In the embrace of the Aire

In the next blog from the wonderful Lucy Johnson, one of our volunteers, we learn about birdwatching on the ings (riverside wetlands) at St Aidan’s.

For many of us, when we think of our rivers it is fish and invertebrates, or maybe even aquatic plants, that come to mind. For others, they are a magnificent habitat for birds of many species. In this blog from one of our volunteers, Lucy Johnson, we read about birding on the long-disused coal mines at St Aidan’s just a short way below Leeds. St Aidan’s is a 355 hectare (877 acres) nature park located between Leeds and Castleford in West Yorkshire, England. The land was formerly an opencast coal mining area that was flooded in 1988, after the riverbank collapsed.

In the Embrace of the Aire, Birding at St Aidan’s

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, perfect conditions for a birding walk at the beautiful St Aidan’s Nature Park near Leeds. I carefully reloaded my camera with different batteries before setting off…they were also flat. In the absence of my capacity to provide good quality bird pictures, you can drink your fill over at “St Aidan’s Nature Park” on Facebook, where many beautiful shots of the park’s birds, both visitors and residents, are frequently posted. St Aidan’s is a former opencast mining site owned by Leeds City Council and managed by the RSPB. It reopened in 2017 as an RSPB site. There is currently a small footprint of café, information stand and toilets between the car park and Oddball.

A Park For Everyone

I was greeted by Peggy, a smart, vibrant young woman in much demand between the café, RSPB stall and visitors. Peggy is one of 16 permanent staff across St Aidan’s and its sister site, Fairburn Ings Nature Reserve. In addition to the permanent staff, the sites benefit from 230 regular volunteers, who may act as Rangers, perform regular bird surveys, undertake tasks such as creating dead hedges and litter picking. St Aidan’s is designated a park because it is meant to form a space for leisure activities for people as well as the birds. Ranger Jerry who led the talk along with three other volunteers emphasised that all are welcome, from horses to cyclists and runners, and that the birds are accustomed to their presence. The just under 900 acre site also plays a vital role protecting Castleford from flooding. The lakes fill up counter-clockwise, leaving the most precious reedbed habitat for last.

Key Species

The park is important for its role in providing a home for six key species – black neck grebes, black headed gulls, lapwings, bitterns, kestrels, and little owls. Jerry has personally spotted at least eleven raptors in the last two years, including red kite, buzzards, marsh harrier, ring tail hawk, osprey, little owl (who like Oddball), barn owl, tawny owl, short-eared owl, long-eared owl, and of course peregrine.

What To Wear

I would advise attendees of the walk to wear sturdy, comfortable footwear and to bring binoculars if they have them, although I was perfectly happy watching the birds hover with just the aid of my specs. Jerry shared a wealth of information about the site and was not outmanouevred by any question no matter how varied or specific. His deep familiarity with the site made for a very enjoyable and informative tour, taking in everything from kestrels’ scrying mammals’ urine through ultra-violet vision, to Oddball and Big Bob’s history, to vulpine predators.

The Local Residents Show Off

As for the birds, a kestrel kicked proceedings off by sweeping in dramatically to its exposed nest on Oddball at the top of the site, tearing into lunch. The walk was not an aerobic challenge by any means. We simply meandered along one of the main paths at the park’s perimeter, ending at the reed beds to listen to the bitterns boom, accompanied for the most part by swooping kestrels and lazily hovering buzzards, with the occasional dart of the kestrel, asserting territory to an unwary buzzard. Near the end of the talk a sharp-eyed attendee spotted a peregrine moving swiftly in, and a red kite with its distinctive V tail was also spotted. Unfortunately the little owls which have a fondness for Oddball were elsewhere at the time of the walk. Do take the time to look both above and below Oddball for kestrels and little owls if you visit.

How to “Cheat” at Birdwatching

I would have appreciated a quick rundown of each bird’s characteristics and perhaps a factsheet or two, but it was equally valuable seeing a smaller number of species in the wild and taking a detailed dive into where they spend their time and why. There was a reassuring lack of pretension about the whole affair. Jerry cheerfully admitted to “cheating” by using the excellent Merlin app for identification, and Steph, one of the volunteers, was very democratic in her thoughts about developing as a birdwatcher.

Gordon Denison

Another birdwatcher passionate about making access to the hobby more open was the legendary Gordon Denison of Halifax Birdwatchers Club, who recently passed at the age of 90 after a lifetime spent supporting and encouraging others. Not only a much loved father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Gordon was a key member of Halifax Birdwatchers Club and took part in many projects over the years. His projects included establishing a trophy for the member who spotted the most species over the year, and creating detailed sighting maps. He particularly enjoyed birdwatching at Fly Flatts Reservoir, his favourite bird was a grey wagtail, and he had a distinctive whistle imitating a curlew to communicate with daughter Jayne, who was also on the walk with her partner Graham.

Throughout the talk I chatted with Jayne and Graham, who had kindly offered to rescue me from West Yorkshire public transport hell (three buses to travel a total of eight miles). Jayne was bright-eyed and warm, carefully clutching a pair of binoculars much older than those round the necks of other attendees. She described her father as “a smart and helpful gentleman to everyone and dedicated to his family.” Gordon had a good sense of humour, although it took him a little while to warm to Graham’s bird jokes. It was a poignant reminder that while life flows on, there are many people who came before us who made our experiences and knowledge possible. If Gordon had been able to atend, he would have been extremely smartly attired, delighted to have the day out with Jayne and Graham and to meet newcomers to birdwatching, who he always encouraged. All in all, a lovely afternoon, and Gordon’s binoculars sighted a few kestrels more.

Chellow Dene resurrected

The Aire Rivers Trust presents the Chellow Dene Wetland Project! The Chellow Dene Wetland is a small green space in Chellow Dene, Bradford, tucked away behind several houses. Chellow Dene Beck runs through the site, and this wetland acts as its floodplain in high rainfall. The Aire Rivers Trust and partners have transformed the site by implementing changes to re-naturalise the beck.

The Changes

The old design for the Chellow Dene Wetlands included a few cells of reedbeds that would filter water from the beck and act as flood storage for high rainfall events. These reedbeds had since silted up, meaning they no longer held floodwater, so they would not have mitigated any damage in the event of a flood. There was also a small weir that was blocking fish passage up and down the stream. The Aire Rivers Trust implemented features such as a log mattress and leaky dams, which will help to re-naturalize the beck, connect the beck back to its floodplain, and slow the flow of water. A weir bypass was also built around the weir to allow fish to move freely along Chellow Dene Beck.

A Space for Wildlife and the Community

Chellow Dene Wetland is an excellent asset to Bradford, as it provides a diversity of habitats for wildlife, helps mitigate damage in local flooding events, and provides amenity space for the local community. The Aire Rivers Trust and the Friends of Bradford Beck have hosted volunteer events at the wetlands with groups like the Scouts to do conservation work, including tree planting, Himalayan balsam pulling, and litter-picking. Many people have since walked through the Chellow Dene Wetlands and commented that the work has greatly improved the site!

Check out the video to learn more about the project! The Chellow Dene Wetland Project – YouTube

Find out more about the work the Aire Rivers Trust does at our website – Home – Aire Rivers Trust

On 18th September, a small but select group gathered for the Offical Opening of the new wetland area. Representatives from our funders were there, and the odd passer by was treated to an explanation of what we were doing and why we bothered.

Partners and Funders

The Chellow Dene Wetland Project is funded by the Environment Agency, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, and Britvic. Britvic’s funding is part of a partnership with The Rivers Trust to care for water resources and nature in the areas they operate. This project is part of the Environment Agency’s Water Environment Improvement Fund. The changes made were designed by Wetland Engineering and implemented by Conservefor. The Friends of Bradford Becks have provided great support and expertise to the project.

Ellie’s Weir…ed Blog

In this post our GIS whizz Ellie Spilsbury outlines some of the work we have been doing to identify ways to improve the sustainability of the fisheries in our rivers and hopefully aid the return of salmon for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.

*Look closely and you will see hundreds of Minnows collecting at the bottom of this weir, unable to ascend. See the area in the water that looks dark brown; they are Minnows.*

Visit each of the three sections for more detail:

A familiar Story

Data analysis with a Salmon Splash of professional opinion

(Tr)outcomes expected

A familar story

Once upon a time, our River Aire had the highest Salmon population of any Yorkshire river. Then came the Industrial Revolution, which saw the wool and fabric industry boom throughout Yorkshire. Mills were constructed accompanied by weirs to harness our river’s energy. Although the mills are now closed and are becoming swanky new flats, the weirs often remain, isolating ecosystems that lie between them. Weirs disrupt the natural transport of sediment downstream, causing a build-up of silt and gravel behind the weir, which is detrimental to the habitat of spawning fish. Since 2011, one of the Aire River Trust’s goals has been to increase the connectivity of our river and its tributaries by removing or re-configuring weirs to allow fish passage. Following earlier work to install fish passes through and downstream of Leeds, significant steps towards this goal were made in 2022 with the successful construction of four fish passes as part of the DNAire project.

When we see water flowing over weirs, creating the sounds of waterfalls and visually pleasing white waters, it is easy to forget their man-made heritage and artificiality. It is hard to imagine seeing through the eyes of a migrating trout or salmon; every cell in its body instinctively directing it upstream to spawn, using both the stars and the earth’s magnetic field for navigation and then facing an unpassable wall of Yorkshire-dressed stone. It is often not just the height of the weir that presents the issue but the combination of weir height and the shallow depth of the concrete sill below the weir. The height at which salmon and trout jump is directly affected by the relative depth of the water at the foot of the barrier and the “hydraulic jump,” which boosts their leap.

The Environment Agency (EA) has identified around four hundred river obstacles within the Aire Catchment. However, we believe there to be many more. For example, the EA recorded two barriers to fish passage on Pitty Beck, yet on our Bradford Becks Walkovers, we found 11. This pattern is most likely repeated on each beck. Currently, tackling the removal of every weir in the catchment is unattainable. So, how did we prioritise them into a workable top twenty?

Data analysis with a Salmon splash of professional opinion

With help from The Rivers Trust, we are the first regional rivers trust to code an ArcGIS tool to accurately calculate the length of a river (including tributaries and forks) that would be opened and re-connected by the removal of every mapped weir in the Aire Catchment. Alongside this, we analysed ecological assessment data, invertebrate biodiversity, local community data (including deprivation), and weir visibility to the public. We assigned a score to each outcome and designed a weighted decision-making matrix that identified the weirs that scored the most highly. The data only tells us half the story, so we took our results to our expert team and discussed those weirs for which a solution in the short(ish) term might be feasible.

Once we had twenty feasible weirs, it was time to ground truth our ideas. The purpose of site visits is to add or, more often, diminish our confidence in the feasibility of the weir so that we only carry the most achievable sites to the next stage. We evaluated the weirs’ condition, site access, utility services or abstraction points, and landowner engagement by photographing and recording the area, our thoughts, and encounters.

The most surprising discovery for me was the actual size of a weir. After months of viewing photographs without visual perspective, weirs can appear to be half the scale of the real-life structure. Take a moment to analyse this photo: how tall do you believe it to be? See the very bottom of the blog for the upside-down answer.

(Tr)outcomes

We are fast approaching the end of the site visits and write-up stage. It is time to narrow our shortlist of twenty weirs down to four. So, it will be back around the table for our professionals to decide on the four “leak” proof projects to invest in. These four weirs will be subject to a comprehensive feasibility study and design process. I hope my next blog post will include more designs, machinery, hard hats and re-naturalised rivers.

Enforcement Undertakings

An Enforcement Undertaking is one of several regulatory options available to the Environment Agency when they are considering action against a polluter.

Once agreed, it requires the polluter to admit their offence and to pay an agreed (with the EA) sum to an appropriate charity – which must then spend it on environmental improvements.

We do not believe this is a route with fewer consequences for polluters than paying a fine for a pollution offence. Just like a fine, the offender has to publically admit their guilt and the size of the sum paid to the charity is intended to be of the same magnitude as a fine imposed by the courts. More importantly, any fines imposed by a court go straight to the government’s general funds and will not be spent in a way that directly benefits the environment. Enforcement Undertakings offer a way to improve the watercourses affected by pollution. Enforcement Undertakings are in addition to any costs that polluters are compelled to pay to rectify the harm caused by their pollution.

Our Trust has decided that we will be prepared to work with polluters should they wish to offer an Enforcement Undertaking to the Environment Agency. Our catchment has benefited from several Enforcement Undertakings in recent years, which are currently funding river restoration projects run by the Aire Rivers Trust.

You can read the guidelines used by the Environment Agency for deciding whether or not to accept an offer of an Enforcement Undertaking here – how we decide whether to accept an EU for less serious offending.

It should be noted that the charity receiving the funds plays no role in the legal process for determining whether or not an enforcement undertaking is an appropriate course of action.

An enforcement undertaking can be offered only by the polluter. The offer can be made proactively, when they realise that they have caused significant pollution, or reactively, when the Environment Agency interviews them and points out the availability of an EU as an enforcement option. Proactive offers are generally viewed more favourably by the Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency periodically publish a list of Enforcement Undertaking that they have accepted.

If you are unfortunate enough to have caused pollution and would like to talk to us about a possible Enforcement Undertaking, please contact us.

How do we fix our rivers?

The ongoing pollution of our rivers by sewage is a topic of great concern, as are the roughly equal contributions of agriculture and urban runoff. Well done to Fergal Sharkey, Wildfish, The Rivers Trust and others for shouting from the rooftops and for highlighting the issue and finally getting it firmly on the agenda of government and regulators. The time has come to work with everyone involved to develop practical, affordable solutions to a growing challenge. We need to understand the issues and work together if we are to fix our rivers.

So this piece is not an apologia for the water companies, nor the Environment Agency, nor Ofwat, nor government – all of whom have some responsibility to bear for the current situation. More, it is an attempt to stimulate a broader understanding of, and a discussion about the solutions to, what is now accepted by everyone as a significant problem. Nor is it a detailed technical analysis, it is a set of observations based on nearly 50 years working in the water sector in various guises. You should also note that although the water companies abstract, treat and deliver our drinking water this issue is not going to be addressed in this piece, other than by comparing the regulatory environment for drinking water with that for sewage treatment – there are glaring differences.

I am going to talk about four issues:

The source of the problem
Regulation
Solutions
Financing and the ownership of water (companies)

The source of the problem

Obviously it is more sewage than our systems can cope with, that much is commonly accepted. What is far from clear is whether the problem is actually worse and, if so, how much worse, than 10 or 20 years ago before the lobbyists and the media got the issue onto a wider agenda.

Since Victorian times, our sewerage and sewage treatment systems have recognised that when it rains the flow in the sewers increases until it reaches a point where the sewers (which were substantially over-designed by Victorian engineers who did not have the constraints of today’s engineers) cannot cope. In order to avoid flooding our streets, houses and sewage works the excess flow is discharged into rivers -which, at least in theory, will themselves have risen by then and able to accept the diluted sewage with no long term ill effect. The circumstances (flow rates) at which those discharges occur were set, and then engineering designed, using the best knowledge and expectations of the day. So discharges from sewers and sewage works are far from new.

These were days when the public, rightly or wrongly, trusted scientists and engineers to make the right decisions on behalf of society. But things have changed. ‘Back in the day’ many of our rivers were so polluted that few people would dream of swimming in them; the conditions attached to consents to discharge treated sewage were designed with river ecology in mind, not bacteriological contamination; the chemicals associated with things like nonstick pans, fireproof carpets and sofas etc did not even exist, we did not put wet wipes down the toilet (they didn’t exist) but it and we recycled our milk bottles because we didn’t have plastics to use in their place. It was a different time with different technology and different societal expectations. What was known and what was acceptable then has changed.

Has the size of sewers and sewage works kept up with the growth of populations? I don’t know, but I do know that ‘we’ used to design them for expected populations many years ahead. That led to an interesting paradox. Those systems effectively ‘over-performed’ because in their early days they were under loaded. As the load on the sewers and sewage works increased, the performance would deteriorate until it reached the design criteria.

I would argue that something much more significant has changed, namely public expectations. When I started my career in the environmental sector 50 years ago, it was a niche topic talked about and acted on by a handful of interested specialists. Over the last 25 years, many aspects of the environment have become mainstream issues and society’s expectations have increased substantially. What was acceptable in 1973 his certainly not in 2023. The publication of sewer overflow data and the pretty(?) maps showing the scale of the issue has brought this to the attention of the public. The acknowledged problems, allegedly largely to do with chicken farming, on the Wye have been well publicised, and the problems on Feargal Sharkey’s beloved chalk streams are real and of concern albeit not generalisable in the way he has done. Nonetheless, all of these examples hit the media with increasing frequency and raise the public’s awareness and concern, legitimate or otherwise, about our rivers. No surprise then that what was considered acceptable, perhaps even best practice, in Victorian times or even 20 years ago will no longer meet public expectations

Regulation

There does appear to be a growing recognition that, apart from anything else, there has been a major failure of regulation that has made a significant contribution so where we are now. So how does regulation of the water industry (not) work?

Every five years the industry basically does a deal, known as the Periodic Review (of prices) that sets the maximum amount the companies can charge customers in exchange for delivering a long series of maintenance requirements and improvements (known as AMP/WINEP[1]) to the environment. The calculations also involve setting a rate of return on investment for shareholders; if you put your money in the bank then you expect some interest back on it, consider dividends (as either a shareholder or a loan provider) to be the equivalent of that interest. The environmental improvements required are ultimately dictated by the Environment Agency, although they themselves receive ‘guidance’ from Defra about those requirements in the light of early estimates of the potential cost. So Government has their fingers in the pie from the very beginning.

I have been involved, to a greater or lesser degree, in all 8 Periodic Reviews to date and recall that on every occasion the EA wanted to do more and the Companies wanted to do more than Defra/Ofwat would allow. Indeed the customer ‘Willingness to pay’ surveys conducted as part of the PR process generally showed that customers were prepared to pay more for these improvements. I recall, back when I was negotiating the water quality requirements for the 1999 Periodic Review, trying to persuade Defra and the regulators to commit more investment to sewer overflows – we knew back then that there was an emerging problem. But no, they either could not or would not understand the issue and were certainly not willing to allow for expenditure on them while there were other more pressing problems to deal with.

Let’s remember that, whatever it might say in the legal documents that created it, Ofwat’s primary focus has always been on keeping bills low and the Environment Agency has been a puppet of government rather than the brave voice for the environment that we all welcomed when it was set up. The arm of the EA responsible for environmental protection has been stripped bare by cut after cut after cut and whilst there are good people doing their best working in the EA they are demoralised by the lack of resources to do the job they want to do.

Without good regulation, any organisation is likely to skip around the edges of the rules potentially leading to bigger and bigger problems – remember the banking collapse?!

The answer? Re-fund the EA with a clear brief to be the voice of the environment, enable them to overtly criticise Government when they take small or large actions to the detriment of the environment; equip them with resources to properly monitor the state of our rivers and the discharges into them. It is a fact that the data underpinning the quality designations of many of our rivers is miserably poor in quantity, and it’s those designations that ultimately drive investment.

And this is where I want to make a brief passing reference to drinking water. That side of the water industry is regulated by the Drinking Water Inspectorate, a body with around 50 employees, has a key role in ensuring that our drinking water is safe. They operate a self-monitoring regime (yes, the companies take and analyse their own samples) which as never been subject to question and which has underpinned a dramatic improvement in the quality of our water for many years. The quality of our tapwater is rarely questioned,, so what can we on the ‘dirty’ side of the business learn from how DWI operates and the culture that underlies that continuous improvement in the quality of tapwater since privatisation?

Solutions

Reading my Twitter feed, and following this whole saga for the last couple of years, I see that the proponents in current court cases are asking for, no ‘demanding’, an ‘immediate’ halt to discharges. They are misleading their supporters. With all of my 50 years’ experience, I cannot think of a way to stop these discharges ‘immediately’. Their supporters face disappointment even if the judges find in their favour. I read irresponsible talk from those who propose to ‘block the pipes’ – what will that achieve other than flooding sewage into ‘Mrs Jones’ house and I can’t imagine that helping their cause.

I don’t propose to delineate a technical resolution here, just to note that there are solutions, both traditional (lots of concrete!) and more interesting and novel such as nature-based approaches but these cannot be delivered overnight, and it’s only fair to point out that they do not come for free.

These solutions can, and should, take account of all of the pressures and opportunities in a river catchment, Integrated Catchment Management is not a new idea but one which seeks a re-birth and more support from regulators and government. Good NBS can help address multiple issues (remember at the top I spoke about the triple pressures on our rivers – agriculture, urban runoff and sewage?). Just imagine what we could achieve if the parties responsible for various sources of pollution came together with environmentalists to seek the best overall solution for the catchment. I don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe that well co-ordinated collaborative action might get us close to one. Read more about the existing Catchment Based Approach here https://catchmentbasedapproach.org/

Financing and the ownership of water (companies)

If we start from the acceptance that, whatever the solutions are, they will need paying for then we inevitably come up against the question of who will pay. The headlines could lead us anywhere “stop Director’s bonuses”, “reduce director’s pay”, “stop paying dividends”, “shareholders must pay”, “we have paid for this already, we should not have to pay again”, “anyone but customers” are typical refrains – and I’m not going there, because it’s above my paygrade. As is the structure of the water sector, but I do have some thoughts on that which might inform your debate about this latter question.

Some of us can remember 1974, when treatment of water and sewage was taken out of the hands of the local authorities and placed with newly formed Water Authorities. In the hands of the local authorities these services had been the forgotten cousin and had received almost no investment and were almost entirely unregulated in practise. The water authorities were supposed to change this and, to some extent they did although they were not able to find the level of investment necessary to bring our rivers up to the emerging standards required at that time and, most specifically, by the various European directives coming into force. Eventually a combination of political ideology and a recognition of the potential cost of bringing things up to scratch led to privatisation, with the new water companies being able to raise finance in ways that were not possible to the old water authorities and would not show on the public sector borrowing requirement (which was as big an issue then as it is now).

Many would argue that the current model with water companies being commercial businesses who, like many other businesses, operate within and on the boundaries of strong regulation has effectively failed. It is a truism that “regulators are always likely to be outwitted, if not captured, by the profit-driven businesses they are trying to curb”. There is a revolving door of staff between Ofwat and the water companies and let’s not forget that the Chairman of Ofwat for the last decade was formerly the head honcho at Yorkshire and Anglian! We have seen this before with the banks, where everything was fine until it wasn’t and the final analysis declared a failure of regulation.
So what other models might we consider? The commercial model has failed, the nationalised model (in one form or another) was unable to finance the necessary improvements, so what next?

Welsh Water (Dwr Cyrmu) had a chequered history before it finally settled as a not-for-profit company financed by debt and retained surpluses/profits. It has no shareholders and is run for public benefit.
Liv Garfield has recently proposed what might be a new form of company along similar lines.
A recent article in the FT offers helpful insights into the challenges and anything written by Dieter Helm on this topic is well worth reading.
Whilst water IS, inevitably, a regional monopoly and probably not suited to a full-scale for-profit model, the one thing on which all commentators except the political idealogues agree is that re-nationalisation would not help solve the problem.

Geoff Roberts has worked on improving the rivers of Yorkshire, and the Aire in particular, since he started with Yorkshire Water in 1974 where he rose “not quite to board level” representing the company with EA, DWI, HSE and had the ‘environment’ brief for the Kelda Group (YW’s parent company). More recently he has been a trustee of The Aire Rivers Trust sine 2013 and Chairman of the Trust for the last six years. He is passionate about getting our communities to love their rivers again.

[1] Asset Management Plan/Water Industry National Environment Programme

Help stop the spread

A volunteer from the Aire Rivers Trust, Robert Hellawell, was surprised to find an unwelcome new creature in his sample of river bugs from the River Aire.

Robert is one of a network of riverfly monitors who survey invertebrates in their local river as part of ARMI, the Anglers Riverfly Monitoring Initiative. These volunteers from environmental charities and angling clubs use the different species of bugs they find to tell them how healthy the river is. These creatures who live in the gravel at the bottom of the river are sensitive to pollution and tell a story of hidden pollution between monthly samples that occasional water samples would never reveal. They are excellent indicators of sewage and chemical spills, and their disappearances triggers further investigation by volunteers as well as the Environment Agency.

A demon shrimp found in the River Aire at Baildon.

Robert is one of a number of citizen scientist that the Aire Rivers Trust supports. He often shares his finds on Facebook as the Urban Pollution Hunter.

An unwelcome discovery

Robert’s eye was caught by an unusual new creature when he sampled the river in Baildon, so he contacted the Environment Agency. They confirm that it is a Demon shrimp, Dikerogammarus haemobaphes. Originally from the Black Sea it was probably brought here by accident in water brought as ballast by ships. Although it has been found in the River below Swillington in 2016. This is the first sighting of it this far up the Aire. Demon shrimp are aggressive predators that will hunt other river bugs causing problems for the wildlife in the river that rely on them for food. They are not a risk to humans or dogs.

“If you see things that concern you along our river, like pollution, we encourage you to ring the Environment Agency on 0800 807060. This is a great example of the power of citizen scientists in helping us understand our river and preventing harm to it.”
Simon Watts, from the Aire River’s Trust.

Two fish leap in a graphic that divides text

Your actions can make a difference

Experts from the Environment Agency and the Aire Rivers Trust are urging river users to help stop the spread of invasive non-native plants and animals.

“At the Environment Agency we really value the contribution of citizen scientists who share our passion for the environment, and this is a great example of how they are providing really important and valuable data.

“Demon shrimp were already known to be prolific in the canal system, and have previously been found at one site lower down the River Aire. Robert’s findings add to our knowledge base of the movements of Demon shrimp in the catchment and will alert other river users and samplers to also look out for this species in neighbouring areas.”
Rachel Spry, an Environment Officer for the Environment Agency in Yorkshire.

The Environment Agency is urging people to ‘Check, Clean, Dry’ their clothing and equipment after visiting local rivers to avoid transferring the Demons shrimp between watercourses.

Why we are asking all river users to Check, Clean, Dry

“Invasive and non-native species such as these can have a damaging impact on native plants, animals and ecosystems by spreading disease, competing for habitat and food and by direct predation. We’d urge people to help prevent the spread of invasives between watercourses by following the simple ‘Check, Clean, Dry’ to thoroughly clean and dry clothes and equipment that has been in contact with the water.”

Anything that has contact with the water and riverbank needs to be cleaned thoroughly and dried until it has been dry for 48 hours. If this is not possible, cleaning and the use of an environmentally friendly aquatic disinfectant is recommended. This will make sure all aquatic diseases and invasive species are killed. More information can be found on the Invasive non-native species website

Weir today. Gone tomorrow?

A group of postgraduate students from the University of Leeds have been visiting the riverside in Keighley as part of their “Engaging the Modern City” module. They’ve been keen to find out more about the river and what residents want to know about it. In response, they’ve produced the leaflet below.

On the front we will use several modules to present the issues we have investigated and a module at the back to recommend areas of PR activity around Keighley and to summarise our fieldwork
Jingzhe Zeng

A central theme they have been particularly interested in is the old weirs. What was their purpose? What do people hope might happen to them? Should they remain?

There used to be dozens of mills that thrived on the River aire, but now these mills have mostly been transformed into heritage for other activities.

The concern, however, is that the weirs that provided power to these mills still remain as part of the river channel, and from an ecological standpoint, they block the passage of fish that want to swim upstream for food, breeding, or refuge.

The ideal solution would be to remove these structures to make the river more level, or to build fish passes. For more details, check out https://aireriverstrust.org.uk/fish-passes/.

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Do you support the removal of weirs? Why or why not?
Jingzhe Zeng

Reconnecting the river for wildlife

The Aire Rivers Trust has just completed it’s Developing the Natural Aire project. Together with the Environment Agency, we have built fish passes to link 40km of the river to encourage the return of Atlantic salmon.

“It is fantastic to know that these fish passes in the upper River Aire are working as designed, and important fish species are rediscovering their key habitat

“As well as reopening rivers to fish migration and protecting ecologically important and endangered species like salmon and eel, fish passes are an amazing opportunity to reconnect river-resident species and the local community.

“Over the coming years, we look forward to seeing a growing proportion of trout, chub, barbel and salmon run spawning journeys higher up the river and a recovery in their populations.”
Thomas Somerville, Environment Agency’s Developing the Natural Aire Project Manager

Footpath works pave the way for better becks in Bradford

Sometimes the path to healthier streams and rivers lies alongside and not in the water. Local environmental charity, the Aire Rivers Trust has been hard at work improving a Bradford footpath to reduce soil running into the stream – boosting water quality and encouraging wildlife to flourish.

The work is the first ecological improvements brought about by “Better Becks,” an exciting partnership between the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Wild Trout Trust and the Aire Rivers Trust. Through the project experts from the trusts walked over 60 kilometres of streams looking for ways landowners could make changes to the way streamside land in Bradford is managed to produce improvements to water quality.

“We’re delighted another important part of the Better Becks partnership project is underway, boosting water quality and enhancing habitats so that wildlife can thrive. We’re looking forward to working further with our partners in the coming months to turn opportunities identified during this project into ecological improvements in watercourses in and around Bradford.”
Ineke Jackson, Environment Agency Project Manager

Locating water quality issues

The streamside path is Shipley Glen. A popular area with local dog walkers. Loadpit Beck flows down a narrow valley in Shipley Glen through the village of Eldwick and into the River Aire near Saltaire. It is named after the nearby small Late Bronze Age iron ore (or lode) workings which once forged the axes used to clear the land for agriculture. The project noted with concern that the increasing number of visitors since 2020 had caused a footpath that crossed the stream to widen and erode. Soil from the footpath was washed into the stream by rain and the many dogs enjoyed its cool water.

Creating volunteer-led solutions

Volunteers from the Aire Rivers Trust have built new walls to reinforce the footpath and drains to keep water from running over it. Over the past weeks, they have moved almost 70 tonnes of gravel and cobbles to resurface the footpath and create a mud-free area for dogs to wade to avoid the mud being disturbed. The work aims to reduce the amount of soil washed into the stream as it brings nutrients that reduce water quality and smothers the gravel where fish will lay their eggs. They have been helped in their work by members of Bradford Metropolitan Council’s Countryside and Rights of Way Team.

With the support of our volunteers were improving water quality in Shipley Glen and footpaths for walkers.

“Our volunteers have greatly enjoyed the challenge the work provides. It’s good fun but also makes a real difference to the health of our rivers. This project is a great example of organisations coming together to achieve the shared aim of having a healthy river system full of life. We hope walkers will enjoy the new path and maybe catch a glimpse of wildlife, like kingfishers, we expect to thrive with cleaner water.”
Simon Watts, Operations Manager with the Aire Rivers Trust

Changes to our riverbank that benefit people and wildlife.

You can read a little more about Better Becks here

Plastics in our rivers

Plastic pollution in rivers is a major environmental problem that affects not only the health of rivers and the ecosystems they support, but also the health and well-being of humans. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the causes of plastic pollution in rivers, the impacts it has on the environment and human health, and what we can do to reduce it.
In a subsequent blog, we will look specifically at microplastics.

Slightly ironic how this trash collector (in Baltimore, US) creates a fish tail as it works…

One of the main causes of plastic pollution in rivers is the improper disposal of plastic waste. Many people simply toss their plastic trash into the streets or into nearby waterways, where it can be carried by stormwater runoff into rivers. In addition, plastic that is not properly recycled can also end up in rivers through the waste management process.

The impacts of plastic pollution in rivers are significant and wide-reaching. For one, plastic in rivers can harm and kill wildlife that mistake it for food or become entangled in it. Fish, birds, and other animals can ingest plastic particles, which can lead to malnutrition, organ damage, and even death. In addition, plastic in rivers can also absorb toxins from the water, which can be harmful to both humans and animals when ingested.

Plastic pollution in rivers can also have economic consequences. For example, plastic pollution can damage fishing gear and boats, leading to losses for fishing and tourism industries. In addition, plastic pollution can also affect water quality, making it unfit for human consumption and recreation.

What can we do about the problem?
So, what can we do to reduce plastic pollution in rivers? One effective strategy is to properly dispose of plastic waste and ensure that it is properly recycled. This includes properly disposing of plastic items such as bottles, bags, and packaging in designated recycling bins and participating in community recycling programs.

Another important strategy is to reduce our overall consumption of single-use plastic items, such as straws and plastic water bottles. By using reusable items instead, we can significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste that ends up in our rivers and other waterways.

We can also support businesses and organizations that are working to reduce plastic pollution in rivers. For example, we can choose to patronize companies that use environmentally friendly packaging and support initiatives that work to clean up plastic pollution in rivers.

Finally, it’s important to educate others about the issue of plastic pollution in rivers and the steps we can all take to reduce it. By raising awareness about the problem and the actions we can take to address it, we can create a ripple effect that will help to protect our rivers and the ecosystems they support for generations to come.

In conclusion, plastic pollution in rivers is a serious environmental issue that has wide-reaching impacts on both the environment and human health. By properly disposing of plastic waste, reducing our consumption of single-use plastic items, supporting businesses and organizations that are working to reduce plastic pollution, and educating others about the issue, we can all play a role in protecting our rivers and the ecosystems they support.

If you would like to dig further into the plastics in our environment, then Earthwatch have some excellent online resources.