How a polluted US river gives hope to cleaning up UK waterways

Fifty years ago, traversing the length of the Hudson would have been life-threatening. But I’ve just swum all 315 miles of it, writes endurance athlete Lewis Pugh – its reinvention should be a call to action for Britain too

Lewis Pugh: ‘Rivers are the arteries of our planet. They sustain life on Earth. We cannot have a healthy planet without healthy rivers’ (AP)

I’ll never forget my first sight of a bald eagle. It was in August this year, when I was swimming down the Hudson River. This magnificent bird took off from high in the forest canopy and started following me down the river. What made this sighting even more extraordinary is that, until recently, the bald eagle, which is the symbol of America, was virtually extinct in the Hudson Valley. 

I swam the length of the Hudson – 315 miles from the source in the Adirondack mountains all the way to New York City – to highlight the importance of clean rivers. Rivers are the arteries of our planet. They sustain life on Earth. We cannot have a healthy planet without healthy rivers.

When we dump industrial waste, agricultural run-off, raw sewage and plastic into rivers, we not only pollute the river, but affect all the life in it. Everything that goes into a river ultimately flows into the sea and does the same thing there. Rivers and oceans should never be dumping grounds – as they’ve sadly become in Britain. I believe this is a national disgrace, and one which will have long-term consequences.