Your favourite river

[Fauna]

I voted for the Rhymney River. A few years back i might have voted it as one of the worst, but due to the amount of work by a dedicated team of Anglers ect, through river clean ups with Keep Wales Tidy, The Riverfly Project and various other organizations, i can now proudly say it is one of the best...in my eyes at least

The River still has problems, the one that really winds me up is the sewerage. There is a number of (can't think of what you call them, might be CSOs) of large raised sewerage man holes dotted along the River. Sewerage is able to back up and escape through the grids at the top of these and flow into the river. These blockages are mostly attributed to sanitory wear being discarded down the toilet...though, there has been a trap put in place to help stop these incidents from occuring on the scale they used to.

Here's some extra info on the river in regards to the Riverfly monitoring ect... also, if you look at the back ground in the picture just under the title monitoring you can just make out one of these man holes.

http://www.riverflies.org/index/rive...nt/Rhymney.pdf

[artdemole]

I voted for the River Cam near Camerton running near Dunkerton And Wellow.Small not to wide but full of wild life and very quiet and pleasant to walk around.This is in N.E.Somerset. I'm afraid I do not like the Avon.To many bends, to much growth on some of it's banks.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Pete Collins

I voted for the tiny river Ver, purely on the grounds that it rises in my village - at least it does during the winter months, and then it's little more than a ditch! But it does become an attractive chalk stream as it passes Redbournbury (where I've seen Little Egrets and Banded demoiselle), and it's even quite pleasant as it goes through St Albans (which took its Roman name Verulamium from the river, of course).

The Ver was navigable in Roman times. Water abstraction (at Redbourn) has reduced the flow to the current trickle.

Jim

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Chiltern Ben

What do you think about the Chess and Mimram, my favorite chalk streams?

The Chess used to be wonderful 50 years ago. Clean and full of brown and rainbow trout, grayling and the usual coarse fish, and our native crayfish. At Sarratt Bottom for some years there were also three quite large Golden Orfe, but they've long gone.

The rainbows were early introductions of that species to the Chess and were unusual that they were from a non-migratory race. Other rivers generally had migratory races introduced and were often soon lost as the trout headed for the sea!

The river's gone downhill and there's very little to be seen in it now. It's been badly hit by pollution at Chesham a few times.

Jim

[Chiltern Ben]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

The Ver was navigable in Roman times. Water abstraction (at Redbourn) has reduced the flow to the current trickle.

Jim

The big abstraction was at Friar’s wash just north of Redbourn and this has now been greatly reduced by the water exchange from Gratham albeit there is still abstraction at Kensworth. This will have an effect on the river when recharge to the aquifer is low e.g. 2005/6 but isn’t likely to be a problem in wet years e.g. 2000. This is a compromise we live with in the crowded SE i.e. public water supply v biodiversity. We mustn’t forget that this is a winterbourne and it would naturally have had a perennial head as far down as Redbourn i.e. it would naturally be a trickle in dry years this high up the catchment. I’ve got some detailed research on the Ver that shows that winterbourne flora recovers very well as long as the channel isn’t dry for too many years.

I'm not suggesting you'd think it's a good idea but if you want to kill the river the first thing to do would be to widen and deepen it enough to be a navigation. This would just make it into a sluggish, sillty mess. So whatever the Roman's gave us, making the Ver into a navigation isn't something that I'd ever want back.

Ben

[Chiltern Ben]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

The Chess used to be wonderful 50 years ago. Clean and full of brown and rainbow trout, grayling and the usual coarse fish, and our native crayfish. At Sarratt Bottom for some years there were also three quite large Golden Orfe, but they've long gone.

The rainbows were early introductions of that species to the Chess and were unusual that they were from a non-migratory race. Other rivers generally had migratory races introduced and were often soon lost as the trout headed for the sea!

The river's gone downhill and there's very little to be seen in it now. It's been badly hit by pollution at Chesham a few times.

Jim

I’m afraid I don’t agree with you about the Chess. In 1989 the BMWP invertebrate score in some parts was down to about 39, but by 1996 they were well over 140. i.e. since the upgrade of the sewage works the river has come back to life in a magnificent way.

It’s true that the native crayfish have succumbed to plague (thanks to the signals in the Quarry lakes south of Chesham) but the water voles are back and fish passage has been re-introduced throughout most of the river albeit Chesham has been cut off from fish passage for 150 years. Ranunculus is common throughout most of the river, there are no significant abstractions and most of the periglacial gravels remain, which is why the ranunculus and brown trout survive.

In Chesham it is very vulnerable to pollution as a) it has very low flows due to it being at the perennial head and so naturally dries up and b) the mills downstream in Chesham Moor prevent any migration to replace lost species. I wouldn’t let the problems in Chesham colour my opinion of a river which has a great biodiversity. Pinning my colours to the mast, I’m not worried about the demise of non-natives like golden orfe or rainbows as the Chess has a population of native browns which have survived every drought by surviving in the channel which runs south of the Latimer Road until Bois Mill.

I think it's a great little river.

Ben

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Chiltern Ben

I think it's a great little river.

But it was magnificent 50 years ago. There _are_ still trout in the river, but then it was teeming with them. Like many wildlife environments, expectations are being driven downwards. It you were to bring back a Victorian natural history scientist and proudly show them one of our 'jewel in the crown' reserves, they'd be horrified at the impoverishment of plants and wildlife. Places I knew as a kid that were teeming with wild flowers and wildlife are now barren with only 'recreation grass' growing and no birds or insects.

Jim