Colour-changing streams

Earlier in January, residents were alarmed to find the Brislington Brook turn a very bright shade of green, seen especially in the upper reaches of the Brook and Nightingale Valley. Our Chair Giorgia, who works with the water industry has reassured us that this is a tracer dye, used often in the construction or water to locate a leak or misconnection. A harmless biodegradable dye is poured down drains or toilets where a misconnection is suspected, and the dye allows the misconnection to be located easily. 

Colour changes in the stream are important to monitor as they can be indicative of a pollution spill which can be alerted to the Environment Agency (EA) via the incident hotline at:  

0800 80 70 60
 
Typically, if the colour is a bright fluorescent green or blue, then this is typically a tracer dye, nonetheless this can still be logged to the EA just in case.