**Tidal Fish Kill June 2011**

just checked my area, chertsey brigde to penton hook island, A OK, the 3 10Ib (ish) chub we saw sunday are still there, saw 1 10/15Ib carp, and a pike jummping for its dinner

hi guys,
i,ve been watching the river all morning on the north bank, south of hammersmith bridge, not seen any fatalities but have been watching six/seven cormorants having a field day, everytime they surface their coming up with a elver in their mouths, the other thing i noticed was the amount of brown gulls, you normally see three or four but this morning there must have been thirty odd, when i have watched them before they normally feed on dead carcasses, but this morning they have been feeding in the margins, i can only presume they are feeding on small fry/shrimps.
EA boat went past this morning taking samples and a bloke has just walked past my place on the other bank checking the margins.
going to walk north of the bridge this afternoon into the furneval gardens and upstream into upper mall and check margins there.
check back later
james

went down to barnes railway bridge at 9 oclock this morning,tide was on the way down,no sign of e.a unless the three guys i saw on a small craft were them.didnt see anything unusual until the tide dropped.
walked along the edge of the water saw a few dozen dace ,roach and two big eels{3maybe 4lb) on taking a closer look could see hundreds of small eels{4inches long}.all fish were gasping.walked up to the walls were the water would have been when the tide was in,and couldnt believe my eyes? hundreds maybe thousands of finger sized eels, a few dozen dace,roach,skimmers and a few flounders,one wich was quite a size.
this was on the surrey side of the river ,over about 3 hundred yards of shore.

really upsetting. at the moment trying to put up photos.

willie.

nice to hear your report jim,that other guy was me.

well done the pair of you, its appreciated big time

am wrighting a quike letter to my MP, the right honerball Mr P Hammond MP, Runnymede

Dear Mr Hammond "MP"

as you know I am a fishing person, and over the last 36hrs have heard that from Hammersmith down to your area, the houses of Parlement, with all this rain we have just had, a lot of the sowers have over filled/flooded into the Mighty Thames, killing of a lot of fish, ie eels, silver fish, and some sea fish that make it up this far, soon they, the dead fish will be passing you where you work, the tide taking them out to sea, as a person who takes things to hart, I find this really upsetting, as the Goverment has had over 200 years to sort this out, remember the time when all the MPs had to leave London (1865 I think) because of the stink from the Mighty Thames, curtains spayed with lime to get rid of the stink, the way things are going, its going to happen again, and it will be us the tax payer paying for it, the curtain and the lime that is, and a sprayer, as you know, eels are an endangered animal, and here we are killing them all with our own excrement, if it was birds that where being killed, the excrement would hit the fan, but because it is just fish, no one gives a hoot, but i do, so please can you look into this "BIG" problem and get that tunnel sorted out to take the extra waste away from the Mighty Thames, plus the fact we have to drink this water as will, think about that the next time you have a cup of water, "I wonder what has been floating is this".

from a very worried and tearful Fisher-Person,

Keith Collett

Crazy Crab

OMRLP

nice one m8

Thanks for all the reports, have just come off the phone with the EA and sincere thanks from them. They said they saw you out today and really appreciate all the TAC are doing. We have passed on everything that has been reported.

As noted the birds have had a good day feeding on the dead fish. Juvenile fish have been the hardest hit with Flounder probably the worst. This is likely a whole year class gone.

The dissolved oxygen at it's lowest was 9.3, the cause is the high level of nutrients that went in, ie effluent, and the aglae, microscopic organisms feeding on it, so removing the oxygen.

The current area is about a kilometre long and moving up and down on the tide, two bubbler boats are still out and will be again tomorrow. Until the high nutrients levels naturally fall with the feeding, the oxygen levels will remain low.

The overall kill is not likely to be as high as 2004 but still is very high. Putting a number on itnis almost impossible.

The EA are out again early tomorrow so will be talking to them again.

Keep the reports coming, anything you see, hear, let us know.

Thanks again everyone,

Quote :

A lot of these washed up dead. Can anyone confirm what they are? Bass? Zander? Stickleback?

Based on this I think it is a juvenile thin-lipped mullet:

hi all
nice letter keith utterly agree about if it was birds there would be mayhem but fish naaaaaaa..
looking at those pictures its very upsetting and makes me sick with anger.
does anybody know if any of the news channels have said anything about this as i have not heard
or seen anything..

Anglers Net have put a bit on their web page at 1830hrs today

Email from Richard Aylard, head of Communications for Thames Water.. and an Angler and TAC member from the very early days..


Dear James

I wanted to give you a bit of background to the major discharges of storm
sewage to the tidal River Thames over the weekend and into Monday morning,
following heavy rainfall, which I know will have appalled your members and
every other angler who cares about the Thames.

The discharges, which we very much regret, clearly led to a significant
fish kill and other environmental damage (which is still being assessed).
Unfortunately, and although it sounds like a complete cop-out, we had no
alternative to making these discharges, which are legal and consented, as
this is the way the system was designed in the 1850s, in order to prevent
sewage overflowing back up into streets and homes. The problems caused are
always particularly bad after a long dry period when the solid matter that
has built up in our pipes over several months is discharged into the river
by heavy rain. Low flows in the river and the fact that the discharges
commenced at around low tide, meaning that the pollution was initially
carried upstream, and then down again when the tide turned, added to the
severity of the situation.

Incidents like this are clearly totally unsatisfactory in a modern capital
city and I know you are aware that we have a major programme of work under
way to sort the problem out. In the west London area this includes a 50%
increase in treatment capacity at our Mogden sewage treatment works (which
you have seen) and the proposed Thames Tunnel.

On this occasion, Mogden STW had to discharge around 200,000 tonnes of
screened and settled (but otherwise untreated) sewage once its storm tanks
were full to capacity. I do need to assure you that once the extension is
completed in March 2013 the works will be able to handle a similar
situation without even using its storm tanks, let alone discharging to the
river.

The Thames Tunnel is desperately needed to address all the unsatisfactory
combined sewer overflows (CSOs) to the river, including Hammersmith,
Western and Lots Road Pumping Stations, which between them had to discharge
more than 250,000 tonnes on this occasion.

Since the event we have been working with the Environment Agency, using
aeration and skimmer vessels and dosing with hydrogen peroxide, to increase
oxygen levels in the river and remove debris.

Please let me know if you would like any further information or would like
to see the Environment Agency's press release.

Best wishes

Richard

Press release from the Angling Trust

http://www.anglingtrust.net/news.asp?section=29&sectionTitle=Angling%20Trust%20Latest%20News&itemid=839

The inbox is full with people wanting to talk to us, this is a very sad but very big story. The most serious pollution incident we have seen on the Thames for many years.

Words still escape me as to how I personally feel.

David Harvey wrote:

this is the way the system was designed in the 1850s, in order to prevent
sewage overflowing back up into streets and homes.

I do need to assure you that once the extension is
completed in March 2013 the works will be able to handle a similar
situation without even using its storm tanks, let alone discharging to the
river.

To Richard Aylard:

Thames Water was formed in 1973. So you've had 38 years to do something about it. You were privatised in 1989 and have had since then to spend a bit of shareholders money to drag yourself out of your medieval practices. Instead, you worried about paying dividends making everyone fatter and richer.

But yes Richard, it IS a cop out - you got that bit right.

PS Didn't see you out in your waders last night trying to save the life of the animals that live in the river you make money from.

Massive cop out mate, so right. At least they are responding to us, we need that Tunnel built now. Hopefully all these groups and council trying to block it will see why.

ITV local news are running a story tomorrow, will update the details, Newsquest newspapers also doing a press release.

Not sure who to contact direct but there are several spelling errors in the article about the fish kill. eg Llvers (elvers) Pass (Bass) mittens crabs and shrimps - I think shrimp is both singular and plural.

Don't want to appear petty but its not good for the TACs image.

That would be me mate, thansk for the feedback was just is the process of updating it. Spell checker on the website is rubbish, like my typing.

All been done at such a rush, should look ok now.

Cheers for that

Arcadian Times link to our page: http://arcadiantimes.co.uk/default.htm

WSF link http://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=493977

http://nnet-server.com/server/common/conthames054.htm?site=1

Reported this and linked on our NAC site, see if some of our London(ish) based members can help out. Put some of the pics up too hope you dont mind. Think the more people that hear about it the better tbh.

Cheers Chris, yes no problem. Nice one

thames water abstract every drop they possibly can upstream of molesey, and while doing so, kill billions of fish fry with their insufficient screens
downstream of richmond they kill everything with pollution

so they take what the fish need away [ water], while doing so kill future generations
and as if that weren't enough, they poison as many as they can as well

surely thats a definition of the anglers elzebub

every single one of elzebubs helpers should be made to stand on the foreshore and watch thousands die, if that dont encourage'em to change, they should be packed of to a tax haven, or maybe they're already there

I wonder if next year, (when her maj has her tax payer funded jolly up down the thames in her tax payer funded golden barge), whether thames water and their associated arse lickers, will pull out all the stops, skim the surface and hide all the turds,condoms and dead fish and clear a royal path for the out of touch residents of buck house, maybe the brown nosers at the BBC will show live coverage in HD and focus on three quarter pounder richards instead of wetting their knickers over what the royal darlings are wearing, or maybe Boris Johnson will get an invite and can breath in the fetid stench of decomposing fish, one thing is sure, if a single turd was found floating down any of the royal salmon streches in scotland, the person responsible would be in the tower a bit lively.
Of my soap box now, i walked my local strecth this morning and saw no evidence of dead fish but the amount of rubbish coming down makes you laugh, one thing i did notice was the amount of paper plates and plastic beer mugs coming down, pubs and restuarants should be named and shamed, also saw both bubblers working the hammersmith/barnes stretch, must be serious as i have never seen them both together at the same time before.
p.s.
do you think a condom will take a floater? because thats all your going to weigh in next year.
be lucky
james

Dave may post more about this but in case he goes straight to bed and doesn't (he's been up a while) .....

ITV are doing a piece on the kill tonight at 6pm. Dave has been interviewed riverside for it so hopefully we'll be seeing his angelic face on TV later on.

Tom Cousins is down there aswell - EA Fisheries technical officer on the tidal - top bloke and has been very helpful to the TAC and someone they'll interview as he knows his onions.

Shame about the circumstances but the TAC could be on tele tonight.

Cheers Steve, just off to bed now.

Lots more info from the EA. The Sat Oxygen is over 30 now so very good news. Lots of stuff about monitoring and reaction to incidents. Will post later.

In terms of fish, the found dead a Thin Lipped Mullet estimated around 5lbs, a specemin Dace, got a pic for later, Sea Trout of around 3lb and a very large Eel, he said the size of your lower arm in girth, and long, shocking to be honest. Should not happen to our river.

Very many small flounder still on the shore around Hammersmith plus some silvers.

What they did say was the break down in juvenille fish is very fast, so after a few days they would be unrecognisable.