Following the recent few days of fine weather the river level has fallen such that work in the river bed can begin. This work needs to be completed before the fish start migrating up the river.
As part of our Environment Agency (EA) licence, we have agreed to do some work on the fish pass to improve it's effectiveness. We have removed a large amount of debris (Boulders etc.) that are restricting flow, and we will be enlarging the notches in the fish pass steps.
The picture below shows the dam that has been put in place to restrict the flow through the fish pass whilst the work is done.
The picture below shows the work being carried out at the bottom of the fish pass. The pool in the river bed is being deepened in order to make it more suitable for the fish. The wall that extends into the river (perpendicular to the river bank) will have to be removed to ensure that the outflow from the fish pass and the screw coincide.
The following pictures show the latest situation with the screw trench. The required angle and depth of screw ramp has been achieved. This ramp will be covered with reinforced concrete (next week - weather permitting!)
We have had a bit of a mini-crisis this week. The EA realised that they had overlooked a problem with river levels that would occur when the protruding wall is removed. On the basis that this problem would be detrimental to fish migration they insisted that we stop all work in the riverbed until a way forward was agreed. After many phonecalls, emails, site meetings it has been agreed that a new wall will be built (at the EA's expense) just downstream of the screw outflow. The wall will be built over this weekend (19th/20th Sept).
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