... work to begin at Strines in 2008

Our project has secured funding from the EA for work to begin at Strines in 2008. The application was an internal bid along the lines of:

 . remove tunnel vegetation i.e. trees which stop light reaching the stream bed preventing weed growth

 . install LWD into the stream

These were recommendations of WTT Advisory Visit report Sep 2007.

We hope that WTT will be able to help manage this project; an initial meeting between EA, WTT and DNMAC is planned for mid/late May.

There will be plenty of behind the scenes work needed before any visible work can commence e.g.

 . agreement of landowners

 . approval of flood management authority (EA)

 . collection of electro-fishing and invertebrate data (EA).

Watch this space ...

Working group meeting 22-Apr-2008

Breck, Max, Patrick and I met last night - this time on the river bank in our waders and with our trout rods. Max and Patrick caught fish; I was a boy (not sure about Breck)

Proposed work at Strines (action Andrew)

1) arrange initial meeting / site visit between DNMAC, WTT and EA
On Monday afternoon I spoke with WTT. They propose a meeting for late May. I am awaiting confirmation of meeting date...

I think at this meeting it will be useful if we can set some expectations of the improvements the project should deliver.

2) identify affected landowners on the Strines section

- start Grid ref: SJ975864

- finish Grid Ref: SJ979861

Trout in the Town (action Patrick)

1) Letter of introduction to local businesses.

Invertebrate monitoring

To try to get to the bottom of what data about invertebrate life we might be able to collect for the EA, I spoke this afternoon with:

 . EA Ecological Appraisal team leader, NW (South) Area, David Goodwin
 . EA Riverfly Partnership contact Graham Lightfoot
 . Riverfly Partnership founder Cyril Bennett

The Riverfly Partnership methodology (to quote founder Cyril Bennett) is "targeted at spotting pollution incidents quickly and in a form acceptable to EA". It is not a tool for monitoring the improvement in a river's health.

David Goodwin concludes there is *NO* invertebrate data we anglers can collect which will be in any way useful to EA. If they don't already have data for the relevant sections of river, the EA Ecological Appraisal Team will survey before any habitat improvement commences.

We may in future wish to join the Riverfly Partnership to ensure the ongoing health and well-being of our river. We have two water treatment works and a sewage treatment works upstream on the Goyt, plus other industries on the Goyt and the Sett. Fish are very mobile and in a pollution incident will travel miles to avoid the pollutant; invertebrates are much less mobile so a significant indicator species.

EA funding for Riverfly Partnership this year dependent on them getting into 8 new areas: our area, NW South, is a virgin territory so Graham Lightfoot and Cyril Bennett quite keen for us to become involved. That's one for later I think...

Thanks Andrew!

I wanted just to congratulate everyone on a fantastic 1st working party. It was great to see what a few dedicated people and a couple of hours hard work can do. I was amazed at the amount of rubbish we pulled of the banks, on a relatively short stretch of river. I am not sure how many tonnes that skip held but it was full!
I also wanted to thank Andrew for all his hard work over the last few months. A true leader, he has managed to inspire us to get off our bums, and put something back! Without his efforts and environmental outlook this project would never have started, so thanks Andrew and well done mate!

Working-party Saturday 29-Mar-2008

At tonight's DNMAC meeting the committee approved the working-party and any member who attends will qualify for a £5 reduction in their re-joining fee next year.

Derbyshire CC Countryside Service has very kindly offered to us the use of their skip, their wheel-barrows and tea/coffee facilities at Mousley Bottom: thanks to Will Griffin and Paul Finn.

The various landowners are happy for us to access their land for the tidy-up:

 - New Mills TC

 - Derbyshire CC

 - Swizzels Matlow

The plan is to meet at Station Road for 10 am on Saturday 29-Mar-2008.

Please wear stout boots and bring suitable gloves if you have them. There is no plan to enter the river as Trout will have spawned and Grayling are in the process of or about to - we will have another working-party to tidy the river-bed during the high-Summer when the river is at its lowest level and there are no redds to disturb.

Brown trout make you smile!

Just thought I would post a picture of what the clean up is all about.....making brown trout happy....which make us happy!

Proposed working-party - River-walk 15-Mar-2008

On Saturday 15-Mar-2008 Patrick, Max, Breck and Andrew met to plan a working-party on the river. Starting at Waterside Road, Hague Bar and walking up as far as Station Road, New Mills. At the start of the walk, Hague Bar Meadows, and on through Mousley Bottom we found the expected plastic bags in trees following the winter flood, but there were only a few items of larger rubbish: a bicycle, a car tyre. Unfortunately once we got to Station Road we found much more of the larger stuff: piles of car tyres, road works signage, wooden pallets, et cetera.

We will propose a working-party for Saturday 29-Mar at the next DNMAC meeting: short notice but we need to get this tidy-up done before the temperature rises and those Olives start to emerge!