River Evenlode fish survey

Sun 12 May, 15:22

As usual you are quite right Rod. The site chosen by the EA for electrofishing between the Mill Field and the Forest Road bridge, certainly if one wanted to apply a better than deserved veneer on the current state of the river, was well chosen. The site is as far away from a sewage outflow upstream as possible and probably has the most oxygenated water for a mile or so going upstream which will ameliorate some of the eutrophic effect of what is now in the water. The photos showing a few fish that have miraculously survived, with people looking scientific could mislead. Which of course is exactly the intention. It is spin and a suggests “something is being done”.

I urge caution to anyone taking their children or grandchildren thinking the river is a safe medium to paddle about in. I would add that to go wild swimming in the Evenlode you would have to be completely nuts.

Our river is the most polluted of all the Upper Thames tributaries, or at least it was when the last major scientific study into water quality was carried out about ten years ago. This is freely available information. Doubtless clever folks will devise a metric, including a dozen or two fish in photos, which will question the very clear empirical evidence of that study. Thames Water knows the truth as does the Environment Agency and they have always known.

I conveyed some houses in Moreton in Marsh recently and the thought occurred to me to look to see where all the wastewater from the big new estates that have been built there was going. I located the sewage treatment works (STW) in the middle of green fields with acres of room for easy expansion. That inadequate STW has spilt effluent into Our river for more than 2,000 hours (83 days) in the last year, together with the discharge from the Wychwood’s of 2,100 hours (87 days) and various other smaller STWs. To be clear all this effluent is making its pastoral journey downstream through Charlbury and beyond. It does not take a party of fisheries officers having a lark electrofishing to work out we have a major and ongoing problem with Our river.