Autumn 2018 Newsletter

Newsletter Autumn 2018 bove is a copy taken from a section duce a long term management plan for few pails a day. Using a lot of water brings of Bryant’s 1826 Map of Norfolk and the additional water resource required to with it how is it used and what is in the Ayou might want to ponder what you meet forecast demand. The plan runs for waste water, apart from the obvious. It take from this before reading further. The 25 years with a rolling five year review by has to be treated at a sewage treatment flow through the articles in this Newslet- OFWAT. Anglian Water is working on their works and the effluent discharged into a ter is ‘water’, how we sourced and used it plan running from 2020-2045. There are river. The ‘raw’ water abstracted by a wa- in the past, and how we source, use and several factors involved and a significant ter company from aquifers and rivers has dispose of it now. The article content is all degree of uncertainty. The forecast is that long been recognised as containing nitrate, ‘local’ but reflects the wider situation in to avoid a water deficit at 2045 there is phosphate, and pesticides. Anglian Water East Anglia, and much nationally. A very an additional need for water resource of describes this as ‘an ongoing challenge’. wet spring followed by a very hot and dry between 307 and 472 million litres per A recent spillage from the water sew- summer raised media and public inter- DAY. The two largest factors are house- age network in the centre of Blakeney il- est. This focussed on first flooding and hold growth and climate change; the only lustrates a not unusual occurrence. The then a drought which in some parts of the factor ‘fixed’ is household growth, deter- main cause was a blockage in the pipe- country saw water shortages and hosepipe mined by Government and derived from work and unseating a manhole cover. The bans. There were also reports of pollution ONS forecasts on population increase. blockage was mainly due to a build-up of incidents. Much less recognised is that For North Norfolk this means 10,300 new fat. But everywhere there is an increasing some farmers had abstraction restric- houses from 2016 to 2036; of which Holt range of more insidious pollutants, which tions placed on them by the Environment will have 400. will enter our aquifers and rivers, and Agency as aquifer and river levels fell; a In East Anglia each person, as an av- the food chain. Recent research indicates drier than average winter would bring the erage, uses 133 litres of water per day, micro-plastics may enter the human body risk of restrictions to more water company the vast majority for purposes other than through the gut, with an unknown impact. customers. drinking. Even up to the mid-1950s, the People and wildlife share a common inter- Water companies are required to pro- water used per person might have been a est in our water resource and quality. Eel Migration Disrupted he European Eel is now a criti- Left: an epic battle in progress. heron; and each time the heron re- cally endangered species. For turned to the attack. This took place Tmillennia there was an abundant Right: a pond drying out. at a large pond next to the River Nar supply and a mainstay in the human Photographs and observations by at West Acre on the 15th September, diet. Much still remains to be known Richard Brooks. some two months before the normal about the life cycle, but satellite tag- migration time. Further, two fellow ging is beginning to provide some in- called “silver eels”. Typically silver photographers had seen three large formation on the ocean return to the eels have at least 15% of body weight eels from the same hide a few days spawning grounds, in the depths of as fat; they do not feed during the earlier. So what was happening? the Sargasso Sea in the Caribbean. journey. The eyes get much wider The pond had been full some time We now know the 4,000 km to 6,000 and can adjust to moving at ocean previously, but when the photograph km journey takes from three to six depth or near the surface. This re- was taken it was clearly drying out, years. The elvers that first arrived in turn migration behaviour was part and by end October the whole pond Europe in a Spring ‘run’, and have of the mystery of the eel that had was dry. There would have been some matured in rivers and wetlands are, fascinated the Greeks and Romans, evaporation, but more importantly after twenty or more years, ready and nations right through to modern the reputed blocked pipe that feeds to return. This happens in late Au- times and the new research. the pond, or an agricultural abstrac- tumn, after a wait for a wet and dark A recent incident witnessed by tion. Whatever the cause the outcome night. wildlife photographer Richard Brooks is clear; a hot summer, drought and Males typically migrate at a length was most dramatic and unexpected; water stress on wildlife was the rea- between 35 and 45cm, whereas few a heron had caught an eel of a size son for the eel moving ahead of time females migrate before they are at he had not seen since the 1970s, per- and in broad daylight. There were no least 45cm long. Just before leav- haps some 60cm long. It was an epic winners here; the eel died from re- ing for the open sea, eels change in battle between the heron and a sil- peated stabbing, and the heron did appearance to a darker blue on the ver eel, which lasted for more than not eat the eel; perhaps it was just back and paler and even white on 45 minutes. The eel kept wriggling too big. the belly, and at this stage they are slipping away from the beak of the Ian Shepherd 2 RGCG Newsletter Summer Low Flows ow flows in a river create problems spokesman said “distressed and dead sett Ford. The great concern was that for several species, and in this hot fish have been reported across East An- the cause of death might well be due to Land dry summer the Eastern Daily glia and more than 6,000 fish have been crayfish plague, arising from the spore Press (EDP) has reported incidents of affected. Our fisheries officers are react- of the mould carried by the non-native dead fish in rivers and in ponds. This ing to an average of two incidents per signal crayfish. After consulting the is the most obvious of indicators that day which is involving a lot of resource”. Environment Agency, samples of the nature is in trouble. Fish will die due to The Environment Agency had re- dead crayfish were sent for analysis lowered oxygen content in a water body. moved 400 dead fish from a lake in to the Centre for Environment, Fish- There can be algal blooms on a pond or Clare Castle Country Park in Suffolk eries and Aquatic Science (CEFAS) in lake which the affects aquatic plant life on the 26 July. The Agency was quoted Lowestoft. A walk upstream on the and oxygen content, as well as evapo- as saying “you get a build-up of duck- day indicated that no more crayfish ration losses; chemical contaminants weed and pond-like plants that start to had died. This visit was followed by in rivers become more concentrated; dominate – while these plants produce inspections at the ford site, but again loss of fish reduces the food supply of oxygen during the day, during the no more casualties; however the pres- their predators; water voles may have night they suck it out”. In another in- ence of duckweed was noted. less vegetation to feed on, and become cident on the 30 July EDP another EA To our great relief the CEFAS analy- more vulnerable to their predators. If statement on a burst sewage pipe inci- sis subsequently showed the crayfish the summer heat is broken by a heavy dent; “thunder storms caused surface kill was not due to the plague. Low flows rain event which leads to arable topsoil water to run off into the river resulting and changes in aquatic plant growth run-off into rivers, the resulting silt can in oxygen levels falling to 11%, causing combine to create areas where there is drop oxygen levels further and kill fish. a hundred fish to die”. To help the dis- a critical reduction of oxygen level, and A fish kill of 28/29 July on the River tressed fish remaining, hydrogen per- fish suffocate and die. The Letheringsett Thet led a resident to report that “the riv- oxide was dosed to raise the oxygen. Watermill ‘mill pond’ in fact stretches as er is usually full of life with bream, roach In late July Ursula Juta of the Nor- far as the footbridge, and with low flows and perch”. The photograph showed the folk Rivers Trust found half a dozen meeting the ‘rising’, this will create the fish were lying in a large surface area dead white-clawed crayfish in the condition of ‘still water’. of duckweed. An Environment Agency Glaven by the footbridge at Lethering- Ian Shepherd Autumn 2018 3 A Whole Lot of Planning Going On n 11 January the Prime Minister the 2012 NPPF, and so are key state- and Michael Gove launched the ments on having the highest level of O25-year Environment Plan, and protection and the intrinsic value of on the 24 July the revised National character and beauty.

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