Wildlife Circus

  Many noticed the draining of the water in the filter beds, even though it took place the week before Christmas. I have no hotline to the offshore company who own the site and can only hazard a guess as to why this is happening now.The water level had risen to the top of the filter beds posing a management issue and leaving it any later could fall foul of the bird breeding season. If proposed Environment Agency charges for abstraction and disharge go ahead from April 2018 it could be very expensive to discharge the water  see https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/new-charging-proposals-fromapril2018/ There used to be a charge for a discharge permit until deregulation followed Agency staff cuts. Abstraction for small amounts of water became free but this has not helped the environment and our local rivers such as the Crane, Hogsmill and Beverley suffer constantly from low flows. So the Agency have to reconsider but the admin causes a financial headache and ...

One unforseen benefit of the Go-Cycle and Portsmouth Road 'Improvements' is that walking alongside the Filter Beds is a more pleasant experience now that the site is slightly divorced from the roar of the traffic.The trees on the site are maturing becoming recognisable specimens of ash, oak and willows. forty tufted ducks Whilst this has resulted in the loss of chalk grassland, it also creates a structural habitat screening the air, noise and light pollution from the filter beds, making it even more dark and undisturbed. This summer the water levels are almost back to the brim; there have been more tufted ducks during the period of moult than ever before, although it is hard to count them amongst the dabchick bobbing around them like corks. The last of the house martins could be seen fly-catching today, along with small aerial flocks of starlings in the afternoon heat. cormorant drying its wings apples Although electro-fishing surveys found  no significant...

Number to ring in the case of pollution Rag or sewage around  trees  The following item will be of most interest to pollution volunteers or PAV's, those who volunteer along the Hogsmill river - either collecting the rubbish, monitoring water quality and the amount of 'rag' at misconnected outfalls - and to some of you that may be considering any of these activities in the future (see previous posts and side tabs on the Hogsmill). During the early hours of 8.2.16, there was a major sewage spill onto Green Lane recreation ground some of which ended up in the Hogsmill river Grid Reference TQ 20062 67989. This was covered during a February posting hogsmill-sewage-spill and in the Surrey Comet.“What appears to have happened is that a power failure at our Hogsmill treatment works, in the early hours of 8th February, put the inlet pumping station out of action. This, combined with a burst of very heavy rain earlier that night, caused incoming flows to back up and di...