Erosion and Sediment

December 14, 2009

Dare I say it but I can feel in myself t hat the wind down to xmas has begun.  Maybe it’s just me, but I am finding it hard to keep the momentum up of the last few months, or maybe it’s this cursed weather, perhaps a couple of weeks off (yes I have wrangled two weeks off!) will reinvigorate me.  That said I certainly haven’t been resting on my laurels, there is so much on the to do list I am worried the weight of it will crush me, or crash my pc!

The usual Monday morning brief with Philip, it is nice when we have managed to get everything done from the week before – and then some, so that when we’re done the list hasn’t grown.  That said I had to sneak off early, as Grant Talbot and myself were walking over Park Brook that morning to look at problems and potential remedies.   It was very interesting, it is a strange beck that has the characteristics of a salmon stream at the bottom, a trout stream in the next section and at the top, with a very coarse fish section in the middle.  That said it doesn’t have huge numbers of anything in there according to our surveys.  Pollution is the number one issue, and this has been for the large part identified and the EA are on with tackling it.  The second problem is sediment, the banks are eroded and the resulting sediment is being dropped in the gravels everywhere, and the water always carries enough colour that means seeing the bottom in 1 metre of water is unlikely.  We identified several schemes and projects that we will start to build upon in 2010, to get underway in 2011.

Tuesday I had a meeting with an officer from the Calder pollution team from the EA, not much detail to be shared but it took the best part of the day, but was very productive.  In the afternoon I had a chat to Fish legal regarding a costing they need for a court case-slightly off our patch, but it always good to work with the national organisations where we can.

Wednesday we took advantage of the good weather and headed up the upper Hodder catchment for a “look-see” and to check in with a farmer about a possible habitat scheme for next year.  The visit to Langden was productive with salmon being spotted in the re-opened off stream spawning channel.  This was a great result, and looking at the gravel in the channel, I have no doubt that it will be full of eggs by the end of January.  The visit to the Farmer was also good, with a positive response and so we left him to go over the idea, and he asked us to check into a few aspects of our scheme and relationship to Agri-environment Schemes.

Thursday morning I was straight to Lutra house (home to our local EA teams), for a meeting with APEM, who area undertaking a survey across the UK looking at sediment and erosion, sources and solutions.  We discussed technique and then resources, followed by how much of our catchment could be done.  Well we did very well and have got Stock Beck, Park Brook and the River Loud into the survey.  They are aiming to walk over every “blue line”, on a 1:50,000 scale map within the selected sub-catchment.  These three are our worst performing, offering the best results if they can be restored.  And to have the info that APEM are going to get is going to be absolutely invaluable to us.

Friday we found out some more about the Agri-environment schemes, and we were pleasantly surprised by what we found.  For all the schemes, farmers have to score a minimum number of points, which is assessed and decided upon on a farm by farm basis.  Once they have the points they qualify for the payments and the more points they score the better for them, because points mean prizes!  In the new Upland Entry level scheme fencing of a beck scores 50 points per 100 metres and there is also a  maintenance of fencing points option.  For farmers in the normal ELS, there are also points for buffer strips along water courses, of various sizes and extra points where the buffer zone is to be placed on currently cultivated land.  All in all there is a lot farmers can benefit from these schemes, that will benefit the water courses very significantly.  The application form to get into any of these schemes is actually quite straight forward, when you first look at it, it is daunting but once you go through it, it’s not bad at all.  So here’s hoping that a few more farmers are tempted by these schemes.

And for a little bit of fun, a scale taken from a salmon of 109mm in length on Stock beck, such a length normally suggests that it is a parr, i.e. 1+ winter in age.  What do you think?  Scale reading is often considered a bit of a black art, but those who get good at it (not me!) can disseminate quite a lot of info from a scale.

Salmon foolsyke 09

As a guide, it isn’t quite the same as counting tree rings, the rings are added continuously, but during the winter the rings will become closer together as the fishes’ growth decreases in the cold, and then they spread out during the spring summer and autumn.

Posted by Charles Edward Poate | Filed Under General News, Grants and project management, Restoration and Conservation Projects, Surveys, Threats to the River, Working Partners 

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