown in England.
Solicitor Celine O’Donovan of the law firm Leigh Day added: “The responsibility for the decline of these rivers needs to lie with the people they knew what was going to happen and have made the money from it and control the supply chain that resulted in it.”
Avara and Welsh Water say the claims against them are “misguided”. Avara is a 50/50 joint venture between Cargill, the US‑based agri‑food corporation and Faccenda Foods, the UK poultry business of the Faccenda family.
The fact that Welsh Water is a defendant raises, once again, the need for our water utilities to be nationalised and put under the control of workers and water users.
Click here to watch the recent Channel Four docudrama, Dirty Business.
Click here to sign the End the sewage pollution scandal petition.
Note from an editor at The Left Lane
We would like to provide ongoing coverage of this case, but our resources are thin. If you have some experience as a reporter and would like to be the TLL correspondent at the trial, please write us at [email protected]
