Last week, Kath and John Blewitt hosted a visit from Mr. Blunkett at their home in order to talk about the work that SPRITE are currently doing - and plans for the future. The potential to involve Sheffield College with their local section of the River Don, as well as finding support and resources to tackle hotspots of fly-tipping were discussed. Both SPRITE and Trout in the Town welcome further developments in both of these areas. Since the areas of the river that SPRITE have taken responsibility for incorporate several constituencies, it is hoped that similar support can be generated across relevant parties and councillors.
Weirs and the Backwards Ways that Rivers Work One of my favourite sayings on river restoration is a mangled quote from a movie "... boxing is an unnatural act. Everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step backwards...but step back too far and you ain't fighting at all ". So my mangled version starts out "Everything in rivers is backwards...". Basically, I never seem to run out of new examples of "what SEEMS to happen in a river is actually the complete opposite of what really happens". The rest of this article looks at many of the "backwards" things about weirs and rivers - and finishes off with a real-world case-study that is playing out right now on the River Dove . One spoiler alert is that, from an ecological point of view, it is almost always safe to assume that: The best biological outcome for a river is the removal of some or all of an artificial weir. Now, I don't exp...
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