Eco champs determined to make Aller River project a success

CHECKING on the progress of the Aller River Project has been disappointing, however, the team are determined to work even harder to see improvement.

A fact-finding finding ‘river walk’ was one of the first actions taken before the Aller River Project was formalised.

The walk took place in November 2015 and was carried out by Penny Rees and Preven Chetty from DUCT and Mark Liptrot from the project team.

Also read: Support the guardians of Aller River

The ‘walkers’ were provided with logistical support by Hugh McGibbon and Justine Saunders.

The aim of the walk then was to get a first-hand account of the condition of the river and to establish the physical conditions which the project would face.

As part of an ongoing evaluation process it was decided to repeat the walk in July 2017 and to compare notes with the original walk.

Also read: River project makes a difference

A small team consisting of Nick Swan, Hugh McGibbon and Mark Liptrot walked sections of the river on 14 July.

They found the dumping and plastic rubbish is a lot worse than during the first walk in November 2015.

“This was a big disappointment, in fact there appears to be no impact on the community habits which was the prime objective of the project,” said project manager, Nick Swan.

He said the amount of clearing of Alien Invasive Species is impressive in a few sections.

“Regrowth after a year is noticeable. The sewer servitudes are more accessible than the first walk in November 2015. However, we noted a few sewerage spills on the walk and the municipality does not appear to have improved its response from before the project began.

“Water quality seemed good up to the section after the Storage Company, where it deteriorated slightly and then got progressively worse until it was raw sewerage from a spill just before the sewerage works.

“The area in the tributary that joined the Aller at Africa Tavern was also bad – dumping of plastic (including pieces of polystyrene) as well as foamy water. Hence the extrapolation of Aller costs based on the full pilot length could be misleading,” explained Swan.

Of the 5,8km pilot, Swan said only about 2,5 km has been cleared well.

“About 2km is not walkable due to security threats or difficult river crossings or lack of a path. There are some positive and some very negative points to be learnt from this appraisal, but overall it suggests that, apart from the clearing of the Invasive Alien Plants, we may not have made any significant progress in the physical condition of the river at this point in time,” he said.

Swan added that the project team accepted this conclusion as a reality check.

“The team sees this project as a long term commitment and is determined and highly motivated to ensure success.”

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