Rivers or Waste Removal Channels?

The rivers of the UK are generally in a terrible state. George Monbiot reiterates that rivers are under dual attack from water companies and intensive farming (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/21/britains-rivers-suffocating-industrial-farm-waste). Monbiot gives the river Wye, on the English/ Welsh border, as a typical example. Much of the normal biota of the Wye has been destroyed by the rich organic slop leeching into it from neighbouring intensive chicken farms. I really don't think we should expect anything better, when rivers are used with relative impunity, as organic waste disposal units. Water companies legally discharge raw sewage into rivers when their treatment plants can't cope with rainfall. The same companies sometimes also take too much water from the rivers. The organic run-off from intensive farming (this can involve stock other than chickens), generates algal blooms. Crystal waters are converted into an oxygen-poor, green slime. Many of the river organisms die. Claims about conserving biodiversity are meaningless, if rivers become, de facto, a part of the sewage system.