Urban Rivers
May 25, 2010
The Ribble has a surprisingly large amount of urban landscape, when you consider much of what it is known for is it’s fells, hills, and idyllic countryside landscape. For example, there’s: Settle, Barnoldswick, Clitheroe, Whalley, Padiham, Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Long Ridge, and Barrowford. Not to mention those outside the area we currently works like: Preston, Blackburn, Bolton, and Wigan. Plus the plethora of medium sized villages. All of these provide interesting issues when considering improving our rivers, we have Barriers, pollution and habitat degradation. And tackling some of these issues can bring interesting conflicts, such as weir removal, improving habitat impacting on visual appeal, and how do you source a cross connection in a major town?
Well some of these issues are currently taking up much of my “thinking time”. As well as tackling our on going projects we must keep an eye to the future and what we plan to tackle next as some require years of planning. The first step in that really got under way last week, with Charlie Poate starting to map out barriers to migration, habitat available above, what is need to make them passable, and most importantly cost. This will take him the best part of three months, and that’s just getting the basics in place. Monday he got underway with the desktop study, while Stephen and I met with Mark Rudd and Grant Talbot from the EA to get our legal agreements in place for our up coming partnership projects. After that Philip was in and we had our usual meeting. In the afternoon I had to prepare a presentation for Philip to give at the Association of Rivers Trusts seminar in Ballindary later in the week. After that was done I worked on a presentation for the Ribble Valley Strategic Partnership Environmental Theme Group (what a mouthful!). The presentation was to give an over view of what we do as an organisation and to look at how we can work together.
Tuesday was the meeting of the Strategic partnership which finished at lunch time. It was an interesting meeting with several of the conflicts mentioned above being discussed, not least Hydro electricity proposals, and the implications on the ecology of rivers. In the afternoon Charlie and I went up to Swanside to look at flow measuring over weirs. It was a nice afternoon and although every pool was stuffed with Smolts I was particularly disheartened by the lack of flow trapping smolts in the pools where they are over exposed to predators, but hopefully we will get some rain soon to get them out to sea where they belong.
Wednesday I popped into the office in the morning, but then had a meeting with a bank manager until lunch time. In the afternoon I tried to finish writing up the contracts for tendering of the Barrowford 3 project. In the evening was the AGM of the Calder Group. This was an interesting meeting and we managed to get off agenda so much I think the Chair was pulling his hair out! The main topic was Padiham weir and what had been carried out.
Thursday Mike Horner, one of our trustees, came in to go through our invertebrate monitoring data which he is now going to collate and analyse for us as our scheme is ever increasing, with two more training days fully booked and hopefully one more (if we get the funding) to come. In the afternoon Charlie and I did a walk over survey of the urban areas of the River Brun and Calder. I was amazed by the number of trout present and the size of them! Although I am told that their presence has long been known about by local residents, it was a real eye opener for me!
Although some might not like Graffiti, the trout don’t seem to mind!
Friday I had a few chores in the office to get on with, but in the afternoon, another walkover survey of sections of Laneshaw, Colne, and Trawden. Soon I will be able to find weirs without even looking! It was a long week, and numerous problems found on various rivers, but rather than see the glass half empty I’m trying to look at it half full. If there are a lot of fish present now, what will it be like if we can carry out some habitat improvement works.
Working with Partners
May 18, 2010
I’m sorry that my Monday blog is now becoming Tuesday or Wednesday but it’s a bit hec-tic around here. I’m hoping thought that the appointment of a volunteer catchment GIS officer will take some pressure off. For those not in the know, GIS is Geographical Information System. It is very much the “in” thing in Conservation these days. Some will ask how useful it is, but I can promise you it’s essential, for planning, funding and prioritising projects. The new body is Charlie Poates, and is here for 3 – 5 months. He is particularly looking at mapping out the locations of barriers, their impacts, what we need to do to them, and how much it’s going to cost. This will help us to prioritise where to target work and have a folder with all the details for a project bid ready to go.
But back to last week! Monday I was out with Burnley college students, looking at invertebrate monitoring and how to do walk over surveys. We hope to then utilise the students to add to our knowledge of the catchment, which Charlie can then put on our “problems” map! In the afternoon our Passport scheme booklets finally arrived so I dropped them into Vareys in Clitheroe, and sent out copies to those who had bought vouchers. I hope to see some results from peoples fishing in the very near future, although I suspect we need some rain first!
Tuesday I met Mark Rudd to look at our new proposal for easing passage at Hodder place gauging weir, we had a good morning and have got a new plan that we are costing up as we speak! In the afternoon I checked on the progress of the Weir removal near Rimmington and needless to say Baileys were nearly done. I then headed to Horton-in-Ribblesdale to talk with Ian Fleming the River keeper for Manchester Anglers Association and Kyle Young from the EA about a research program we’re doing up there this year, looking at why Gayle and Cam beck are failing good ecological status. We have a good idea, but need some evidence to back it up for when we apply for project funding.
Wednesday Janet Lord came in to go over our new Data base for storing all our fisheries data. If you’ve seen my report you’ll know we hold a lot of data that takes us an age to input, and on top of that is not stored in a user friendly way. With the knew data base this should all change. It will also hopefully be available to other rivers trusts to make use of if they please.
Thursday we met with Sopiha from the “vinspired” program, which is a scheme designed to allow young volunteers to get involved in various work experience through volunteering. Hopefully this will bolster our numbers of tree planters, and invertebrate samplers! In the afternoon it was contract writing for Barrowford 3. One of our trustees Dom came in to give his expertise which was most welcome as I felt a little overwhelmed!
Friday I visited our project site on Swanside to see how the fish easement works were going, and again Bailey’s were nearly finished! It looked good and only requires a small amount of work now to finish off. In the afternoon I was down at The Barn in Bamber Bridge for a workshop on Water Bodies and Watercourses, hosted by the Wildlife trust. There were representatives from many different conservation organisations, and the main thrust was to find out what organisations where doing where for Biodiversity action plan species (BAP species). The amazing thing for all attendees was how much the rivers trust movement was doing. I took a long list of not only what we were doing, but what the rivers trusts in the Northwest as a whole were doing. Many good contacts were made, and the BAP species process now might start to help the rivers trusts to continue there work, but also vice versa we may be able to help many of our partners to deliver theirs. And this is what it’s all about, working together for the greater cause not working off on our own ignoring what others are doing, especially when it may be the same thing or complimentary to our work.
Seeing the projects getting done
May 10, 2010
After a nice bank holiday weekend trying to get my batteries recharged a short week was a nice easing back into the thick of things. To ease into the week a friend and I went for a few casts on the Calder on Monday. Catching 8 fish up to 1/2 a pound might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I thoroughly enjoyed it. What was evident though was the delayed spring, a cold north easterly wind and lack of sun certainly put a chill up my back.
Tuesday I went down to a presentation hosted by the Trent Rivers Trust, Natural England, and Catchment Sensitive Farming. The Presentation was about undertaking large scale invertebrate sampling to identify sources of pollution. Why I was so keen on attending is to see the outcomes of their project, and whether with the volunteer scheme we are running we can hope to achieve the same. The outcomes showed that by undertaking 100 plus kick samples twice a year they can trace back organic pollution events relatively easily, however the analysis of their samples were to species level, something that our scheme doesn’t do, but from what was discussed I am confident our scheme will allow us to do this, however we need more sites to be covered and that means more volunteers!!! Which brings me onto Wednesday nicely! We have now organised the date of our next training day for the invertebrate sampling course. The 12th of June. The course is a day long and if you are interested please email Catherine in the office – whose address is : admin@ribbletrust.com. Volunteering for this does require some commitment, one day a month or at most every other month we need volunteers to go out and do a kick sample at a given site (agreed by us and the volunteer), then to send the results into us. All equipment and training is provided free by us, and if you’re an angler you’ll learn a lot about the flies you’re trying to imitate when trout fishing, and if you’re not an angler you will be amazed by the wildlife that is found below water!
Also on Wednesday I had a meeting with Philip which lasted longer than usual as we had two weeks to catch up on, and a lot to discuss. I also had correspondence to catch up on including getting our passport scheme sorted. It was meant to start last Saturday but after a problem with the printers the beat booklets and vouchers only arrived today. So now I can say that the scheme is fully available with tickets available in Varey’s outdoor world in Clitheroe, and online (see our home page!). At the moment the lack of water will make fishing hard, but I plan on going out this week to see if I can winkle a fish or two out!
Thursday I got to writing a report that was long over due on Juvenile salmonid populations above and below Settle. I also liaised with the borough council on a couple of schemes that are currently in the pipeline for Clitheroe. I also had to get on top of the planning permission application for Barrowford 3.
Friday I went over to see the work done to Barrowford 2 which looks brilliant (from a fish perspective but will weather in quickly), now fish can get all the way to the heritage centre in Barrowford on Pendle Water and hopefully in the not to distant future fish will get all the way to Roughlee! This will benefit King Fishers (which I saw on Friday), Otters and a host of other fish dependant species! To make sure of this I headed to Padiham weir – or should I say the site that was previously Padiham weir! The weir has been reduced in height and a rock ramp installed. Work in river is nearly complete and the hope is all in channel work will be done by this Friday. But most importantly it is now passable to “All Species – of all ages – at all water levels!”
In the afternoon Catherine and I rushed to finish the Planning application for Barrowford 3 and we completed it just in time to get it in the post!
Saturday I went with a volunteer to Barrowford 3, the brave volunteer donned a wet suit and a snorkel mask to have a look at the weir below water level. The water felt freezing to me – and I only got my hands and feet wet – so god only knows what it was like under the water! This week we hope to see two more projects started and completed so the improvements are coming thick and fast at the moment!
Packing in a varied week
May 5, 2010
It was a long week last week, well at least it felt that way! Having been down south for a week, I was eager on Sunday to see what progress was made at Padiham, so after lunch I headed over to Padiham. I was thoroughly pleased to see that nearly all work to the weir had been completed! The three downstream bed check weirs were in place (with some minor works to be done), the rocks in between to form rock ramps were in place, and the height of the weir had been reduced to complete the final major stage of work! Fish are now able to migrate through Padiham weir and up to Pendle Water! I will get some photos on the project page of the website soon. So happy was I that I decided to get a couple of hours fishing in.
Monday Was back to normal, Philip was away so I got stuck into catching up on the correspondence from the previous week. It wasn’t to bad though as the joys (or horrors) of modern technology meant I was able to do much of the emailing required via phone while I was away. Once that was sorted I had to design an interpretation panel for one of our habitat schemes, then more paperwork for Barrowford 3 fish pass, but to round off the day Stephen and I went and walked over Stock beck were we are planning some substrate addition to try and aid spawning and the recovery of this surprisingly important beck.
Tuesday first thing we went out with the EA to do a White Claw crayfish survey at a project site. This was to make sure that if present we carried out a rescue before works commenced. However, sadly none were present. In the afternoon a meeting to discuss the way forward with easing fish passage on the Hodder flow gauging weir. It was a good meeting and we now feel there is a way ahead.
Wednesday I went into Ribble Valley Borough Council to meet with the planning department to find out more about the planning process where rivers and streams are likely to be impacted. This was a really good session and I hope that positive things will come to pass. The afternoon was more Barrowford 3 paperwork! Plus a visit to Mearley Brook to put up the last signs for the passport scheme.
Thursday I met David Jackson up on Colne water to walk the bottom section of the beck and look at the pollution concerns David had. Unfortunately he was spot on and we found several problems, which the EA are now tackling. In the afternoon was more paper work for Barrowford 3, and that continued into Friday. Why so much paperwork? Well we need:
- Permission from the owners
- Planning permission
- Land Drainage consent
- Fish pass group approval
- Preparation of Tender documents
So you can see that each of these are fairly well involved!
Friday We got the last of the Passport Scheme boxes up, but unfortunately the vouchers and booklets didn’t come in time for the opening of our season. I was really gutted especially when we had several enquiries about this over the weekend, but I now have the vouchers and will soon get the booklets so soon people can start to explore some of these wonderful small wild trout streams.
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