Worrying situation at Redmire

[Snape]

Ten days ago the fishing party at Redmire spotted fish on the surface gasping. An EA officer was called in and a decision was taken for the anglers to leave the pool. It appears that the agricultural pollution is creating a dire situation.
When the dissolved oxygen levels were checked they were less than a quarter of what they should be at this time year. A week later they were re checked and had dropped further and were about an eighth of what they should be. This is a very serious situation and the lives of the fish are a extreme risk.
Les is looking at getting specialist aeration equipment brought in.
Sad times indeed.

[Olly]

Hiring a pump to suck out the lake water --- and then spray it back in again works if necessary.

Had to use this in emergencies in the past.

[Tengisgol]

Sign of the times I am afraid.

[Bjp]

the small pond near my home has just been closed this weekend for exactly the same reason

regards

bjp

[Santiago]

What type of agricultural pollution do they think is responsible? Sounds like slurry is getting in, but I would have thought there would have been preventative measures taken by the estate to stop this happening. Otherwise, aeration will help short term, but they're probably need to do some remedial dredging to remove lots of silt, and throw in a few hay bails in to promote healthy microbe activity. Having never been to Redmire, it's hard for me to guess at the exact cause, but this time of year lots of leaves falling in shallow water can reduce oxygen levels by decomposition, especially in warmer spells and with less oxygenation by water plants.

[Snape]

What type of agricultural pollution do they think is responsible? Sounds like slurry is getting in, but I would have thought there would have been preventative measures taken by the estate to stop this happening. Otherwise, aeration will help short term, but they're probably need to do some remedial dredging to remove lots of silt, and throw in a few hay bails in to promote healthy microbe activity. Having never been to Redmire, it's hard for me to guess at the exact cause, but this time of year lots of leaves falling in shallow water can reduce oxygen levels by decomposition, especially in warmer spells and with less oxygenation by water plants.

The pollution is run off from neighbouring fields which are used for growing potatoes.
Lots of silt and probably nitrate fertiliser has been allowed to enter the pool and there was a lot of silk weed this summer which has now stopped growing and sunk and created anoxic conditions.
Skeff is on to it and there is a plan in place involving putting in swale/reed bed to slow in ingress of water and remove excessive nutrients but at the moment there are field drains running pretty much straight to the inlet stream.
The major concern is for the welfare of the fish which are serious suffering right now and is the dissolved oxygen drops more they will die.

[Snape]

It is on the same estate but the land is farmed by others.

[Mario]

we have installed eareaters which come on every night in our pool as we had oxegen problems about ten years ago which killed a lot of fish and it happened twice after very hot weather we also put in siltex to eat away at the silt we did three times over three years we haven't had this problem since so it seems to have worked

[JPC]

I'm not sure the current problem is down to the potato slurry, although it doesn't help matters. At the end of June the Pool was quite weedy and although fairly coloured the fish could still be seen. When we fished there in early August the weed was non-existent when I spoke to Les he said the weed had disappeared virtually overnight and he was concerned that the resident farmer had been treating some of the fields and crops further up the estate. The following day the shallows had changed from a murky brown to a very dark green, the next day the Pool up to the Evening Pitch was dark green and we could no longer see the fish. On our last day the whole Pool was bottle green and looking very strange. I know from past experience the farm manager who also owns some of the land on the estate has little time or concern for the Pool " its only good for a duck shot" he once told me and I have no doubt if he felt the need to "fertilise " his land regardless of the possible consequences to the Pool he would.
I did speak to Mark last Friday at Ashmead and he did seem very concerned, the disolved oxygen content being extremely low, the EA were involved and pumps were being arranged, hopefully thing will improve ???

[Snape]

Posts made by Rob Fox (ex Redmire bailiff on the Redmire Facebook group):

1. For illustration puposes the first photo was taken in 2006 and the second 2014 which was a year or two after the ag/nutrient run-off problem started to really kick in. My involvement at Redmire spanned 20 years from the early 90's to 2013. When it rained in the early days the water sometimes went red. On a normal Summer day you could observe the Carp browsing the bottom in 10ft of water off the dam. It was dreamlike at times. This sinister grey brown colour is something else and started to appear in 2012 onwards.
The recent disolved oygen levels recently recorded were considered critical (10% DO). I understand that species such as Roach would have died. The conclusion from those far more qualified is that there is unlikely to be much if any invertebrate life/natural food left. With the carp reliant on anglers bait it is not surprising that catch rates have increased.
The situation will not go away until the agricultural run-off from the arable land to the pollution is stemmed
As this is a commercial fishery and the King Carp not an indigenous fish I understand that the EA are limited as to what they can do. If there were dead Brown Trout in the Garron then it might be another matter. This is unlikely as at present Redmire is acting as a cess pit for the River Garron!
Stage 1. There is desperate immediate need for Swales to be created between the ag land and the pool. Swales for those not familiar are shallow, broad and vegetated channels designed to store and/or convey runoff and remove pollutants. They can also be amazing wildlife habitats. Win Win. This however costs money.................






2. "The recent aeration is just a temporary fix, an illusion that creates complacency. The likely truth is, this will occur again and again with eventual fatal consequences unless the agri nutrient pollution is stopped or intercepted.
The truth is far worse than you might imagine.
Here are some recent photographs . Some of you will recognise the first photo looking back towards the shallows form the meadow area that surrounds the shallows to the north of the pool. What was an overgrown/blocked inlet ditch taking drainage water, which other than in big storms, filtered run-off to a limited extent (sort of) from arable land to the north and east, has now recently been renovated deepened and widened.
Worse still, engineering works have been carried out on the Bernithan boundary in the form of a collecting chamber serving the ditches from the arable land (as shown in the photos). This chamber then serves for the run-off to then be piped into the improved ditch and directly into Redmire!
So instead of Swales being created we have in very recent times seen the polar opposite with engineering work undertaken resulting in arable run-off actively encouraged to enter into Redmire to improve the drainage of neighbouring land in the name of increasing arable production. Incredulous but true.
The farmer who has undertaken this is not being malicious. He has no affinity with Redmire and its heritage and has undertaken this work in the name of increasing productivity. However at the same time, he has it seems, taken the liberty to enter upon Bernithan land to carry out these improvements which potentially will spell the end of Redmire.
The good news is that these works which are on Bernithan land and in the control of the family are easily reversed, but of course the clock is ticking…….."