Tag Archives: Environment Agency

Wandle Cleanup: July 2015: Sutton

The one where a tea related disaster almost struck…

This July we were in Hackbridge cleaning the Carshalton arm of the river. Our event was kindly supported by Rydons who are developing nearby properties – many thanks to them!

Having arrived an hour early and feeling pretty smug about my efficient morning collecting the van, I discovered I’d brought an empty gas canister with me – disaster! As I began to panic, some kind volunteers who lived nearby offered to boil the kettle – but numbers grew and grew…

Finally Wally saved the day, buying a new full canister! And with that, we started the event.

We divided into two wading teams taking a side of Culvers Island each with team leaders being myself and Chris.

What shocked us all was the amount of rubbish we found! Trolleys, TVs, wooden shelves, patio doors. It was quite shocking. The rubbish pile grew and grew. A personal highlight for me – one ski.

While waders waded, a team of 3 went hunting down Himalayan Balsam. The Wandle Trust have been balsam bashing in this area of a number of years and now only a few plants remain. But it was crucial these didn’t seed. Luckily I had some real experts on the hunt.

Lunch break came and with the kind help of Jackie and Ann, we all had teas and cake. Even I baked this time…

In the afternoon, the waders hopped in at Hackbridge and continued up Restmor Way finding more and more rubbish.

Eventually I called it a day and got everyone to hunt down tools and wheelbarrows which we had discarded on the way.

So what did we find? 1 ski, 1 doll hand (very creepy), 1 patio door, 1 rake head, 1 saucepan, 1 drawer, 1 desk, 1 broom handle, 1 trainer, 1 cat statue (thank you Aaron for the kind gift), 1 washing line, 1 bicycle wheel, 1 laptop screen, 1 sandal, 1 umbrella, 1 net, 2 trolleys, 2 cones, 2 TVs, 6 small bottles of vodka (empty), lots of cables, 100s of glass bottles, bags and bags of other junk and let’s not forget – all the Himalayan balsam!

Huge thanks to everyone who helped pack up van after the event, Jackie and Ann for catering for our volunteers, Jackie for supervising the Event Tent, Chris for helping supervise everyone on the day, Wally for saving the day with the gas, and the Waste Management Team at Sutton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Aaron, Abinas, Adam, Andrea, Ann, Anthony, Arangen, Barry, Bill, Chris, Dan, Daniel, Dave, David, Dennis, Derek, Devashanthan, Ed, Gary, Gemma, Geoff, Hanna, Jackie, Jan, Jay, Jez, Joe, John N, John S, Jon, Keith, Louise, Marion, Marta, Mike, Nick B, Nick H, Per, Phil, Rayhav, Rob, Rose, Saiprem, Sathyandran, Simon, Stewart, Sue, Vic and Wally.

So what did I learn from this month’s cleanup? Wally is my cleanup hero.

Misconnected Madness

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We’ve got some good news for the River Wandle!

At the start of our Pollution Monitoring scheme with the Environment Agency an outfall in Morden Hall Park was identified to be a chronic source of pollution – a likely misconnection problem.

Working closely with our local Environment Agency team, our volunteers helped to monitor this outfall gathering evidence of when pollution was spotted with photographic evidence. This extra information enabled the Environment Agency and Thames Water to investigate 412 homes in the area and discover 17 misconnected properties with 40 appliances discharging directly into the River Wandle.

This is a huge success for our Pollution Patrol project so thank you to our dedicated volunteers. We hope to have many more similar success stories in the future!

Read the full press article here

Our Pollution Patrol is still running today with 50 volunteers trained on our three rivers – Wandle, Hogsmill and Beverley Brook. Our local Wandle Environment Agency Officer Kate for the Wandle has kindly put together an update on pollution in the last few months and what we need to start focusing on now!

Wandle Pollution Update

Why not join us?

We are always keen to have more volunteers join our scheme. If you think you might be interested in joining the Wandle team (or Hogsmill or Beverley Brook team), please get in touch with us at pollution@wandletrust.org

Check your house: Make sure your house is connected correctly with the Connect Right website.

Monitoring Madness

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Olly and I have taken a successful sample set from one of our Downstream Defender silt traps in Carshalton and the results look promising…

In 2013 we installed a suite of 3 Downstream Defenders as a pollution prevention method, cleaning surface water before it enters the river. This week has seen a few periods of extreme rain downfall and Olly braved the weather to look at the effect on the river.

As we know, rainwater is collected off our roads and channeled into the river by our surface water drains. Unfortunately with the rainwater goes all the other contaminants from the roads. This causes a first flush of pollution down the Wandle.

Our Downstream Defenders are designed to reduce the severity of this first flush by removing some of the worst of the pollutants before they enter the Wandle.

Today we took samples of the water upstream of one of our Defenders (before) and downstream (after) to see what difference it is making to the water quality. The samples have been sent off to the lab and will not be back for a couple of months, but for now look at the difference in colour alone!

Rivers & Wetlands Community Day: Friday 27 March

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I have had a very exciting last two weeks at the Wandle Trust having spent more time outside in the river than in the office – lucky me!

On Friday we had our second Rivers & Wetlands Community Day with 15 volunteers joining us out in the sunshine. Tim had stored up a very long to do list since our previous Rivers & Wetlands Community Day in October last year where we added 2000 plants to the restored section of the Wandle at Butter Hill in Carshalton.

Firstly we had to add 500 native marginal plants to the newly restored section on Mill Lane. As always, we ordered a variety of different species so we could create a natural marginal community on the banks of the Wandle. Species included ragged robin, water mint, sedges and purple loosestrife.

Meanwhile, some of our volunteers tackled the invasive non-native Canadian goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)which had established on the banks of the Wandle. Canadian goldenrod produces dense stands which out-compete native species, reducing habitat diversity. We caught it early in the season when it was just coming through as small purple tinted shrubs. You can see how dense the root system is in the image below.

There had been a fair bit of fly-tipping since October that we were keen to tackle, so a team of us ran a mini cleanup while the planting was going on. Some highlights included a bed frame, a motorbike at Hackbridge and a car seat. In total, 40 bags were collected which is almost the number we get on a regular cleanup!

Next on the agenda was raking and seed sowing; coppicing and pinning in some Large Woody Material which had fallen into the river.

Altogether it was a busy day and we couldn’t have got it all done without our volunteers.

So thank you all for coming: Aaron, Andy, Charles, Dave J, Dave W, Derek, Geoff, James, John, Lorna, Mike, Steve, Sue and Wally.

What does the Wandle mean to you?

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You have the chance to have your say in how the Wandle is managed in the future.

The Environment Agency has published draft River Basin Management Plans for every river in the UK and they want to hear your opinion!

To help you get involved and add your voice, WWF have created an easy way to make your opinions heard.

Got a couple of minutes? Answers these quick 5 questions.

Got a bit longer? Give us more detail on what you value to be important to your local river here.

Share this with your friends and family – #SAVEOURWATERS

Fungi versus Diffuse Pollution

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Our Water Quality Officer, Olly, has been having a busy few months working to tackle urban diffuse pollution on the River Wandle.

If you missed the introduction to his work – have a quick read now!

This week, Olly, myself and some lucky volunteers will be installing the next pollution mitigation measure: Mycofilters.

Mycofilters (Mycos for short) are mesh sacks packed full of straw, wood chip and mycelia (the non-fruiting part of fungi). Over time the mushroom mycelia grow throughout the sack and create an expert filtration device. Once placed in the river, the mycelia filter out contaminants from the water which passes through them.

The Wandle Trust has already trialled growing and installing these filters. In November 2014, we held another successful volunteer day to make a further 60 bags with a slightly modified and more robust design.

This week we will be taking these fully grown Mycos and installing them on sites where pipes are potentially polluting the river. The Mycos will be installed securely to ensure there is no flood risk and will be monitored carefully over the next two months to determine their effectiveness.

So if you spot something odd looking close to the river – it is probably a Myco! Please don’t remove them and if you see one in jeopardy – let us know!

A BIG thank you to our Myco-making volunteers from November. Thanks to you we managed to make 6 Mycos in less than four hours! I’d also like to thank our sewing team who took the time to sew up 60 bags for us to stuff full of pollution busting goodness.

The Siltex is in!

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Have you walked past Carshalton Ponds today? If you have, you may think it is looking a little different…

The ponds have turned a milky-white colour. But do not fear, this was intentional! Working with the Environment Agency, we have just added two tonnes of Siltex to the ponds.

Siltex is a natural chalk-like substance which helps to increase the speed of silt breakdown by stimulating natural processes. (Click here to read more about why we are doing this).

We had eight dedicated and brave volunteers join us at 8am on chilly Tuesday morning. Everyone was kitted out with waders, goggles and masks – Siltex isn’t dangerous but we wanted to be extra careful.

Steve stepped up as Captain Siltex to join Olly in the boat, throwing Siltex overboard in the deeper waters. For the morning, our vessel was kindly lent to us by Sutton Council. In the afternoon, Olly and Steve commandeered a smaller boat from the Sutton Ecology Centre. Without these boats, we wouldn’t have been able to apply the Siltex at all so we are extremely grateful to Dave Warburton, Ian Hudson, Warren Chapman, Collin Franklin and Mark Featherstone for loaning and delivering these boats on the day.

While Steve and Olly sailed the open seas, the rest of us were adding Siltex from the shore, showing off our throwing skills. This allowed us to get a good coverage over the shallower parts the boats could not access.

Throughout the day, the Environment Agency were taking readings further downstream to ensure everything was working as it should.

Olly will be monitoring this regularly for the next few months to determine if it is a cost effective solution to the management of silt at Carshalton Ponds. Last week, Olly and I took some pre-Siltex water samples on a chilly and damp morning.

Why are there four different bottles I hear you ask?

The reason for this is that there are several different substances which are of interest in the ponds. We are interested in what effect the Siltex might have in speeding up the breakdown of several contaminants (e.g. car exhaust particles) as well as reducing the overall volume of mud. Different tests are required for different substances – for instance hydrocarbons (oils and fuels) stick to plastic, so must be stored in a glass bottle if they are to be extracted and analysed. So different bottles are needed for each different test!

While we were out we rescued Woody from the Wandle – he is now our unofficial Mascot for the project! He even joined us for the Siltex event, although came out a little worse for wear….

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates!

Pollution alert: Storm flows from Caterham Bourne through Beddington sewage treatment works

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Following our recent report that record rainfall this winter has resulted in the reappearance of the Caterham Bourne, we’ve just received this information from the Environment Agency:

Because of the high ground water from the Caterham Bourne, ground water is being pumped into the foul sewer to relieve flooding issues in the Kenley and Purley area. This is also to protect Sutton and East Surrey’s potable water treatment works at Kenley.

Because of this there has been an increase in water flowing into Beddington Sewage Treatment Works and the Works are running under storm conditions. This means that the water coming from the works is a mixture of final treated sewage and storm water.

This has been going on for a few days now and could last for a while. However, several partner organisations including the EA, Thames Water, local Councils, the Police and Fire Brigade are working to manage the situation as immediately and effectively as possible.

Needless to say, we are taking this situation very seriously, and will post updates here as we receive them.

Update 1 (2.30pm, Monday 24th Feb): the EA have informed us that “free ammonia” NH3 levels are currently very low in the lower river, and no environmental damage has been detected so far. However, sludge which has been scoured from Beddington’s storm tanks may be getting into the river, and may look like shredded toilet paper or similar.

Update 2 (12pm, Tuesday 25th Feb): There is sewage debris, sludge and fungus being seen all along the river downstream of the effluent channel to at least Penwith Road. Water is not being pumped to the foul sewer now but the amount of water entering the sewage treatment works is still high and is therefore still operating under storm conditions. Dissolved oxygen levels are low but not thought to be a cause for concern yet.

If you’re out on the river and notice offensive smells, unusual quantities of sanitary products, or fish or other wildlife in distress below Beddington STW, please phone them in to the usual EA hotline: 0800 80 70 60. Thank you!

Keep vigilant on the Wandle over the next few days…

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The Environment Agency have been in touch to say that, with the inclement weather, they are contacting their partners to ask us all to keep vigilant for any incidents (e.g. pollution or blocked culverts) and flooding, and to keep an eye out for our neighbours. River levels may rise quickly so do take care.

Further information on flooding and flood alerts can be found here. Please report any incidents via the freephone number 0800 80 70 60 and any specific flood related issues via the EA’s Floodline on 0845 988 1188.

Wandle Pollution Volunteer Project Wins Rivers Trust Award

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We are delighted that our Urban Pollution Monitoring project has won the Rivers Trust Award for Science and Innovation.

Bella receives the award from Ivor Lewelyn, Director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust

The project was created in partnership with the Environment Agency (EA) so that trained Wandle Trust volunteers can respond to assess minor pollution incidents in place of EA staff and feed information back into the EA’s National Incident Recording System.

This enables reports of pollution (called in to the EA’s Incident line – 0800 80 70 60) to be attended more quickly and frees up the EA to spend more time on pollution prevention visits. The project has also been extended to include the regular monitoring of known polluting outfalls which has led to greater understanding of the extent of the pollution and a number of these outfalls have been addressed.

Many many thanks to all our wonderful and dedicated Pollution Assessment Volunteers, and also to the very supportive staff at the EA – in particular Kate and Richard. If you’d like to get involved with the project please contact pollution@wandletrust.org.