Rivers and people
January 23, 2012
Well I missed my Friday blog deadline as I was attending a workshop in Preston. The workshop was about the Lancashire Nature Partnership. It was a useful day with a fantastic attendance of about 70 people from various organisations. The trust had three attendees, myself, our Chairman Philip Lord and Jo Spencer the Engagement Officer for Ribble Life. Jo was not there to input into the workshop but as a “facilitator”, in essence she had to capture comments, prioirities and issues people had in relation to Rivers, Stillwater and Coasts. The LNP has many themes, but it seemed only appropriate for us to help out on the Water based one! I used this as an opportunity to observe other peoples feelings towards water, which meant having to not be so outspoken (which for those that know me, will be hard to believe!). There were many passionate people at the meeting which is always nice as it helps to re-charge enthusiasm, and I often find that this is one of the most beneficial outcomes of these types of events. That said I was fairly enthused after giving a presentation to Neloson Naturalist Society on Wednesday. They had a fantastic turn out, and everyone was keen to help with the work required to restore our rivers and streams. At the end of the meeting I was given a real boost when one of the member pulled me aside and paid me a compliment. It really boosted my confidence and drive, but also made me more concious that the work I do is not just about rivers and streams, but for the benefit of the people around them.
The benefits that our work can have for people are much greater than many realise, and the new year really does see a change in the way we deliver our work – A much greater emphasis on highlighter the benefits to communities, and also greater inclusion in delivering these benefits.
This was highlighted in a meeting on Monday with David Ingham of the Ribble Valley Strategic Partnership, who came in to discuss the ways in which we may be able to increase the linkage between our work, other work and particularly community groups within the Ribble Valley. It was quite exciting and hopefully this will progress with lots of delivery in the coming 12 to 18 months.
Tueday we had a meeting with the EA and United Utilities to discuss potential partnership working, throughout the catchment. We had several ideas, and we need to develop these further but we are hopeful that we will see some physical outcomes with these partners in the coming years.
Wednesday Stephen and I were on site on the Hodder first thing to look at the work we’ve deliverd in 2011 and work we hope to deliver in the next few months. We have a great site for large woody debris addition, and were getting really excited by possibilities, when we brought back down to earth, when we noticed some discolouration of the river. We then realised the source, the ground was still frozen and recently slurry had been spread on the field next to the river, the heavey rain on Tuesday night then proceeded to wash the slurry straight off the frozen ground and into the river. Unfortunately this is not a breach of any regulations in the area we visited. But highlighted the problems of diffuse pollution we are facing. With the heavy rainfall in December and early January, much of the slurry storage farms have will be full to capacity, thus farmers will have taken the opportunity to spread slurry in the two dry days we had.
Slurry running off frozen ground
Although engagement with farmers and education of these issues is an important part of solving the issue, a key part is improving infrastructure so that they increase their slurry storage capacity. This is where I feel some sympathy with farmers, many farms don’t have the finances in place to undertake these improvements, and some improvements can be quite costly. We are now looking to setup some advisory visits and help farmers by part funding improvements where they are not obliged to do so under the law.
Thursday we met with the EA to discuss the trusts aims and priorities for addressing fish passage in the Ribble Catchment. They provided data on how many obstructions they had, interestingly there were 650! However many of these were in river structures not presenting barriers. We did though find that our barriers data base has barrier on it the EA were unaware of. It was an interesting meeting and we found an excellent way of splitting the EAs priorities and our own such that we shouldn’t replicate our efforts.
And Friday, well that was the LNP workshop!
Keeping rain water where it should be kept…
January 6, 2012
Well I won’t need to tell any of you who live locally what the weathers been like! I have been amazed by the sheer persistance of the rain, the rivers have been above average daily flows for weeks now. I hope that these big spates and near flooding haven’t done to much damage to our fish redds. I suspect that many of the salmon kelts from this years spawning will be in very poor condition now. HAving spawned they will have used up almost all of their fat reserves and high flow events like we’ve seen will result in high numbers of mortalities as the fish are either battered against banks and rocks or their fat reserves exhausted completely. However high flows can be important to kelts, as if they are fit enough to return to sea then need higher water levels to make migration back to sea possible, but timing is everything. The fish need a chance to recover from spawning and prepare for the downward journey.
It is these high flows that also cause bank erosion, flooding, consented discharges from sewage works and many other problems that affect both rivers and communities. Often the high flows are exsaperated by land drainage, often on the upland moors. The drainage I’m refering to, many will have guessed, are called grips. These drain peat moors to improve grassland, but as a result they can increase peak flows in rivers and carry with them increased amounts of peat from the moors.
On Wednesday I undertook a “perilous” journey up onto Blea Moor with a colleague from Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust and the EA. I say perilous, but really mean very very wet, windy and cold! Blea Moor is a moor that on one side drains into Gayle Beck one of the formative becks of the Ribble. Up on the moors highest point we are selectively blocking grips to reduce the speed of run-off and thus peak flows of the river, and provide a more consistent river level. It will also help to reduce diffuse pollution, restore blanket bog and thus increase carbon sequestration.
I have never been as wet in all my life, the gales driving the rain penetrated my new water proofs (a xmas present) and soaked me to the skin! But when we got to the blocked grips nothing could contain my excitement over our work – much to the amazement of a my colleagues. The blocked grips were working fantastically well and it was plainly visible that we had slowed the rate of run off. This project has been a real challenge for Ribble Trust, working with new partners and closer than ever with existing ones. There have been many obstacles, but through the effective management and dedication of both the trust and it partners we have got there. It just shows what can be achieved with a dedicated, skilled and experienced team (ok I’ll stop with the gloating!)
Grips blocked on Blea Moor retaining water where it should be
Uphill view of Blocked Grips
Other good news includes the EA securing funding for their contribution to the spring salmon tagging project, don’t forget to visit Gareth’s page on this, and have placed the order, fingers cross we will have the project running by mid February.
Our Ribble Life website is nearing completition and much of the content will be around how to get involved in specific aspects of fixing rivers. There’ll be link from our website as soon as it goes live. We have been engaging many community groups, landowners, businesses and other organisations. If we can turn everyones enthusiasm into action on the ground the Ribble is going to be a better place.
URES is really gathering pace, Vic has been busy talking to various community groups, and all her progress will be on the URES website, also soon to go live. The modelling for where we can do work is well underway. And the first fish pass we are tackling will commence in the next few months.
We recently met with our other partners on the Invasives project, for which we prepared a summary. Although before the summary we felt that perhaps we hadn’t achieved as much as we wanted when you list it all out it’s incredible what Charlie and Adam have pulled off in just 2 months. If you have any invasives to report please visit the website http://www.lancashireinvasives.org/. Although this isn’t the best time of year for tackling invasives, it has been the best time of year for preparing and contacting landowners and other groups. The guys have built a data base of 68 key landowners and secured committments from many of them. They have also had volunteers sign up for the mink trapping (27 traps in operation) and collated 7293 invasives species records for the Ribble and Lancashire – Plus much more.
Katie has almost finished her first appraisal of the Darwen, and she’s booked me down for a tour of the Darwen at the end of this month to start the next phase of the project. She has found several really encouraging areas but more poor areas. I became a little concerned at the sinister grin, as she explained before the start of the Darwen project she felt anything was possible but not anymore. Hopefully a visit from me will reinstall the “anything is possible” enthusiam and not drain my enthusiam.
Well I think that’s enough out of me for this week. Don’t forget to get intouch if you are interested in helping with tree planting over the next 3 months (dates to be confirmed).
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