It was an absolute pleasure to spend the day with Roger de Clare First School & Nursery in Puckeridge earlier this week to share the story of chalk streams.
In the morning session at the school the children learned how chalk streams are formed and why they are so special. The learned of some of the spectacular wildlife that lives in our valleys close to the river, including the mayfly, trout, lamprey, damselflies, glow worms and the hopefully soon to be re-introduced water voles that rely on natural river and water meadow habitats for their survival.
Next they looked at what makes a healthy chalk stream and heard of the challenges they face, including abstraction and pollution, their causes and consequences.
Finally, after meeting Cerys the Cased Caddisfly Larvae and learning about river flies and riverfly monitoring, we all took a break before the first group of students walked down to the river at Standon to take a look at the river and some of the creatures living there. A riverfly sample was taken and the children then identified larvae, placed them in sample trays and then looked at them under the microscope (the WOW!!! each time a child made visual contact through the lenses almost brought a tear to the eye!).
The second class joined us after lunch and a fresh sample of river invertebrates was taken. The same moments of joy, fascination and joy spreading across the group as bullheads, freshwater shrimp, olives and even a cased caddis were found and identified (Cerys had put in a good word!). Heartwarming stuff!
In all, 48 children from Year 4 joined us on the day and (we hope) gained a greater knowledge of our their local chalk stream – a day that will I anticipate be the first of many and the beginning of a long term relationship between Friends of the Rib & Quin and Roger de Clare School.
FORQ are very keen to develop relationships with all schools across the catchment, whatever age group they cater for. As well as education and awareness days like the one described here, we have lots of exciting educational ideas and projects, including plans to bring trout (and possibly even river flies) into the classroom, to as many of our pupils as possible.
This however, is not possible without funding, FORQ being a small and entirely volunteer organisation. In that light we would be very interested to hear from local charities and businesses who might be in a position to contribute to our schools work.
“The Lugg is not a chalk stream, but chalk streams are the river type most severely damaged by dredging – historic and current – (because they take the longest time to self-heal) and the ignorance that drove this farmer’s environmental vandalism and that fuels the public debate about it and dredging more generally, is a threat to all rivers.”
River Lugg after dredging. Photo Defra
Charles Rangeley Wilson’s thoughts on the dredging of the River Lugg and the sentencing of the farmer responsible make for fine reading and hopefully a greater understanding of the damaging the dredging of rivers does. I do encourage you to follow the link here and have a read.
It was a great honour and pleasure to deliver this year’s AGM talk to the Hertford & Ware National Trust Association this week.
‘The Good, the Bad & the Ugly – Introducing Hertfordshire’s Chalk Streams and the uncertain future they face’ was the title and subject of the talk which gave an opportunity to share with another attentive audience the special nature of our rare Hertfordshire chalk streams and some details the challenges of abstraction and pollution that they endure.
With the recent release of data on raw sewage spills the presentation was able to include some rather astounding numbers of special concern to us in the east of the county. It was a shock to the audience to discover that apparently 90% of raw sewage spills take in place in the Lea Catchment, and that approaching 50% of the spills are in Sir Oliver Heald’s North East Hertfordshire constituency..
Constituency Data Source: Top of the Poops
Our thanks to Hertford & Ware National Trust Association for the opportunity to speak at the AGM and for their kind donation.
Site: Cold Christmas, River Rib Recorders: Dave Blowers, Emma Blowers Survey date: 7th April 2023 Time: 0930hrs Air temperature: Water Temperature 9.5ºC Weather: Bright Flow: 3 Phosphate:0.73 Nitrate: – Nitrite: –
Cased Caddisfly
107
3
Caseless caddisfly
21
2
Burrowing Mayfly (Ephemeridae)
133
3
BWO (Ephemerellidae)
0
0
Flat bodied upswings (Heptageniidae)
0
0
Olives (Baetidae)
149
3
Stoneflies
0
0
Shrimps (Gammarus)
207
3
Score
14
Bullheads – 6, Paraleptophlebia submarginata – Turkey Brown 2, Minnow in breeding colours 1, Water Hoglouse 8, Leeches 100+, beetle larvae est 30.
Warm sunny day. Water quite clear. 1 week since the most extreme flooding event in 25 years.
Very healthy Ranunculus growth, greater in extent than previous years. Reeds just starting to emerge. Filamentous algae also luxurious in 6-8in strands. One 6-7cm mass of fish eggs disturbed in stone washing, returned as carefully as possible
Below are the words of Sir Charles Walker, MP for Broxbourne, from an Environmental Debate in February 2013. It is difficult to find any part of it that is not pertinent a decade on, reiterating further the failure of government (Defra, Ofwat, EA) to address the issues facing our chalk streams. Click here to read the full transcript and the response of Richard Benyon, the then Under-Secretary of State for the Environment.
Thank you for allowing me to speak on the Adjournment today, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let me begin by saying to the Minister that I am going to give him one hell of a beating over the next 15 minutes, and I hope he can suck it up and take it like a man.
We are a blessed nation. When God made this great world of ours, He gave India the Himalayas, He gave Brazil the Amazon rain forest, and He gave South Africa the savannah. Then God thought to Himself, “What can I give that great country, England? What can I give England that it can be proud of?”, and He gave us 85% of the world’s chalk streams. The world’s chalk streams are one of the most precious previous ecosystems available, and God decided that we should have custody of 85% of that resource; so we are indeed a blessed nation.
As I grew up with my grandfather in Hampshire and Wiltshire, I spent many happy days trundling down the river banks, fishing rod in hand, with my grandfather carrying the picnic basket containing the tomato soup and my grandmother’s cheese and ham baps. We would sit there on the river bank, looking at the sparkling water, the kingfishers, the damselflies, the mayflies and the water voles, and the two of us, for that moment in time, were kings. But now, I am afraid, the House must hear the bad news. For the last 30 or 40 years, we have watched our precious chalk streams die. We have watched them drain away, abstracted to death.
Just after my grandfather died in January 2012, I visited the River Kennet at Manton, where we had had so many adventures together. I stood in that river with the former Member of Parliament for Reading, West, Martin Salter, and it was dry: dry as a bone. We stood in that river with my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), in whose constituency it falls. It was dry; it had gone. There was no more water, and there was no more wildlife: no voles, no fly life, no fish, nothing. There was just a tiny puddle in the weir pool. I said that there were no fish, but in fact there were about 20 fish left in the weir pool, clinging on for life.
That was in January 2012, when we were facing an environmental disaster. We were only saved by a once-in-a-hundred-years event—the coming of the great rains in the spring of last year, which lasted throughout the summer and continued into the winter. Without those rains, there would have been standpipes across the country, and we would have been in crisis. Cobra would have been meeting. That is how close we were to the water system failing and our losing many more of our rivers, not just the upper Kennet.
As a result of this near-disaster, the all-party group on angling and interested parties from around the country—chalk streams are to be found in the east of England, the west country and as far away as Yorkshire, as well as in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire—held a summit at Stockbridge. The mood was one of extreme anger because this precious natural resource was being allowed to die, and we were standing aside and watching that happen—we were watching our chalk streams drain away.
We in this House lecture Brazil on the Amazon rain forest and Indonesia on its rain forest, yet we are appalling custodians of our own precious resources. We are not in any position to lecture anyone about the environment.
The Environment Agency attended that summit meeting, and its civil servants looked us in the eye and assured us that it had the highest regard for our chalk streams, and that it was committed to conserving them and making sure they remained for future generations to enjoy. I do not want to say this, but I am going to: what total and utter rubbish. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. I said to those at the EA, “You come and visit our streams in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.” If they were to visit them today, they would need a pair of waders, as we have had historically high levels of rainfall, but if they had come last spring, they would not have needed to bring waders, or even gumboots or ankle-boots. In fact they could have brought their bedroom slippers and still not got their feet wet, because these rivers have been abstracted to death, and some of them are not even there any more. Last year, we lost three, and another two were 50% dried up. They will come back, but there will not be any wildlife in them, there will not be any fly life and there will not be any fish.
What really sticks in the craw is that the EA puts out press releases saying, “Our rivers have never been cleaner than they are now.” Some of them might well be clean, but they might also be only 1 inch deep, so that message is deliberately misleading.
Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire are in this situation because we have been building houses for decades; we have been growing the population of the east of England for decades without any thought to how we are going to supply the water. We just keep sucking it out of the ground through abstraction. The last major reservoir that was built in the south-east and east was the Queen Mother reservoir, which was constructed 40 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of houses have been built in the intervening time.
In 1950, there was a debate in this Chamber about the state of the Mimram, running along the Hertfordshire-Buckinghamshire border. There was concern about its future back then, when households were abstracting an average of 60 litres of water a day. That figure now stands at 180 litres of water a day across the region, and, as I have said, there are so many more homes, too.
We are on the cusp of an historic event, as the draft water Bill will soon come before the House. The Bill must be robust. First, it must deal with Ofwat. I am not going to pull my punches: Ofwat is a really shocking organisation. It really is a disgrace, and it has worked against conservation in this country for many years. It has no regard for conservation. It is not interested in what happens in the natural environment. If a water company wants to install metering to try to reduce usage, it will not happen if it is going to cost anybody any money. Ofwat needs to be given some responsibility for the environmental consequences of its actions. We cannot carry on in the same way as at present.
We need to get far better at capturing and storing water. We currently have an abundance of water, but a lot of it is going down the rivers into the sea. As a result, it is replenishing the aquifers, which is a good thing, but the aquifers will be sucked dry again and in two or three years we will right back where we started. That means rivers that barely flow, rivers that do not support any life, rivers that are in essence dead—environmental vandalism on a extraordinary scale. As I said, how dare we lecture the developing world on its responsibilities to its natural environment when we so casually disregard our responsibilities to our natural environment?
I was educated in America, where people are far more aggressive in pursuit of conservation issues. Trout Unlimited in America routinely takes state and federal Governments to court when they are letting down the natural environment. It mounts court cases, fights court cases and wins court cases. I do not advocate direct action in this country. Sometimes I want to man the barricades, break the water pumps, let people know how I feel, burning tyres in the street in Stockbridge, for example, to make the point, but that is not the way forward. It might be tempting, it might be momentarily attractive to become a sort of middle-class Swampy, but that is not the way forward. If this Government, if future Governments cannot get it right, we have to go to law more often. We have to hold Governments to account.
We have an excellent Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). His heart is in the right place. He has it within his powers to do something truly great. If he meets resistance in Ofwat, get rid of that resistance—show ’em the door. If the Environment Agency is not willing to step up to the plate, show those responsible the door. We need a can-do Government and a can-do Minister working in a can-do Department. We are at the business end of the coalition. We are halfway through the Parliament and now is the time to make the difference, to leave that legacy by which we will be judged.
So I urge the Minister in his remaining two and a half years at the Department—who knows, he might be there indefinitely as the Conservatives sweep the board in 2015, but I am almost sure that he has another two and a half years in that Department and I will ask him to do great things while he is there. This is not just about fishing, as much as I love fishing and catching beautiful wild brown trout that have swum our rivers since the ice age; it is about how we treat and regard our environment.
I am appalled when I hear that plans are made to build houses in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire without any thought being given to how we are going to supply those houses with water. In my part of the world 70% of our water is abstracted and there are tens of thousands more houses to be built, so more and more abstraction. We have a roll-call of shame—the River Beane, the Ver, the Bulbourne, the Chess, the Misbourne, the Gade, the Wye, the Lea, the Colne, the Mimram—some of them on their knees, some no longer on their knees but in the dust, because there is no hope for them if things continue as they are now.
On many of the rivers that do not flow there are still abstraction licences that are not even being utilised. On the River Lea, which is at about 10% of its historical flow, 15% of what it was 300 or 400 years ago, there are abstraction licences that are not being exercised, but if the water companies see fit, they have the right to exercise them. We are on the cusp not just of things going along in an unsustainable way, but truly collapsing off the cliff.
I feel passionately about the matter. Normally I am a good-natured, mild-mannered Member of Parliament and I have tried to be good-natured today, but this Government must get a grip. We have kicked the issue into the long grass for far too long. Successive Governments have not tackled it. If we do not do so, we should say to Brazil, Indonesia and parts of Africa, “Get on with what you want to do with your own environment. We are totally useless at looking after our precious natural resources. Who are we to lecture you?” If I ever come to the House at a time when no action has been taken to address the problem of our own natural resources, if I ever come to the House and hear colleagues and Ministers pontificating about what Brazil should be doing in respect of the Amazon rain forest, I will either walk out in disgust or make a scene, which will be very unattractive for all concerned.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me this opportunity, and Minister, I look forward to your response. You have the potential to be a great man. You are a great man in creation at the moment. I really do hope that the Department will march to your tune, that you will crack the whip and that Ofwat and the EA will get a grip, step up to the plate and sort out this terrible, terrible unfolding catastrophe.
Viewers of last weekend’s episode of Wild Isles, Sir David Attenborough’s latest epic nature series focussed on the British Isles, will have no doubt been intrigued by the fascinating scenes on the lifecycle of ephemera danica, the burrowing mayfly.
Often known as a green drake in angling circles, the burrowing mayfly is one of the key species counted as part of the ARMI Riverfly Monitoring Scheme – a key element in FORQ’s monitoring of the health of our chalk streams and often recorded at our monitoring sites, particularly at Standon and Cold Christmas.
With this in mind and as our monitors approach a century of surveys across the catchment, this article highlights our current sites and the monitors who maintain them.
Note: the figures shown in the graphs below represent a score for an individual survey, derived by counting invertebrates from specific species or groups. The higher the score, the greater the diversity and volume of target invertebrates. Sharp drops in the score may indicate a pollution event, or in the case of Buntingford Watermill last summer, a significant absence of water. A full article on the target species groups and calculation method will follow shortly.
River Rib
Buntingford Watermill
One of a pair of sites monitored by the late David Edwards, along with John Hood and Derrick Guy, with surveys dating from May 2021. At times last year the river was completely dry, illustrating the levels of abstraction impacting the Rib here – the name of the location a poignant reminder of historic industry powered by the river at this point in it’s course southward.
Buntingford Aspenden Road Bridge
This site is located below Thames Water’s Buntingford Sewage Treatment Works and was first surveyed in May 2021 by David, John and Derrick. Water from the treatment works ensures this survey site never dries out, however it suffers from the highest levels of phosphate of any of our survey sites.
Pearces Farm
This is our newest riverfly surveying site on the River Rib, located by the footbridge that crosses the river on the far side of the water meadows to the east of Pearces Farm Shop. It is surveyed by Andy Ayres and Mark Wilkinson, with kind permission of the landowners.
Standon A120 Bridge
Surveying commenced here in July 2021 and despite its very public location, produced evidence of an active trout redd early last year. Subsequently, this site is now rested in the winter months. Toby Spencer and Nic Bartrop are our monitors in Standon, often completing their invertebrate count from behind the High Street, fortified by tea and cake!
Cold Christmas
Dave and Emma Blowers have been surveying the site below Cold Christmas on the River Rib since February 2022 and have recorded the widest variety of invertebrate species. Being at a lower location in the catchment, increased water volume produces greater abundance in the samples and means an often mammoth recording effort.
River Quin
Gravelly Lane North
Gravelly Lane North is our most recently opened site on the River Quin, located south of Quinbury Farm. It is monitored by Andy Ayres and Mark Wilkinson – with occasional stopwatch help from Pauline and Data!
Gravelly Lane Ford
This our oldest recording site on the River Quin, first surveyed in September 2021 and located on a private stretch of the River Quin. Lamprey are seen in Spring here, spawning in the shallow gravels. Our thanks to Nick and Ciara for allowing Andy and Mark to survey here.
Jack’s Field
Jack’s Field is found south of the main ford in Braughing and is surveyed by Andy and Mark with the kind permission of the Howe family. We first surveyed here in May 2022 and like the other sites on the Quin was not surveyed over the winter months to allow the delicate gravels undisturbed to be used for spawning.
This a fantastic effort by all the monitors and adds significantly to the knowledge of the invertebrate and therefore the general health of our two chalk streams. As can be seen from the map above, there are large stretches as yet unmonitored. We hope to have open two further sites in the lower stretches of the Rib in the first half of 2023, training courses permitting and would welcome additional volunteer help, either with existing or new sites across the catchment.
We also hope that the Riverfly Partnership and Environment Agency will soon be able to establish ‘trigger levels’ for each of our locations and officially accept them as full ARMI monitoring sites.
Site: River Quin, Gravelly Lane Ford, Braughing Recorders: Andy Ayres, Mark Wilkinson Survey date: 21st March 2023 Time: 1200hrs Flow (0-5): 2, clear Air temperature: Water temperature: 11oC Weather:
You might already be aware that until very recently, data on when sewage treatment works were sending raw sewage straight into our rivers was not available ‘live’. Instead, those concerned about sewage pollution either had to make FOI requests to water companies, or in recent years, rely on the data published in map form by The Rivers Trust, This map was published on an annual basis and allowed analysis of how many times and for how long a particular STW had spilled (or dumped to use a more emotive term) untreated sewage.
The Rivers Trust Map of sewage pollution for 2022 has not yet been published (I’m expecting a launch date of early April), but another mapping team from Top of the Poops gives us a further opportunity to look at these treatment works, this time by political constituency.
Top of the Poops map for North East Hertfordshire constituency
A graphic on the page was particularly informative, using the experimental live data now provided by Thames Water, which maps CSO spills with rainfall.
Rainfall in this country is not particularly unexpected, or indeed exceptional. However, as this image rather strongly suggests, when it rains, Thames Water dump raw sewage in our two chalk streams.
The strength of feeling in the country on this issue is clearly high. Many if not all of us find it unacceptable for this to be happening. A clear failure of water industry infrastructure to accommodate the needs of the expanding customer base, whilst at the same time taking large profits is impacting our environment and biodiversity, which in our case means the degrading of our exceptionally rare chalk stream habitats, highlighted by Sir David Attenborough in the first episode of ‘Wild Isles’ shown last Sunday as something almost unique to this country.
The Rib and Quin, two chalk streams located in an unpopulated part of North-East Hertfordshire that appear to remain absent from any water company or CaBA initiatives. Two chalk streams suffering from over abstraction and pollution, yet with special wildlife that is still managing to hang on.
We have lost so much already. Are we really, as a society going to let this continue?
BTW, the answer to which of our Sewage Treatment Works is Top of the Poops is Barkway, with 734 hours in 2021. Therfield was second, with 243 hours. We await to see which site will hold the dis-honour for 2022 in a few weeks.
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of David Edwards whilst on holiday in Sri Lanka.
David had been secretary of FORQ since its inception and a riverfly monitor for two sites in Buntingford. His passion and care for the environment made him one of the driving forces behind the river improvements in Buntingford and also included volunteer work at Lea Valley Park.
We send our sincere condolences and deepest sympathy to Sue his wife, family and friends.
Friends of the Rib and Quin 