East Yorkshire River Trust

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  • 6.1: Lowthorpe Mill Diversion
  • 6.2: £12m Derwent Salmon Fishery
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  • 6.6: Pickering Beck Channel Restoration
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Costa Beck Channel Restoration

EA Environmental Leave Day on the Costa

On Friday, 9th November 2012, nine members of the Environment Agency, led by Leigh Hogan, reported for work and giving up their ‘free’ time to assist with the Costa Project.

The Costa Project has been in progress for some time now but is at the stage where willing hands were needed and these members of staff volunteered their “Environmental Leave Day” to help out.

The Costa is a “failing water body” as designated under the Water Framework Directive and the Environment Agency has been working with all interested parties to reverse this state of affairs. Land owners, fish farmers, Yorkshire Water, Highways etc have all been involved! To help achieve this aim the East Yorkshire Rivers Trust, in liaison with the EA, helped co-ordinate the work day which proved to be very successful.

The team tackled an area which is situated within the scheme and has been recognised as being over wide and too deep for the water’s available flow. Coir rolls, brush wood bundles, a tree ‘kicker’* and green engineering techniques were all used to address the problem by speeding up the flow leading to producing the natural processes needed for keeping gravels clean and enable natural recruitment of native species like brown trout and grayling, this being the main reason for the water body being categorised as ‘failing’.

Besides the volunteers on the bank and in the water, staff from Flood and Coastal Risk Management gave willingly of their time and expertise (also the use of machinery) without which the day would not have been as successful, and for this a big thank you goes to the FCRM Team.

Another day is to be organised for the near future in order to complete this stage of the Costa Project and all those who attended on Friday indicated, despite a rainy wet and dirty day, that they would be willing to commit themselves once again.

From the East Yorkshire Rivers Trust, a big thank you to all participants and here’s looking forward to the next time.

John Shannon (Team Leader, EYRT)