Liliana Tarrant Snedden: When Freshwater No Longer Feels Fresh

Across Wales, young people are speaking out about the growing water pollution crisis affecting the places they love. Through our Not So Freshwater campaign, Voices for Freshwater are sharing how pollution is shaping their relationship with rivers, seas and communities and what they want the next Welsh Government to do differently.

Here, Liliana Tarrant Snedden, one of our Voices for Freshwater spokespeople, reflects on living between Cardiff and Pembrokeshire.

How does water pollution show up where you live?

As a Welsh young person, living in Cardiff and being from Pembrokeshire, water pollution is heartbreakingly present in many forms in these places I love and call home. In Pembrokeshire, our beaches fill with plastic and outflow events turn the sea into a place of fear. Rivers brim with agricultural runoff and estuaries gleam with an oil-slick sheen.

In Cardiff, the banks of the Taf hang with buntings of litter, as I learn in university of the pharmaceuticals and microplastics choking our waterways, and the Bay is closed as the waters now bring sickness instead of joy. Pollution is everywhere, in our skies, our rivers, our seas, our soils and now also our bodies, as the waters that once fed thirst and brought delight are tainted.

How does it affect your relationship with nature or your community?

I realised recently that I have never swum in Welsh freshwater, yes, I’ve been drenched by rain and spent much of my childhood in the salt of the Celtic sea, but I grew up mistrusting river, lake and stream. This disconnect from the waterways of home, fed by worries of the hidden pollution that might lie within, has always sent me turning to the supposed safety of a tap or the potentially misplaced trust in the clarity of the sea. Feeling that supposed freshwater is never fresh, gives an air of sadness and suspicion to these places the local community should feel rooted and at home.

Water is a purifier, the banks of a river and the waves on the shore provide solace, inspiration and joy, but this ancient dependence on water, this age-old relationship, provider of vitality and life has turned stale, stagnant and slurried. Human actions, our actions, have dirtied these veins of life. Dishonouring these life-giving vessels, in a toxic relationship that harms nature, freshwater, ourselves and our futures.

What do you want the next Welsh Government to protect or change?

I want the next Welsh Government to heal, restore and protect. We need an improved system that protects rivers fairly and transparently, with connected monitoring, clear lines of responsibility and decisive action where needed. I dream of healthy, biodiverse waters that connect communities and restore our precious relationship with the natural world. I also strongly believe that nature, including our waters, fresh and marine, fundamentally deserve rights, to legally protect these ecosystems that provide such key ecosystem services to us all. The Welsh

The Government needs to join the growing international movement to recognise the rights of nature, adhering to the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, and ensuring that nature, from mountain to deep sea, is protected and restored for our children, our future, our lives.

Poem by Liliana

Their waters run through me,

from nimbus to mountain trickle,

from chattering stream to rumbling torrent.

From anguished eyes down my cheek,

Dropping, returning to the soil and the cycle of all things.

Join the Not So Freshwater Campaign & take action

If these words resonate with you, now is the time to act. Send our election manifesto to your Member of the Senedd (MS) and ask them to commit to stronger protections for Wales’ rivers and seas.

Add your voice. Share this story. Help ensure the next Welsh Government puts clean, thriving waters at the heart of its priorities.