Attendance
Alistair Backwell (Friends of Blaise), Alex Dunn (SusWoT), Di Bunniss (FOB), Peter Coleman-Smith (SusWoT), Bryony Cole (Sea Mills and Coombe Dingle Climate Action Group), Zac Jones (Sea Mills and Coombe Dingle Climate Action Group),Roger Moses (Friends of Badock’s Wood),
Apologies
Alice Cleverly & Mark Maggs (Sustainable Henbury and Brentry) Liz Viggars (SusWoT), Frances Robertson (Friends of Badock’s Wood),
Himalayan Balsam
There was a Balsam Bashing event on Sunday 8 May. Very little significant HB was found. There have been reports of some small stands. Nothing reported so far would justify a group of more than two for an hour.
Careful watch will be maintained but in is unlikely that there will me major BB events until June.
River Cleaning See map for current situation
Henbury and Brentry:
Event organised by Sustainable Brentry and Henbury on 1 May took place. As of the meeting no report was received. Work continues in Crow Lane. There are layers and layers that need to be removed here. At the most recent clean Friday 6 May it was noted that there were lots of shrimps, an eel had been seen and that there were sticklebacks. Various birds were also now taking an interest in the river.
Blaise:
No Trout in the Trym cleaning work has so far been done in Blaise. There is no known significant problem. An examination will be hade in the summer and any work undertaken.
Coombe Dingle and Sea Mills:
Half this stretch has been done. See map, however more needs to be done when drier in the summer. Zac spotted four Kingfishers together on a branch over the river yesterday.
Golf Course:
No work done so far. A check will need to be done in the summer.
Westbury Village:
Done. Monitor.
WWP:
The Wildlife park are assumed to be keeping their section clear.
Badock’s Wood:
No issues.
Southmead Trym Valley:
This has looked at on 6 March when it was very clear. Another clean took place on 24 April when the river and site were rendered very clean and no HB found. The cow parsley and grass was growing very well so there may be some hidden litter, but the site looked great after the work was finished. A lot of new rubbish was removed.
Silt Traps and Weirs
The key for the trap has been found. Caroline from Parks has arranged a meeting with us to visit the trap and ponds to discuss what might be done. Thoughts are: Fill in the ponds, BCC organise cleaning up the ponds (winter when high water flow), The silt trap is emptied, Hazel Brook is diverted round the ponds. Issues include the anerobic nasty dangersous state of the ponds, costs, heritage, visitor appeal, fish health, dogs, documentation.
Meeting will be tomorrow. (The meeting was useful. Caroline will investigate what needs to be done to use the key to open the trap. It is suspected that the trap was damaged soon after installation about 20 years ago and not repaired. The metal sheet that is used to divert the river around the silt traps (there are more than one) has been vandalised, and may be missing. It will be repaied or replaced to see what the effect on Water quality is)
Action (suspended until we understand more about the silt traps and weirs: Alastair to contact Theo Pike and ask what are the things we might do. The report WTT provided was fishcentric, we need to manage heritage, visitors and fish. (Alex offered to contact if needed.)
WalkFest
Frances is managing this. All seems to be in order Bryony will be supporting Mark Maggs. The graphic Jon produced would be available for use.
Action: Frances has produced a press release and sent it out to groups and it has been sent out generally. People are signing up. All walks are weekend 21-22 May. Book and find details on the links below.
Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership Meeting
Was on 26 April. Alex, Alastair and Peter attended. The following issues were saised. Balsam, River Cleaning, More support for our newer Groups, Outfall Survey, Remove Barriers. Ponds/Silt, Rebending, Commiunity Programs, Wessex Water.
There was a lively discussion. We could apply for modest grants to get more kit if needed. We were able to point to lots of information about the Trym system. There is going to be great difficulty getting help, resources are limited. We will meet again three month. The meeting emphasised the need to engage with Bristol Parks about the silt traps and the importance of getting on with the things we already know we have to do.
Climate and Ecological Emergency Community Grant
The new Council fund (up to £5,000 p. application) that is supporting nature initiatives:
The grant programme is targeted at community groups or small not-for-profit organisations based and working in Bristol. Grant opens on 9th May, closes on 23rd June 2022. Details here.
If you have an idea fo something Trout in the Trym could apply for and run properly please email troutinthetrym@gmail.com.
So far there are no suggestions as to what we might do. The general agreement was that by applying for and getting such a grant we would no longer be our own masters, so best to carry on with what we are doing already.
Quartet in the community Report
We’ve been asked to provide this by end of June. it was agreed that we should produce high quality report with the intention of building a strong relationship with Wessex Water.
Action: Alex to produce report and Submit
Pollution Incidents – reporting
Action All Peter is very keen to learn more. He sent this message. I got the impression that others had some ideas about the source of the poor water quality on the Hazel Brook. If we believe the published data (from Wessex Water, most recent data covers the whole of 2021) which says there are no combined sewer outfalls (CSOs) on the Hazel Brook then the problem must be down to misconnected drains and abuse of the roadside drains (businesses pouring chemicals/paint/oil/etc down the road side drain).
I’m keen to follow up with Wessex Water to push them to track down the key pollution sources so they can be followed up and fixed. Therefore I would really welcome whatever you can tell me about any of the specific Hazel Brook hotspots which you know about, eg a specific pipe or business doing things they shouldn’t. Any help gratefully received, especially if it is as geographically specific as possible (so I can find it and share the location).Many thanks in anticipation.
There appears to be another problem in the Trym Valley Southmead that Frances is chasing up. Action Peter and Liz need to be kept informed.
Peter investigted the Southmead incident but was not very concerned, believed it was a misconnect that Wessex were dealing with.
Action Peter will do more research into inputs into Hazel Brook, are there really none?
Yellow fish and rain in drain awareness
We will do this, however at the moment schools are overleaded.
Action Peter: To get in Touch with the BART project Office and find out what happend with the last Yellow Fish campaign that was run.
Bryony Article
Bryony’s article has been circulated for use in local media, if you have not done so already please use it now.
AOB
Cub and Scouts groups wanting to take part in TitT activities. It was felt that as there was no serious litter or HB problem and going in the river was too dangerous these groups should be steered toward the Westbury Show video making competion, which they could do without our groups being involved.
Blaise Museum Opening 1 June. Roger working with Peter and Others has taken on having a TitT stall to promote what we are doing. A few volunteers are needed on the day. A separate request for this will be sent out.