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One Thames River cleanup volunteer piles a sleeping bag on top of the garbage plucked from the river banks in downtown #LdnOnt pic.twitter.com/08JRrC9yc4 — Jennifer Bieman (@JenatLFPress) October 20, 2018

Area watersheds aren’t getting high grades when it comes to water quality, the London Community Foundation’s Vital Signs recently released report found.

London and Middlesex County watersheds don’t meet provincial water quality objectives for E. coli bacteria and phosphorus – a mineral found in human sewage, animal waste and chemical fertilizers that’s a key culprit in Lake Erie algae growth.

Last year’s watershed report card by the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority – which compiled the data used in the Vital Signs report – found surface water quality in the London area earned C to D grades. The provincial target is a B.

The best water quality scores were in Plover Mills, which encompasses the town of St. Marys south to Fanshawe Lake, Komoka Creek west of London and a section of the river in Zorra Township and Thamesford.

The worst water quality scores were in Cedar Creek around Woodstock, Reynolds Creek south of Putnam and the watershed in downtown London known as the forks corridor.

“The situation is not ideal yet, we’re not where we’d like to be. It takes a whole lot of effort by a whole lot of different people, not just us,” said Eleanor Heagy of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority. “Awareness is the first step.”

Though phosphorus and E. coli in surface water are big concerns for the conservation authority, Heagy said trash in the river and along the banks is worth paying attention to as well.

“It’s a hazard for people and for wildlife,” she said. “It also can pose certain water quality issues, if it’s something that has chemicals in it.”

Kinghorn wants the public to see the Thames River as a tremendous resource, not just something they drive by and forget about.

“We sort of forget about it, we turn our back a little bit on it, we know it’s there, but we don’t look at it enough,” he said. “We need to do our part to keep it healthy.”

The Thames River Rally’s fall cleanup coincided with the final day of the River Talks at Museum London, a three-day event for Indigenous people, municipal leaders, conservationists and academics to discuss issues and management of the waterway.