Clyde Barrage.

Looking on another forum last night i came across a story saying they are planning to build a Clyde Barrage up at Scotland.
Wales rivers were saved when they dropped plans to build a Severn Barrage.
They say it will stop flooding and create electricity.
These barrages are ok for creating freshwater lakes above the dams ,but is it right to risk the wildlife and the envoironment liveing in the Clyde.
The Tees Barrage on my doorstep is a disaster to migratory fish, far more fish are killed in the salt water below these barrages scientists have proven it.PB

lochbois said:

Looking on another forum last night i came across a story saying they are planning to build a Clyde Barrage up at Scotland.
Wales rivers were saved when they dropped plans to build a Severn Barrage.
They say it will stop flooding and create electricity.
These barrages are ok for creating freshwater lakes above the dams ,but is it right to risk the wildlife and the envoironment liveing in the Clyde.
The Tees Barrage on my doorstep is a disaster to migratory fish, far more fish are killed in the salt water below these barrages scientists have proven it.PB

Click to expand...

There is also a study ongoing in the Solway to look at options for generating renewable energy from the sea.
It all started off with a proposal to build a barrage on the line of the old railway viaduct that used to cross the Solway just on the eastern edge of Annan.
As far as I am aware there is a report by consultants with about 50 odd suggested locations and about 5 or 6 different generating designs. I don't think it has concluded much so far.

Then there is the cost of development and in this financial climate will it happen??

Crisis What Crisis

Crisis What Crisis

We seem to find money for the arts. We get steel bottles .We are closeing Steel works here at Teesside i suppose they are going to buy the steel from abroad like they did when they built the Boros Riverside Park from German Steel .I got told by job centre that their is plenty of jobs available and more to come so maybe we arnt in a crisis after all.
Im all for alternative energy but i see what a Barrage does to nature if they dont think things out right first and the Teesbarrage is the Best example ,but know one will take the blamePB.

You would hope that in the interviening years since the Tees barrage was completed that Environmental Impact Assessments on such projects have become more rigorous.

We also have new Legislation since that time such as the Water Framework Directive which would have a bearing on such developments.

I would think a barrage in the Solway would be more complicated to complete as it needs cros border co-operation and agreement, but talks have been ongoing for a while now.

The proposal for a Clyde barrage may be easier as the Scottish Governement are hell bent on achieving renewable targets.

Nopt that that is necessarily a bad thing, but as you say it should not be done at the cost of the wider environment.

Barrages and Fish Passes

Barrages and Fish Passes

It amazes me that in two years since i have been on the internet i have learnt a lot more about Rivers in Britain and the evoironment.
I have never wanted to put the world right like some people have accused me of. But when you see such utter waste and nothing being done it makes you sick.
The foot and mouth disaster was the same for me. I see it on the TV and it isnt the same.
I saw the foot and mouth for real one sunday and the smoke and the smell .
Then the heaps of dead animals really hits home these terrible tradgedys that can happen.
Their is lots of fish passages that are holding fish up in low water.
It does make me wonder why they pay scientists to carry out three year studies when the problems are stareing them in the face.

It's a sad fact but I suppose that is the way things work at the moment.

Research, research, procrastination, more research , blah de blah de blah.

Probably what we all need to do is join as many lobbying bodies as we can afford to give a groundswell and effective lobbying power.

It's a shame that we still as fishers have not managed to unite under the one umbrella organisation, ala RSPB, I think governments and other organisations would have no option but to sit up and take note.

I am guilty for not being a member of anything other than through my club being a member of the ACA as it was.

Maybe something for the to do list this year where finances allow.

You'll never get a scientist to tell you you need less research in the area they work in.
I'm not a scientist, but we desperately need more research especially into our seatrout. The research available to date is very patchy and over reliant on assumption and techniques to compensate for the paucity of information available. Accessing that information is costly too.
One book I bought before christmas cost £105 by the time it was delivered, the other £36. They're worth it, but I can't keep shelling out like that just to get to read some studies. We'll be developing our own programmes over the next year or so on the Camel, possibly the Fowey. But yet again money will be the decider as to the quality and detail of the information gathered.

In the next few years you'll find you won't get permission to do diddly-squat to your rivers unless you've got river specific information to justify the outcomes of existing efforts and to prove they're not having any unintended consequences. The rivers and associations that shout loudest for this data and make most efforts will in my opionion be the ones which get to thrive where budgets are continually being slashed.

We need more boffins on the job. We'll never get them if we don't support their studies.

I totally agree. i think we are all keen to find out what may come from the Celtic Sea trout project.

Please explain

Please explain

Can you please explain ,if you are wanting to debate on the serious subject of saveing the lives of the fish that were stocked into the Tees wth anglers money.

Shipping Hazard

Shipping Hazard

Wish people would take a look at the Britishwaterways site its a great place for watersports its a great place for bird watching. Its got a caravan site. It holds triathlon events It has opera nights down their. Power boat raceing. Canoesits.Rowing boats ,passanger cruiser travelling on the eleven mile lake. The place is booming. I get brambles and apples by the bucketfull down there.
What a place it will be when fish can swim on there own and stock the river Leven that has a brand new fish pass built.The Skerne at Darlington got a major clean up waiting for the migratory fish. Fish Trapped in the small cage and counted by hand will hopefully be counted by digital technoligy fitted at the new £5 million White Water Course . I cant wait for the day that first JCB starts on the new sitePB

A family photo.....

Simple Question

Simple Question

Can i ask a simple Question.

Do Clyde Fishers think there fishing will benefit from a Clyde Barrage?:

Unfortunately Lochbois the world, most of us live in, is not a simple place.

The current state of the "Clyde Barrage" is that talks are to be held over a proposed scheme - i.e. something that has not even reached a planning stage therefore no one can possibly say what its affects might be.

As ever your question is loaded - yes it might affect fishing and I would expect everyone of us to try to get the best out of ANY scheme for fishing, but they are talking about it providing energy, saving fossil fuel burning, stopping floods, preventing erosion etc. So here is a simple question in return - how do YOU weigh that against fishing??? By your own account the Tees Barrage has been a godsend for Stocton on Tees economically and in regeneration terms yet it coincides with a vast improvement in rod catch which you have still not explained.

Take off your blinkers

cheers
Nf

Clyde Barrage

Clyde Barrage

Nightfisherman.
Did you vote for a proposed Severn Barrage.
Are you going to vote or campaign for a Clyde Barrage.
Will you be happy to Return all your Sea--Trout and Salmon back into our Dammed Rivers because man has not provided acess to the rivers they were born in.
Can you not get it into your head that because the waters are clearer on the Tees we now have otters we now have salmon and sea-trout. Please look into the Tees history .
Have you visited the Tees Barrage and witnessed the daily slaughter of your fish.
Anglers are visiting the Tees because the Tees is recovering after industrial pollution.
The Tees Barrage has only stopped the Tide going eleven miles twice a day and because planners didnt build a suitable fish ladder .Millions of your fish die instead of being able to spawnin the headwaters.Why dont you bother to go on the former A.C.A. website you might realise why they started campaigning long before i did for their thousands of members to put a stop to this massive fish kill on the Tees.
I am a member of Bishop Auckland Angling and District which has three miles of the best migratory fishing on the Tees .
They have 400 members who provide the only information as do other angling clubs on the Tees on fish catches on the Tees and its many tributeries.We Dont Have a Fish Counter on the Tees.
Im not a scientist like yourself but i hope you can see the point that if you dam a river and dont provide enough acess twenty four hour of the dayfish end up trapped.
Tees fish that by nature want to get to the spawning grounds are getting slaughtered every day since the barrage was shut.
Things will hopefully improve when the work on another two fish passes are started but i am not going to give up the fight just because you disagree with the sight i see on my doorstep daily.
Its a man made problem, and only man can save your fish.
I cant believe that you want to see all the rivers in Britain Dammed when you say you contributed to the Buy out of Nets around Britain.PB

lochbois said:

Nightfisherman.
Did you vote for a proposed Severn Barrage. No what vote?
Are you going to vote or campaign for a Clyde Barrage. I will look at what is proposed, if and when it is proposed Will you be happy to Return all your Sea--Trout and Salmon back into our Dammed Rivers because man has not provided acess to the rivers they were born in. YES - 12 of 14 went back last year, so I would not mind putting the other two back and I make damned sure I never take a coloured fish
Can you not get it into your head that because the waters are clearer on the Tees we now have otters we now have salmon and sea-trout. Please look into the Tees history . Have done and I still cannot see the effect of the Tees barrage - see diagrams below but I do note your complete and total disregard of what the figures actually show despite being asked to comment on them several times
Have you visited the Tees Barrage and witnessed the daily slaughter of your fish. No and it doesn't worry me, I repeat seals eat fish no fish no seals, no seals is a bad thing - can you not understand this???
Anglers are visiting the Tees because the Tees is recovering after industrial pollution.
The Tees Barrage has only stopped the Tide going eleven miles twice a day and because planners didnt build a suitable fish ladder .Millions (constant repetition of completely stupid numbers does not make them any less stupid or completely false) of your fish die instead of being able to spawnin the headwaters.Why dont you bother to go on the former A.C.A. website you might realise why they started campaigning long before i did for their thousands of members to put a stop to this massive fish kill on the Tees.
I am a member of Bishop Auckland Angling and District which has three miles of the best migratory fishing on the Tees . (although you don't fish it of course s you have said so)They have 400 members who provide the only information so now we know the data come from above the impassible barrier as do other angling clubs on the Tees on fish catches on the Tees and its many tributeries.We Dont Have a Fish Counter on the Tees.
Im not a scientist like yourself but i hope you can see the point that if you dam a river and dont provide enough acess twenty four hour of the dayfish end up trapped. I am not entirely sure I do - estuaries shallow naturally and most river profiles have steps in them at some point - natural barriers that many fisherman are not, necessarily, aware of, in this case you have a man made one. I would be prepared to bet that the majority of estuaries have points that concentrate fish and are the prime hunting grounds for seals etc
Tees fish that by nature want to get to the spawning grounds are getting slaughtered every day since the barrage was shut. BUT the figures show catches have improved - when oh when will you address the basic question set, how in ^&*% can you explain that when you keep repeating it is shut, it is impassable etc etc you simply contradict yourself
Things will hopefully improve when the work on another two fish passes are started but i am not going to give up the fight just because you disagree with the sight i see on my doorstep daily. That's the nub of my problem - your arguement is led by what you see and no understanding, no thought -apologies for the brutality of the statement but it is what rubs me up the wrong way....
Its a man made problem, and only man can save your fish.
I cant believe that you want to see all the rivers in Britain Dammed I have never said that when you say you contributed to the Buy out of Nets around Britain.PB

Click to expand...

Quite frankly PB you simply rant, you do not argue sensibly from facts and it is why people like you do a, genuine but misplaced, disservice to those of us who want to improve our habitat as a whole - you don't address the basic questions, you don't look at the data, you merely look at something you see (seal predation and seal damage) to YOUR fish and jump to conclusions. My approach look at the data, think, and ask the big questions

does the catch data show a marked improvement post barrier compared to pre barrier? YES
does it coincide with barrage opening? YES
does this prove the barrier did anything? emphatically NO
does it prove the barrier is a good thing? NO
does it prove the barrier is a bad thing? NO

is the river improving at the same rate as other NE rivers? YES
EA figures fo Tees v Tyne, salmon catch


does this data show any effect of the 'impassible' barrier? dont be ridiculous if it was impassible there would be no fish
does this data show it would be better without the barrier? impossible to demonstate but the data show improvements at exactly the same rate as other NE rivers

EA figures for rates of recovery Tyne, Tees and Wear


- see any difference in the slope of the curve - NO (but scientifically it does assume a linear trend is the right way to go which it might not be). Will it plateau in future because the barrier is a restriction? - it might but not so far

In short the barrier to date has not shown any demonstrable affect on the recovery of the river. PB please demonstrate otherwise and not just rant about seals, I have explained several times that this is a meaningless statement. Yes killing all the seals would no doubt let more fish through - but - no lets not go there.

Is there an issue about the recovery of tagged fish above/below the barrier ?yes there is - 2005 19 fish tagged - results 9 predated by seals, 1 caught above barrier, 9 unaccounted for. Did the 9 unaccounted not get caught again? were the 9 predated going to be eaten anyway? did the missing 9 make it up and down? who knows - a useless study (statistically) to draw ANY conclusion from hence the need for a proper one.

Are the ACA/EA etc. etc. concerned about the future limitations the barrier might have to recovery - yes they are which is why they are actually doing something about it and monitoring it over several seasons -3 years why? because we all know rivers have natural fluctuations- there ain't no quck fixes to gathering data in natural systems. They plan to tag 150 fish per year - at the end of that then perhaps there might be some answers.

One last point (see BBC website 2009 honoring the original proposer/designer and the statue recently unveiled on the banks of it to him)- the prime reason apparently for the barrage was to STOP polluted waters flowing UPSTREAM - so that fish could spawn! Has PB ever mentioned this?????????

Nf
- with apologies for hijacking this thread but the other one has got lost in silly pictures

You have a pm.

Some more scientific proof