Thank you, but if I sign out and view as a guest I can read, if I sign in as Jeff Woodhouse it still says "You don't have sufficient privileges to view this page." So what has someone done to me that classifies me as less than a guest?
No matter if it's political, I can't be bothered.
More importantly -
The last thing we want is to install a scheme that upsets anglers and more importantly the fish and the local environment.
If you don't want to harm the fish (their breeding areas in particular) or their environment (the water quality)
then don't build hydros on Thames weirs!
The amount of electricity that hydros, even Archimedes Screw types, generate is pathetic compared to other forms of renewable energy creation. Take a look at the following table of plans submitted to the Government covering all aspects of renewable energy and just see what hydro represents. In all cases 0.2% and that is when there is a hydro on almost every weir on every river in the country truly killing off thousands of breeding grounds for rheophilic species of fish such as barbel, chub, dace, and minnows.
The entire argument for hydro does not hold water (pardon the pun) and the damage it will do is irreparable for at least the lifetime of the plant. It would be like deliberately breaking a precious Ming vase, you can stick it together of sorts, but it will never funtion again as a vase and the value will have completely gone.
If you want to be really efficient, have a 200 ft wind turbine erected outside your house in the back garden. Or how about a nice waste incinerator just down the road, the bonus with this one is we don't have to fill any more holes in the ground with garbage.
However, you say that you're not doing this for any profit as it's a 'community scheme' so why are you promising dividends and high returns to people that might invest in the scheme? Isn't that for profit? You say, if I remember, that it may yield profits of up to 18% (it may be another scheme I am confusing it with), but I doubt anyone will see any return and many may even lose money on such a scheme. If it were not for Government subsidy, our tax money - the feed in tarriff, you wouldn't make a wooden nickle on it, that's for sure.
If you want a good investment tip listen up - take all your savings out of the banks and from tomorrow, put a £10 bet on EVERY favourite horse in EVERY race being run EVERY day for 1 year. I can almost guarantee you will make between 15 and 18% on your stake monies over the period of a year. It has been tested in the past and it causes a lot less harm than hydro power.
You want reasons why you shouldn't go ahead with this scheme - you've had them -
Apart from looking ugly - it is the way that flow velocities may be changed and this will affect aspects such as aeration and the nature of the riverbed. In the Thames, fast flowing well-oxygenated water is confined in its distribution to weirpools - with an effective lake between each of them. In this case any degradation of the weirpool habitat or function within the rivers ecology could have serious implications for fish not only using the weirpool itself but further downstream.
The flow modelling may give some clarity of what to expect under different flow scenarios, but would this modelling extend to address changes in the river bed (siltation) or oxygenation and the knock-on consequences for river life? Imagine if it caused siltation of the existing weirpool - who would then fund the weirpool dredging and how would this impact upon an important habitat be redressed? In my view there should be detailed consideration from a gemorphologist (who understands sediment transport in rivers) as well as a freshwater ecologist/fisheries biologist, as well as hydrologists who examine flow. In the Thames the modified channel and abstraction has already changed the river towards being a very long impounded lake so as i said the weirpools perform an important function as is.
WELL SAID CHUBBY!
There could be a lot of reasons why the ATr haven't entered into a dialogue with Abington Hydro. Not least of which is that there are a lot of these schemes being proposed at the moment and because hardly any of us have joined and put up any money, they have severely restricted recources. Or they may be concentrating their fire on the EA. We don't know. I hope that we get an update from them.
Yes they are. I'm part of a sub-group meeting with the EA every six months (not often enough perhaps) on the Thames hydro power schemes. This group includes Dr Alan Butterworth and Dave Harvey of TAC as well as some former members of RFEREC.
It might be nice to have someone from the Upper Thames Consultative at the next one as more and more schemes are being planned up there.
Has anybody involved in this carried out an environmental impact study? I don't think so.
I believe this scheme doesn't require a EIA as the plants will generate less than 500kW. It's a pity, but a fact.
I would ask you Pondy, has any work at all been done by your group to study the levels of dissolved oxygen in the lower part of the weir and have they taken into account any research material as to what the make up of the biomass is in the head waters and the run off? Have your group questioned anglers who fish both upper and lower sections to discover what species are dominent in their catches?
You see, it would be no good me turning up to meet you because I don't have the above answers, but you could find some maybe by contacting John Sutton of the Fisheries Division of the EA in Wallingford - so not far to go. If you PM me, I'll pass you his phone number and email.
Finally, you claim to be an angler yourself of 40 years. Being an angler these days is, or should be, more than just a catcher of fish unless it's someone trying to make a name and sponsorship for himself. And it's no use just claiming that you care for fish because you use or don't use certain bits of tackle that are blessed or cursed. Every angler owes it to himself to learn more about fish, their lives, their breeding, their environment, the weed and insect life that supports them and with that to do everything in one's power to protect it and where possible improve it - NOT DESTROY IT!
Sadly, hydropower does only one thing in the environment and it isn't good.
