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!

 

Posted by Jack Spees | Filed Under General News, Restoration and Conservation Projects, Threats to the River, Working Partners 

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