Spring 2011 No78 Anniversary Barbecue on the 31 July
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Newsletter Rivelin Valley Conservation Group st Spring 2011 no78 anniversary barbecue on the 31 July. Please let Margaret know if you would Through The Chair like to attend as soon as possible Welcome to the RVCG Summer please. I hope you find the Autumn newsletter. I‟m glad to see the kinder programme interesting enough to weather has allowed many trees and support our events. We will be holding shrubs to flower prolifically and to give some open meetings at Knowle Top the insects an abundance of food to Stannington and Wood Lane to give help them build up their numbers and people the opportunity to attend who prepare for some of the unusual find Crosspool difficult to get to. If you weather patterns we are experience have any suggestion for presenters of around the world at the moment. The our meetings or visits that would RVCG has had quite a busy spring and interest our members then please let thank you to everyone who supported me know. Hope you enjoy the summer our summer visits and walks and family holidays and look forward to seeing to events. We had a very successful litter in the Autumn if not at the barbecue. pick although generally speaking there seemed to be less litter around. Graham Whether people are getting the Appleby message or whether it‟s down to a few Donations conscientious individuals who regularly Many thanks to the following for your valuable donations received through membership renewal. litter pick the valley I don‟t know but Aizlewood, Beardshaw, Boddington, Brazil, Cooper, good news anyway. The Revelling In Culmer, Dakin, Davidson, Dean, Drinkwater, Emsley, Rivelin event was not very well Farrelly, Fletcher, Goulding, Grace, Hague, Hanson, Harrison, Heller, Henderson, Horsefield, Humphries, attended but was potentially a Keen, King, Kitchen, Lampeter, Lawrence, Leek, wonderful family day out. Thanks to Lewis, Liddell, Lyon, Mason, Morrell, Morton, Ollin, Joan Buckland and the woodlands Owen, Purdey, Purslow, Pyatt, Richards, Roe, Saunders, Seaman, Shail, Sharpe, Shaw, Tann, officer Catherine Nuttgens with her Tetchner, Toseland, Trickey, White, White, Whiteley, wigwam yurt for providing such Willdig, Woodhouse. educational and interesting activities. All this has amounted to £489 and will help with our work. Many thanks for your generosity. Rivelin Mill is not easy to get to without a car so we are thinking of moving it Task team News closer to Rivelin Park next year but the Sunday 27th March 2011 concept is superb. We also had a This Sunday, we returned to the Packhorse Bridge where last month we had started to successful Crosspool summer fayre widen a short length of footpath that was where Keith Kendall attended with the beginning to fall away. This was complicated by the fact that an eight foot RVCG stall at Coldwell Lane and offered section of the wall at Rails Road was beginning suggestions to the organisers for to fall into the dam. The council contacted me improvements in the future. Our final th on the Wednesday to ask if we could repair it as event of the summer is our 20 the budget for 2010/11 had been spent. Page 1 of 6 This meant that I had to rush around in an flows under gravity via a tunnel under Bamford already busy week to buy the sand, cement and Edge to the Lower Reservoir and is piped either concrete to enable us to repair it. It also meant directly or via the reservoir to treatment works. that I had to split the team with Graham taking The new Rivelin works was designed as a two five other brave souls to stand in the water and stage plant using the Sirofloc clarification re-build the wall whilst the remainder of us set process originally developed in Australia and about the footpath, digging out a little more and introduced into the UK by Davy International placing four sleepers in to retain the bank, along Ltd, it was further developed by Yorkshire with a new edging board to the riverside and a Water in cooperation with the Water Research truck full of topping to re-surface the path. Centre. The process was initially used at All in all a very successful if not rushed Sunday. Redmires works as an additional stage of Many thanks to all the team who treatment. turn up month after month and get stuck in no The process uses magnetite (a magnetic iron matter what the job. oxide) which is mixed with incoming raw water Thanks also to Ranger Chris for collecting the and under acidic conditions attracts the colour, sleepers and the use of the truck to collect the turbidity, iron and aluminium in the water onto topping (Good luck with the job mate). the surface of the magnetite. The loaded magnetite and water then pass between the Keith Kendal poles of large magnets which induces a charge on the magnetite particles causing them to bind Rivelin Water Treatment Works together and settle out in the next clarification The Rivelin Water Treatment Works together stage. with Redmires, Bradfield, Morehall and Langsett The partially treated water is now chlorinated were originally built by Sheffield Corporation with sodium hypochlorite which is either Works to supply Sheffield with drinking water. generated on site or tankered to site and All the works treat Pennine waters from peaty sodium hydroxide is added to increase the pH catchments which are typically acidic and of the water. Under these conditions the coloured, containing iron, aluminium and manganese remaining in the water is converted manganese associated with the peat. These can to a form that can be removed by the next only be removed by chemical treatment and the stage of treatment – rapid gravity filters. old single stage filtration systems could not After filtration the water is pumped to the meet the new exacting E.U. drinking water treated water reservoir located on the opposite standards hence the need to rebuild all the side of Manchester Rd prior to distribution works. which now also includes the old Redmires Langsett was rebuilt in 1985 and Bradfield and distribution network. Morehall were replaced with new treatment The rapid gravity filters are regularly back- works at Loxley and Ewden respectively in the washed to clean them and maintain optimum mid 1990‟s together with a new works at efficiency. After settlement of solid material in Rivelin. The new Rivelin works was built on the the washwater recovery tanks, the backwash same site as the old filter station but had to be water is returned to the start of the treatment completed and commissioned with the old works process. The loaded magnetite is recovered still operating to maintain supplies of drinking from the base of the clarifiers by scrapers and water and went into supply in late 1995. The pumped into the regeneration system where it Redmires filter station was closed in 2001 and is washed under alkaline conditions releasing water from the three Redmires reservoirs is now the impurities and regenerated magnetite can mainly used for increased compensation flows in be returned to the start of the treatment Wyming Brook and the River Rivelin as part of process. The effluent from the process was an agreement between Yorkshire Water and the initially treated on site but is now neutralised Environment Agency. and pumped to Blackburn Meadows Sewage The new Rivelin Works is the largest of the Works for disposal, a more cost effective route. works and when commissioned was capable of I understand that due to on-going deterioration treating 75,000 cubic metres (16.5 million of raw water quality brought about by changes gallons) per day supplying much of South West in weather patterns, the single stage of Sheffield and beyond. filtration is no longer adequate. If iron is not All the treatment works have their own completely removed at the clarification stage independent catchment areas and reservoirs but and is carried over to the manganese stage it Rivelin is unique in that the bulk of the raw will redissolve in the water leading to higher water treated is obtained from the Derwent than accepted levels of iron in the treated Valley operated by Severn Trent Plc. The water water. Attempts to adjust the treatment Page 2 of 6 process to minimise this can then result in arrive Bakewell 10.30am, cross over bridge, incomplete manganese removal. turned right, found footpath over golf course Any iron and manganese that is not removed and up through Manners Wood and over Carlton by the treatment process will be carried into the Pastures, across to Swiss Cottage but turned distribution system and re deposited in the back by estate worker‟s wife and took footpath water mains leading to discoloured water which to right, down by rhododendron bushes then can result in stained washing and sanitary turned right at bottom, crossed meadowland ware. These elevated levels have resulted in down to bridge in Chatsworth – crossed over water samples failing to meet the Drinking bridge and first turn left on road up to Beeley Water Standards and Yorkshire Water Services Top Farm – about ¾ mile off the road is a were then served with an enforcement notice footpath leading to Emperor Lakes. We kept to by the Drinking Water Inspectorate to carry out this path (sign posted Robin Hood Inn). A bite improvements – these are time limited and in to eat then off again on a footpath leading on to this case must be completed by December Brown Edge, then descended to road which 2012. To meet these requirements Yorkshire dissects path leading from Wellington‟s Water are carrying out a programme of Monument and up onto Curbar Edge and distribution/ replacement to remove the Froggatt Edge.