 Beckside 2020 Recently, during an idle moment, we were researching on the internet why fly tippers throw their rubbish over the wall instead of leaving it on the road side where we can more easily pick it up, we didn’t find an answer to that! But we did come across an interesting report dated October 2022 from unchecked.uk titled “Tipping Point - Exposing the realities of Britain’s fly tipping enforcement gap”. It has some interesting data which can put Bradford Council's performance on this in perspective. Here are a few snippets from the report, with pictures of some Keighley fly tipping littered (geddit!) amongst them.
We are not sure why the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber were considered the bad guys on this. East of England had 18.6 incidents per 1,000, West Midlands 15.2 and London 42.7.  Beck Street 2020
It is clear from this report that fly tipping is a national problem with regional hot spots and is not peculiar to Bradford as some would argue. The problem has got out of hand because cash strapped enforcement bodies do not have the resources to bring prosecutions.
Fly tipping and litter are a matter of civic pride, seeing rubbish strewn about the neighbourhood has an impact on how you feel about your community and probably about yourself. We need politicians to step up and say enough is enough and fund increased enforcement and also encourage a mindset that makes littering, and hopefully fly tipping unthinkable.  Mr and Mrs. Dalton Lane Bridge. 2020
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 Major work to separate the river from the tip. (Photo courtesy of Rita Tretton) Some of you will know that work is taking place to prevent waste from Marley tip leaching into the River Aire. This is a £2m project which should be completed in November. River pollution from the tip has been an ongoing problem for many years, River Worth Friends member Kevin Sunderland has been concerned about the level of pollution from the site for over fourteen years and has persistently campaigned for something to be done about it. I recently got the lowdown from Kevin about his long campaign, here is a calendar of his progress. First, a little history. The minutes of the old Keighley District Council show that the Council had asked for help in 1947 with the land that they were losing to the river at Marley. A point blank refusal came from the Ouse Catchment Board. The tip finally closed in 1963 about the same time as the incinerator was shut down. The land was subsequently used for playing fields. The land affected by erosion is at the Bradford end of the playing fields.
August 2013. Bradford Council finally commissioned Leeds City Council to carry out tests which revealed high levels of iron, lead and arsenic throughout the tip. Bad news for the wildlife living in the river and those living alongside it. December 2013. The council sought £400,000 funding to carry out remedial work on the site.
RESULT! Well sort of, it has taken another four years but the work is now underway.  Seen from a distance you can see how extensive the work is. This long story shows that campaigning doesn’t always bring quick results, but with a just cause plus determination, diligence and persistence you can eventually get a positive outcome. This will make a big difference for the river, its wildlife and those living downstream from the tip. Hats off to Kevin Sunderland. Although he won't like me saying that!  The stone banking will be built up using stone gabions, there are some to the left of the picture. Photograph courtesy of Rita Tretton. Last year we did our first survey of dippers on the River Worth, see report, we have repeated it this year with more surveyors. Here is what we found...... Dippers on the River Worth - 2024 report Dipper with nesting material. A good number of dippers were spotted throughout the system, but in many cases actual nest sites have proved elusive. This is largely down to there being quite small windows when they are actually nest building, (nobody confirmed nest building at all - it possibly took place before our surveyors got out and about), and again when they are back and forth feeding young in the nest. Outside of these periods, the birds are there to be seen but are rarely giving away the location of their nests. Thankfully quite a few fledglings were seen at the regular places, Morrisons, Damems, Oakworth, Haworth and Oxenhope, even if the actual sites weren’t always clear.  Dipper fledgling We hope that when the Worth Valley Railway finish replacing their bridge at Haworth that the resident pair will move back in there. On North Beck, there was much activity around Castle Mill, and confirmed breeding at Goose Eye. Holme House Wood drew a blank again, we have to guess that is due to a lack of the preferred old stone walls/bridges for nest sites?  Demanding young! We didn’t have coverage on some of the upper streams, but a confirmed successful nest right up by Leeshaw reservoir, and similar by Ponden reservoir in recent years, suggest that we really ought to be paying more attention higher up. It was confirmed that they have been up as far as the small stream through Newsholme in the past, but they didn’t show this year. We had nobody covering Sladen Beck, nor the top end of North Beck (Slippery Stones and above), so if anyone is out walking these areas at other times of the year and see dippers it would be good just to hear from you. Dippers are also reported as occasionally feeding round the edges of lakes. We’ve had no reports of any of ours feeding around the reservoirs, so again it would be good to hear from anyone who sees this. The Leeshaw pair were only seen feeding in the stream below the reservoir. Dippers reportedly maintain their territories throughout the year, but can travel up and down a mile or more to feed, so although we see them about throughout the year we can never be sure where their home nest is. We would like to thank all the surveyors who helped with this project. If you would like to help with next years survey or have sightings to report please contact us. 
River Monitoring on The Worth It is said that water is the source of life, however, very few people fully understand the diversity of life that exists under the surface of the River Worth. Some may have leaned over a bridge and seen a brown trout and others may have spent a happy summer day catching bullheads in jars paddling in the river. There is however a whole web of other life hiding in the river. The volunteers of the River Worth Friends and Aire Rivers Trust survey year-round to assess the health of the rivers hidden wildlife.
Supporting these fish in the food chain, is a whole host of river bugs that call the riverbed home. Every one occupies its own special place in the river habitat and can tell us much about the river's problems. Indeed these river bugs have been compared to the coal miners canary. In historic mining, a canary would be taken down a mine to provide an early warning system for polluted air in a mine, as they succumb to the bad air long before the miners would pass out and die of suffocation. In the same way, the loss of small insects in the river can warn us there are pollution problems. We have a network of volunteers working in pairs along the river to sample fixed sites, once a month between March and October. These riverfly volunteers look for eight groups of bugs in the river to assess pollution levels:
To gather a sample of these bugs, monitors undertake four minutes of collection, where they kick gravel and turn stones on the riverbed. This releases insects into a net, so they can then be sorted and counted in a large tray. The results are then logged on the National Riverfly Partnership Database for review by Aire Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency to help build a picture of the ongoing health of our rivers. Where the results show problems volunteers are able to re-take the sample to check the results and report problems to the Environment Agency for further investigation. Essentially making our riverfly monitoring volunteers the local eyes and ears of the Environment Agency for emerging pollution problems.
During the Summer of 2024 River Worth Friends in partnership with Aire Rivers Trust and Keighley Big Local are running a number of taster sessions along the River Worth and North Beck for members of the public to experience riverfly monitoring, with the aim of expanding our local network of trained river monitors along the Worth Valley. We have dates planned through Keighley on Thursday evenings 7-9pm on the following dates: June 20th – North Dean Allotments June 27th – The Walk July 4th – Damems Nature Reserve July 11th – Aireworth Grove  Kick sampling amongst the rubbish on North Beck. We are also running a qualification day on Saturday 13th July at Hainsworth Wood Community Centre, for volunteers who have completed 2 taster sessions, to achieve their National Riverfly Monitoring Certificate of Competence. This enables them to begin monitoring the health of the River Worth. To find out more about getting involved and to book onto any of the sessions please head over to the Aire Rivers Trust website via this link Riverfly - Aire Rivers Trust or contact sam.riley-gunn@aireriverstrust.org.uk Not only will you be helping to check for pollution, it's also a great way to find out more about the ecology of the river  A handsome stonefly nymph from North Beck. You may remember that back in January we asked for help in undertaking a survey of dippers on the Worth and it's tributaries (We're looking for dipper spotters 19/1/23). A big thanks to those who contributed to the project, your input was valuable. The nesting season is now over so we can review the results. Here are the details from John Tickner who organised the data and also took this lovely photograph of a dipper and fledglings.  Dipper and fledglings (John Tickner). Dipper observations, Spring 2023 Along the River Worth itself, between Ponden and the confluence in Keighley with North Beck, 6 definite nest sites were identified where adults were seen feeding young. Nothing was reported to suggest there were any more pairs, except possibly in among the industrial buildings at Ingrow where observation is not so easy. Individual birds were occasionally reported downstream of the North Beck confluence towards the River Aire, but no nesting identified. Individual birds were reported on Bridgehouse Beck between Ebor Lane and the River Worth confluence, but observations implied that these were birds from either of 2 nearby territories on the Worth itself. Above Haworth on Bridgehouse Beck, Dunkirk Beck and Leeming Beck, no actual nest sites were confirmed, but 4 likely territories were identified, and in at least one of these breeding was successful as fledglings were seen. On North Beck, individual birds were reported at 2 separate locations, around Goose Eye and both sides of Castle Mill, but again no actual nest sites were identified nor breeding confirmed. Thank you to those of you who have taken the trouble to send us your reports. We hope to have another go next year, learning from our experiences this year, and ideally with a few more folks joining in. We were struggling for a while to make any sense of a lot of isolated sightings, then in the space of a few days in mid May it became much easier to locate nests as both parents were frantically to and fro trying to satisfy the voracious appetites of their young in the nest. It appeared that breeding was remarkably synchronised along the river. Dippers are renowned for liking nest sites under bridges, but not all our nests by any means were under bridges, it seems that the old stone walls built all those years ago to contain the river provide an almost unlimited array of possible holes for nesting. The grey wagtails think so too!  Dipper feeding (John Tickner).  River Worth Friends AGM, Tuesday 2nd May 7.00pm at The Marquis of Granby, Riddlesden.At River Worth Friends we are very excited about our AGM (not really but you have to say that sort of thing!), it will be our first ever annual general meeting. River Worth Friends was formed about four years ago to work to both improve the river as a habitat for wildlife and also to show the local community what an asset the river could be to them. Of course covid and the ensuing lockdowns stopped face to face meetings so we have never got round to having a proper live business meeting. With the exciting new developments on the river we thought it was time to correct that. The River Worth Restoration Project with the Aire Rivers Trust and Keighley Big Local, involves a lot of volunteer work to enhance access along the river and to improve wildlife habitat in the river. A network of water monitors has also been set up to keep a check on the water quality in the river. We also have plans for events to celebrate the river later in the year. We have a great team of volunteers who come out to help with our weekly litter picks and river clearances but there is a lot of organising that goes on behind the scenes, the AGM will help to highlight some of this back room activity and hopefully encourage people to become involved.
It should be an interesting evening and also a way to find out more about the workings of the RWF.  Irene Lofthouse as Nacy Newbody. (Photo courtesy of Tony O'Connell)  Although our rivers are in trouble there are things we can do ourselves to help them. The river Worth and it’s tributaries certainly fit into the picture of widespread river pollution outlined in the Paul Whitehouse programs. A look at the River Trust Poo Map, which details all the combined sewage outflows (CSO’s) in the country, shows that the Worth catchment has its fair share of CSO's and that they are regularly discharging raw sewage into the river. If you zoom the map to around Ingrow and click on the largest spots you will see that the South Street Keighley CSO (Permit no.WRA8110) discharged 83 times for a total of 1390 hours, Ingrow Lane CSO (Permit no. 3054 ) discharged 57 times for a total of 917 hours. You can also see that there are not full records for Ingrow Lane as there were technical problems, so the discharges may have been longer. In all there were 23 CSO’s discharging for 4,563 hours into the Worth catchment.
So the river has pollution problems. Some may say “Well it’s always been like that what’s new, it’ll never change”. We would say that shows limited ambition, the river has improved immensely since the days of heavy industrial pollution, with some TLC it could develop further to be a green ribbon running through our communities.
Even if you are not part of the Monitoring Hub you can still look out for pollution and other river issues. If you see anything you think looks wrong go to our Report an Incident page to find out how to report it. Failing that you can always join one of our weekly litter picks, contact us to find out when they are We hope that by a combination of local volunteer activity combined with pressure on our government to do the right thing nationally we will be able to improve conditions on the Worth and all our rivers.
Paul was quite hard hitting but did he miss a target? Paul Whitehouse certainly didn’t pull any punches in his programs on river pollution in which he appears to lay the blame at the feet of the water companies, with a supporting role for farmers. However, in a way why would we be believe otherwise? The water companies are run by investment companies who are more interested in profit than in the quality of the water in our rivers. Yorkshire Water, for instance, is owned by the Kelda Group which is in turn owned by:
So we can’t expect the water companies to have the health of our rivers at heart. The only way to make them do the right thing is by regulation. There are two bodies that regulate the water companies:
One of the EA’s main regulatory duties is looking after our rivers. Unfortunately the Government has cut its funding by 56% since 2010 (Independent 29/8/22). Little surprise that the EA finds it increasingly difficult to monitor the quality of our rivers. We understand that in recent years the number of EA staff tasked with investigating pollution incidents on the Aire have dropped from ten to two which, inevitably, means less effective monitoring. That is two inspectors to cover the whole Aire catchment from Malham down to Goole! So it’s possible Paul Whitehouse missed an opportunity to point the finger at another culprit rather than just the Water Companies – the Government. But all is not lost, and in our next blog we will suggest ways in which we can do things locally to make a difference.  Pepper Pig tackles the sewage and wet wipe problem! Can you help us count the dippers on the river worth? We adopted the dipper on our logo as it is a frequent sight along the river. This little black/brown bird with a white throat can be seen flitting from rock to rock and occasionally diving underwater to search for insect nymphs on the bottom. However we are concerned that there may not be as many dippers on the Worth as there should be. Dipper territory is usually about a 1 kilometre stretch of river for a single pair, we believe the density on the Worth may be much less than this. So this year we plan to survey the number of breeding pairs on the Worth catchment, that is, Bridgehouse Beck, North Beck, and the Worth itself. We would appreciate your help. The best way to assess dipper numbers is to look for nesting sites in the spring. Dippers favourite nesting place is in holes in man made structures such as bridges, walls, weirs and culverts. Nest sites can be traditional, there is a site which is said to have been nested in continuously for over 120 years. Their nesting time is from early March to the end of May.  Dipper feeding. You don't need to be a full blown twitcher to help, just reporting seeing a dipper when you are by the river will help. We are asking for people to report all sightings of dippers, and the activity of the bird at the time, which may be a simple fly-past, gathering nesting material, feeding, and maybe taking that food back to a nest for the young, the surest confirmation that breeding is taking place. In making these observations, please never get too close to disturb the birds. If you are familiar with What3words location finder a what3words location would be a great help but if you are not into the tech. then a straight forward description of the location is good. At the end of the breeding season we will collate the observations to form a map of dipper presence on the Worth. Depending on the results of the survey, next year we may install dipper nest boxes under suitable bridges along the river. If you would like to help with the survey please email us on riverworthfriends@gmail.com Happy spotting!  Dipper with nesting material. (Scottish Wildlife Trust)  River Worth Friends are looking for volunteer pollution hunters. River Worth Friends are constantly on the lookout for pollution entering the river and often report incidents to the Environment Agency. However this is just done on a rough and ready basis, so we have decided to take a more active approach to pollution spotting.
To combat this we are setting up a network of volunteers to check the water quality, look for illegally discharging CSO’s and report incidents to the EA. Water quality can be checked by
So we are looking for volunteers. If you are interested we will be having a meeting to explain the scheme at The Bronte Hotel, Lees Lane, Haworth, BD22 8RA, on Thursday 26th January (see flyer below for more details). No experience or special knowledge is required to be a monitor as full training will be given. Joining the monitoring network is a good way to get out by and even in the river and to find out more about the its ecology. Plus you are helping to improve it for the people and wildlife. Looking forward to seeing you at the Bronte on the 26th.  |
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