River Lugg, Herefordshire

[quattro]

It wouldn’t be impossible to stop growing root crops in the part of the field where run off can escape straight onto a road or watercourse
in America they seem to grow in areas where there’s valleys or possible run off

 

[Jam Tomorrow]

This may have been mentioned elsewhere….the EA do ask Water companies to sample watercourses on their behalf , apparently due to lack of available qualified staff .
I have direct experience of this occurring.
Id wager not many of those samples are found to be breaching regs…..unless perhaps , and this comment is speculation , there is a conflict on a watercourse and it suits the Water Company to find issues elsewhere.

 

[Werzle]

It wouldn’t be impossible to stop growing root crops in the part of the field where run off can escape straight onto a road or watercourse
in America they seem to grow in areas where there’s valleys or possible run off

20ft grass strip against ditches left to grow like a thick mat and/or silt traps in ditches at high erosion times would help alot imo

 

[Exfarmer]

In my opinion it wouldn’t take a lot of bank erosion to dirty the water when it’s in spate

Man has been straightening rivers for hundreds if not thousands of years since they realised rivers in spate will erode riverbanks particularly on the outside of bends. This silt will then be deposited elsewhere. Generally the erosion will be of highly fertile alluvial soil which the river washed down many years earlier carrying plenty of detritus man put into it often aeons ago.
It just does not suit the story that many environmentalists feed into the press.
In fact of course the their efforts to rewind and reform the "ancient" river will in the long term make the situation worse

 

[Exfarmer]

20ft grass strip against ditches left to grow like a thick mat and/or silt traps in ditches at high erosion times would help alot imo

I would agree that it is crazy ploughing right to the edge of rivers and other watercourses

 

[Werzle]

This may have been mentioned elsewhere….the EA do ask Water companies to sample watercourses on their behalf , apparently due to lack of available qualified staff .
I have direct experience of this occurring.
Id wager not many of those samples are found to be breaching regs…..unless perhaps , and this comment is speculation , there is a conflict on a watercourse and it suits the Water Company to find issues elsewhere.

Finding out where the findings of water quality testing go etc is the maddening thing. Everybody is employed in collecting data but nobody wants to know or act on the results. They seem to humour a few ecologists who are made to feel important on a few selected projects while ignoring the main problems

 

[Hfd Cattle]

Dont get me wrong after a drought there is alot of soil dust that is going to wash off from everywhere and not just farmland but even a dunce can see arable stubbles near to rivers being spread with chicken muck/digestate and planted which then has had torrential thunder storms lately which has washed some into the watercourses. It will get worse if we have heavy rain on harvested dry spud ground and maize fields to a degree especially if they are all near rivers. Its happened for years but more floodplain is in arable rotation than ever before and increasing amounts of fert/chicken litter and digestate are being used. Min till probably doesnt bury manure deep enough to stop it washing off.

This comment by @Werzle is the difference between a ' measured ' response and a knee jerk reaction response . Unfortunately most of our 'environmental experts' (cough cough) know that it's only a knee jerk reaction that gets the headlines . They don't want a carefully measured response . ......they might soon be out of a job then !

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Phosphate levels have risen since the rain lately and the rivers have changed colour. Sewage release and soil run off are to blame but how can we all help stop it. Fields on flood plain should be in ppasture along with fields near major brooks . Grass buffer strips should grown around arable fields near smaller brooks imo.

especially difficult to stop it, if we are going to stop eating meat (for climate change), can't grow crops on land that could cause erosion, grow grass, what to do with the grass? I know, mow it (using fossil fuels - which cause climate change!) or plant trees (for climate change), then import food from abroad (but that could let the poor people abroad starve). Real conundrum there, radical idea, eat more beef & lamb and then make the water companies separate their rain water from waste, and much as I hate to say it make septic tank owners jump through the same hoops as stock farmers.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

The river Honddu runs into the Usk in Brecon and turns red when there is heavy rain. Its source is on the Epynt army range where there is only grassland and a big emphasis on protecting the environment. It then makes its way through the Honddu valley where you will rarely see a ploughed field and zero chicken sheds but there is obviously a lot of soil finding its way to the river.

View attachment 1062900

I wonder how the grazing regime affects erosion and run off? Are there any studies showing erosion from set stocking as compared to rotational grazing? My gut feeling is there would be more run off from set stocking (but that could just be my own prejudices).

 

[Werzle]

I wonder how the grazing regime affects erosion and run off? Are there any studies showing erosion from set stocking as compared to rotational grazing? My gut feeling is there would be more run off from set stocking (but that could just be my own prejudices).

There would be a fair run off from root fields grazed into the dirt with sheep. Soil erosion from cider fruit harvesting doesnt get mentioned but orchard headlands are up to the axles most years and apple washings/riddlings which all find there way into ditches etc export alot of soil especially in areas like herefordshire where acres of cider fruit are grown. A fair amount of fert is spread in orchards

 

[vantage]

Man has been straightening rivers for hundreds if not thousands of years since they realised rivers in spate will erode riverbanks particularly on the outside of bends. This silt will then be deposited elsewhere. Generally the erosion will be of highly fertile alluvial soil which the river washed down many years earlier carrying plenty of detritus man put into it often aeons ago.
It just does not suit the story that many environmentalists feed into the press.
In fact of course the their efforts to rewind and reform the "ancient" river will in the long term make the situation worse

Bangladesh, a good example.

 

[Exfarmer]

Bangladesh, a good example.

I have been up the Irrawaddy and it is absolutely amazing seeing the islands crumbling and reforming all the time. The locals are often farming right up to the edge and the villages have to move regularly as the river cuts through the plain. The flood plain is probably 10- 20 miles across in places and the river moves like a snake across it

 

[Kidds]

There would be a fair run off from root fields grazed into the dirt with sheep. Soil erosion from cider fruit harvesting doesnt get mentioned but orchard headlands are up to the axles most years and apple washings/riddlings which all find there way into ditches etc export alot of soil especially in areas like herefordshire where acres of cider fruit are grown. A fair amount of fert is spread in orchards

Not one single part of that is true of any of my orchards and can only think of one year in the last 40 where we were upto the axles on the headlands and that was only a very short section where the water gathered.
I don't spread any ferts at all in my orchards and haven't done for years, even when I did it wasn't much and that was following recommendations.
Don't know if others may do such things but I never have.

 

[Werzle]

Not one single part of that is true of any of my orchards and can only think of one year in the last 40 where we were upto the axles on the headlands and that was only a very short section where the water gathered.
I don't spread any ferts at all in my orchards and haven't done for years, even when I did it wasn't much and that was following recommendations.
Don't know if others may do such things but I never have.

Fair enough but alot of commercial ones spread fert and harvesting runs into late november where the conditions are awful. 2019 was one of the worst

 

[lloyd]

There would be a fair run off from root fields grazed into the dirt with sheep. Soil erosion from cider fruit harvesting doesnt get mentioned but orchard headlands are up to the axles most years and apple washings/riddlings which all find there way into ditches etc export alot of soil especially in areas like herefordshire where acres of cider fruit are grown. A fair amount of fert is spread in orchards

Are you saying cider drinkers are to blame for this pollution ?
Hereford are you the main culprit for the state of the Wye?

 

[Werzle]

Are you saying cider drinkers are to blame for this pollution ?
Hereford are you the main culprit for the state of the Wye?

No, just alot of different things add up to cause it

 

[Blackleg]

This should be interesting and credit to those making it happen, shame there isn't someone from the Environment Agency on the panel as well. Apparently it's the first time Avara have spoken in public for a while.

Rivers at Risk - What can we do to protect them? - Abergavenny Food Festival

Two of the jewels in the crown of the Welsh borders, the rivers Wye and Usk, both famous fishing rivers in their day, are

www.abergavennyfoodfestival.com

 

[bovrill]

Man has been straightening rivers for hundreds if not thousands of years since they realised rivers in spate will erode riverbanks particularly on the outside of bends. This silt will then be deposited elsewhere. Generally the erosion will be of highly fertile alluvial soil which the river washed down many years earlier carrying plenty of detritus man put into it often aeons ago.
It just does not suit the story that many environmentalists feed into the press.
In fact of course the their efforts to rewind and reform the "ancient" river will in the long term make the situation worse

The pharaohs were quite good at managing it 5000 years ago!

 

[bluebell]

thats schoolboy history, do these so called experts learn, know anything about history, how man in europe many thousands of years ago went from hunter gatherers to settled farming, or the great civilisations such as the romans, apparently italys rome still gets its fresh water by a system engineered built by the romans, thousand years ago?

 

[Kidds]

I'm sure I read somewhere that bronze age land clearance was the cause of rivers silting in East Anglia back then.