Crane ZSL Event September 17th 2014

Dear All,

We would like to invite you to an event at ZSL, London Zoo on Wednesday 17th September as part of the 'Citizen Crane' project.
This is a citizen science programme whereby 11 sites in the River Crane catchment are monitored every month by teams of volunteers for:
a) invertebrates (under the RMI system) and
b) phosphate concentrations and loadings.

The purpose of the event will be to:

• Say thank you to the volunteers involved with the project
  
• Present and discuss the findings to date
  
• Explore how the project is linked to the wider aims of the Environment Agency, Thames Water and Crane Valley Partnership
  
• Consider options for developing the project  
  

A draft programme for the day is set out below, along with directions.
We would be very grateful if you could register your intention to attend by emailing joe.pecorelli@zsl.org as this will help us plan for catering.

Best regards,

Rob, Joe, Richard
Citizen Crane

Citizen Crane meeting at ZSL on September 17th 2014

• 10.30 Arrive for coffee
  
• 11:00 Welcome by ZSL
  
• 11:05 Introduction to CVP – Ilse Steyl
  
• 11:10 RMI feedback – Joe Pecorelli
  
• 11:20 Phosphate feedback – Rob Gray
  
• 11:30 How the work of citizen scientists in the Crane catchment supports wider WFD  objectives - Amanda Maclean
  
• 11:45 Thames Water’s plans to deal with misconnections in the catchment – Jasmine Killen
  
• 12:00 The Only Rain in Rivers Project – Charlotte Heron
  
• 12:15 Discussion led by Rob and Joe and to include:
     Current issues that need resolving with the project
     How do we increase awareness that the river is being monitored
     How we might develop the Citizen Crane project
  
• 13:00 Lunch
     The room is available until 3pm – guests are welcome to visit the zoo after the event
  

Directions to ZSL, London Zoo are here: http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/visitor-information/directions-to-zsl-london-zoo
Rob and Joe will meet you at the main zoo entrance and take you through to the meeting room. Please arrive between 10:30 and 11:00.

I will be going to this, if you want to go put your name down here & I will email Joe.

eye will try and make it

Please confirm here if you are coming, by Saturday 6th September.
ZSL need to know numbers, for the free lunch.
Thanks!

Last call for names for this, please confirm if you are coming ASAP

plus Jack

Eye will be there chaps

Trevor is able to come as well, I've confirmed 5 TAC places with Joe.

Meet under the clock at Waterloo, about 10am, and we will go from there. My train gets in about 10:05.

A very interesting morning, the data is starting to reveal something about the Crane and DNR.
- Presentation by Joe Pecorelli on the riverfly data.  It's not good but the DNR water keeps the lower section going.  Trigger levels will be set soon, the problem is they need to be quite low, yet the current levels are quite low and variable.

- Presentation by Rob Gray on the phosphorous data.  This is very high in the upper sections and Yeading Brook, dropping off by the time it reaches Donkey Wood then spiking up again as a result of water from the DNR.

- presentation by Amanda MacLean about EA monitoring and the water framework directive (the Crane cannot be classified better than "Poor" at present) and EA monitoring. They monitor phosphorous monthly at 7 sites down the Crane already, but only once every 3 years for biodiversity so our monthly riverfly gives a big improvement

- presentation by (?) from Thames Water about how they deal with mis-connections and discharges from  CSOs into the river

- presentation by (?) from Thames21 about the "Only Rain In Rivers" project, which aims to raise awareness of mis-connections via social media and other means

- General discussion and Q+A about how we can keep everything moving forward;  How long is this funded for (until March 2016); What next; And a rather peculiar bit of discussion about whether the locations of Thames Water CSOs are public domain or not, and can the locations be disclosed?  We at TAC know that they can and have published them for 2 years, http://sewage.rivertac.org/csomap.html

The CVP have a strange world-view suggesting that the CSO locations may somehow be confidential, despite another Thames Water person saying you could just phone up and they would send a full map for your area if you ask;  The riverfly and phosphorous monitoring data are supposed to be published on the CVP website http://www.cranevalley.org.uk/ and there was a lot of waffle about what was available, but from what I can see, there's nothing there yet!

Hopefully Joe will send the slides over later.