Your River. The River Douglas

21/03/2023

Pet flea treatments poisoning rivers across England, scientists find.
Discovery is ‘extremely concerning’ for water insects, and fish, birds and bats that depend on them.

Best to consider using orally taken treatments and only when needed other than as a preventative.

2 articles 3 years apart detailing the devastating effects this spot flea treatment is having on our rivers:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/17/pet-flea-treatments-poisoning-rivers-across-england-scientists-find

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/243875/toxic-flea-tick-treatments-polluting-uk/amp/

31/01/2023

UPDATE:
Found this article about similar wrecks on the Mersey: copied and pasted to eliminate all the tiresome, pop up ads:
See additional pics of the ‘Mersey Flats’

“Mersey Flat” provides glimpse into town’s historic past on the River Mersey

Gary Skentelbery
6th February 2023 7:00 am Warrington Worldwide
The remains of a Mersey Flat boat revealed in the mud.

RECENT works on the River Mersey, resulting in lower water levels, revealed a glimpse into Warrington’s historic past when the remains of a “Mersey Flat” came into view.

Following a tip-off members of the New Cut Trail group, including local history enthusiast Mike Kenwright, went off to investigate after the Mersey Flat had come to light at Howley Lock while the river level was dropped to allow maintenance work.

The flat could be viewed from the stern with the rudder still attached along with what remained of the stem, a metal strip and hook which is attached to the stem at the anchor point for the mast forestay.

Mike said: “If I have got it right the angled metal bar would have been bolted over the prow and the hook that is fixed to it may have been part of the gear for holding the mast stay. The masts of the vessels could be lowered allowing them to pass under low bridges. They would have needed a secure anchor when they were upright with the vessel under sail, hence the metal bar over the prow. Of course I could be totally wrong with my ideas!

He added: “Most of the flats were single-masted but some of them carried two masts, and were often called “Jigger Flats”. These Jigger Flats were sea-going vessels and were regularly worked on the Irish Sea, some of them sailed round the coast to London with cargoes of Cheshire Cheese

The last sailing flat to be built was the Santa Rose (Pictured being launched below). It was built for the United Alkali Company Ltd.

Mike added: “These sailing barges were named Flats due to the fact that they had very little keel and a rounded flat bottom.
“In areas where there was no harbour or wharf but there were flat sandy beaches the vessels could be sailed into shallow water at high tide and allowed to settle on the beach as the tide ebbed. Horse-drawn lorries and carts could then pull alongside and the cargo would be discharged into them.
“Depending on the type of cargo it could often take more than one tide to finish the unloading. When the job was done the flat would lift on the tide and could be sailed away.
“When sat on a good level beach the Flatmen reckoned that they sat upright like a church steeple.
“On inland waterways, masts and sails were often dispensed with and the vessels towed for the whole journey. In the early days when towpaths were poor or even non existent in places teams of men did the hauling.
“Later when proper towpaths were constructed horses were used, sometimes in pairs.
“The Mersey and Irwell Co built stables for their horses at Runcorn, Manor Lock at Latchford, Cadishead and Barton,” added Mike.

Some pics of the wreckage of two barges.
They are about 2km downstream of the boatyard at Becconsall near Tarelton. There is a small sewage treatment works in the field and 700m further downstream and on the opposite bank, are the wrecks.
Could they be the barges that used to take the coal up the Flyde coast and to Liverpool, or could they be some of the boats that came up the river to Wigan when it was canalised?
The individual boats look to be around 50ft in length (they measured boats in feet in those days) and 12 - 15ft beam.
Does anyone have any information on these vessels?

29/11/2022

This is a very disturbing report.
Why waste valuable police time to investigate a person’s reason for applying to attend a meeting in which to ask a sewage related question?

When I was first contacted with this story, my source asked me to listen and tell her whether I thought this story was at all weird. My immediate response on hearing what happened was “Bloody hell!”. I think that reaction will be shared by many readers and my comments on this incident are at the...

20/10/2022

After posting about a pollution incident on Smithy Brook in January 2022, I can report that the brook has slowly started to recover over the summer. Invertebrate numbers are very slowly picking up again and a few sticklebacks have been recorded. Hopefully it will continue to improve unless we get further pollution incidents. There have been a team from Groundwork carrying out monthly kick sampling and litter picking along the brook with the help of volunteers that have enabled the improvements to be recorded.
We traced the source of the pollution upstream to a spot below a small industrial estate near to Orrell Station and took a pollution officer from the EA to the spot where the brook was polluted. The culprits, unfortunately, were not identified. A small stream like this doesn’t require much of the wrong sort of chemicals to kill the entire waterway. It will travel downstream as a ‘slug’ of water, killing everything along the way, and in low water conditions it doesn’t get diluted quickly.

If you see any incidents that are causing environmental harm to the river please,call the Environment Agency Hotline. It may be pollution, or someone/something causing damage to the waterway.

Call free on: 0800 807060

Ask for an incident number and we would love to hear of anything that you have reported.

15/10/2022

After the first heavy rains of the autumn the river finally rose above summer levels on the upper reaches above Wigan. We hoped to do some kick sampling as the river dropped but we were met with the sickening stench of raw sewage. It was so bad we were gagging. I had to put the dogs back in the car and there was no way we were going to get our hands dirty in the toxic soup flowing merrily downstream to the sea. There was no way you could call it an exceptional rain event but still we have had thousands of gallons of effluent dumped into the river. It’s disgraceful that the infrastructure needed to deal with our ever increasing population has not kept apace of need.

05/10/2022

We did some kick sampling on Dean Brook yesterday befor the season comes to a close. After a dry summer and the brook running very low there was a bit more water in the brook but it was still running clear.
The results were reasonable with most of the main aquatic insect groups present.
What was most encouraging was the sticklebacks that were present and, to out surprise, a trout of around 5”. It’s great to see that these iconic creatures are breeding in the brook. At least some of the Douglas tributaries are showing promising signs of recovery. A dipper flew past a couple of times and grey wagtails were feeding in the margins.
Unfortunately there is a CSO just downstream of where we saw the trout that will not be helping the aquatic life.
The trout was safely released in the same spot we found it almost immediately.

29/09/2022

Thanks for all of you that have posted sightings of mink on the catchment. It will be great you can please keep sending them in. Remember, we will need a date and an exact location for us to be able to submit these sightings to the Manchester Ecology Unit.
If you don’t have a GPS reference you can use the what3words app.
https://what3words.com/products/what3words-app/

29/09/2022

The barrier removal project being carried out on the River is coming along, with work on the weir at the Bleachworks water treatment works and the section of the river between Eckersley’s Mill and Parsons Meadow ongoing.
When these are complete it will just leave Scholes Weir and the weir at Gathurst as the last two remaining obstacles to fish migration on the river Douglas. These are both controlled by the Canal & Rivers trust. Who knows, we might even start to get salmon and sea trout running up the river for the first time in over 200 years once these remaining barriers have been addressed.
Ribble Rivers Trust have carried out the planning and ex*****on of the project in conjunction with the Douglas Catchment Partnership.

29/09/2022

Today we helped with a river clean clean up on a stretch of the River Tawd in Skelmersdale, where it runs through the Tawd Valley Park. In conjunction with the rangers from West Lancs Council, Grounwork and volunteers from Friends of Tawd Valley Park we managed to make some inroads
Alas, this lovely tributary of the River Douglas suffers from massive polution issues from CSO discharges and industrial pollution, as well as mindless dumping of old bikes, supermarket trolleys and the odd sleeping bag. However, there is life clinging on with a few fish managing to survive. Hopefully, with the help of dedicated volunteers from the Friends of Tawd Valley monitoring and clearing the waterways and pressure being put on the polluters by the relevant authorities it will slowly get better. There was even a report of a goldfish being spotted in the pool below the weir pool near Houghton’s Road.

29/09/2022

Over the last couple of months we have continued with our kick sampling program, gaining valuable data on the state of our rivers invertebrate life. Along with people from Groundwork and the Douglas Catchment Partnership we are starting to build a comprehensive database of the life in the river and its tributaries. The kick sampling for the year is coming to an end with the arrival of autumn but we will be starting up again in spring.
If you are interested in getting involved in River Fly Monitoring we hope to set up a 1 day course in the spring that will equip you with the knowledge on how to carry out kick sampling.
We also joined a scheme that has been set up by the Freshwater Biological Association, in conjunction with Ribble Rivers Trust whose aim is to classify all the waterways and tributaries of all the rivers in the UK. We plan to carry this out over the Douglas catchment. This classifies the rivers by Naturalness of the river course, it’s Hydrological status, the Chemical health of the river and the Biological health of the river and its banks. Many of these small streams, brooks and ditches are mapped out but the status of most of them is not yet recorded.

09/08/2022

Update on Mink on the River Douglas and other waterways.

Thanks to everyone who has reported mink in their area.
We have received many reported sightings and it appears that numbers are escalating dramatically.
Shockingly, within Wigan Borough there have only been around five sightings of mink officially reported in the last four or five years, which is clearly not a true representation of current numbers, judging from the overwhelming response we have received.
We have been advised that Greater Manchester Ecology Unit (GMEU) has a website where it collates and records all mink sightings for the area.
They need a separate report for each sighting with information on the numbers of mink sighted, the location and dates so they can get a comprehensive picture of the situation within the Douglas catchment.
We are hoping that with the help of the public we can more accurately report the extent and numbers of the local mink population.
We will pass on all reported sightings to the GMEU but it needs to be in the following format:

1: A description of the location of the sightings.
(GPS co-ordinates or ‘What Three Words’ location app would be perfect, but if not, an accurate description will suffice.)
A GPS locator app or WhatThreeWord app can be downloaded free of charge on most phones.

2: The time and date of the sighting and how many, if a group is seen.

3: Your name.
This is preferable but not essential.

We can submit the report through Douglas Rivers Association. You could either comment on our page or by a private Facebook message.
No personal information will be passed to the GMEU, however if you prefer to report it directly here is the link:

https://gmlrc.org/wildlife_recording/simple/

Thanks again for your already invaluable input.

02/08/2022

American mink have been spotted on the river in the past few weeks.
A group of five were seen between the flood defence barrier at Yellow Brook in the Lower Plantations, and individual mink have been seen in the Wingates Road area, in between Twenty Bridges and the Dominoes half a mile upstream from Brock Mill and on the Leeds Liverpool Canal around Arley.
At least two duck nests have been cleared out around Wingates Road, probably by mink.
They are voracious hunters of all ground nesting birds and small mammals such as water voles. They are superb swimmers and climbers and will eat anything, including rabbits, frogs, fish and water fowl, including the young of swans and geese.
They are not native to the UK and have no natural predators.
It is imperative that these highly destructive animals are controlled.
Please report any sightings to us so we can build up a picture of their numbers and locations.
They are usually seen around water, ponds, lakes, canals and rivers are where they are most likely to be spotted.
They are usually dark brown to black and between 12-22 inches (30-55cms) long including the tail. They have a long, slender body and are similar in appearance to a ferret, but with longer, darker fur.
If you see any, please let us know asap.