This is why I get so PI$$ED off…

This is why I get so PI$$ED off… a little while ago The Sleaford navigation Trust (I assume) asked the ‘people responsible’ for creating a dam on the Slea to stop, this was done it said because the people involved were worried about the wildlife not having enough water. This is obviously a little short-sighted because if you dam a river to bring the water level up you obviously make things worse down stream of the dam, but at least the people concerned did this with good intentions. Well the Navigation Trust (I assume again) have done EXACTLY the same by damming off the weir at Cogglesford Mill…

…but this time is it done for the right or WRONG reason ?, a more cynical person than I might think that they want a boat to go up and down the river next Sunday to ‘Celebrate’ the opening of Monstrosity Bridge and the new slipway and need the water level higher – if so this would surely be UNBELIEVABLE. But even if this dam is so that some work on the weir itself can be done, then without letting water through somewhere else the wildlife downstream of the Mill will suffer with reducing water levels even though the water level below the Mill is LOW anyway. I would also like to know why this dam is allowed because we are told that even too much weed increases the danger of floods, so this dam must increase the danger also, one rule for etc etc

Also on the Slea at the moment are many baby ducklings and Moorhens, now Moorhens have a territory and if adults are pushed out of their territory (even temporarily) into another Moorhens territory they will be attacked, but if baby Moorhens do the same they WILL be killed, and a boat going up and down a river as narrow as the Slea will cause this to happen. Also Moorhens like to nest surrounded by water and wash from a boat on a narrow river may well wash the nest way. WHY WHY WHY cant this ‘celebration’ at least be at the end of the breeding season – perhaps because the Navigation Trust do not care or perhaps because they do not realise – I know which I think.

Anyway I go down the Slea to enjoy the wildlife but increasingly find I get home in a bad mood because people just do not realise that their actions are life and death to the wildlife, so reluctantly I have decided to stop going down the Slea (at least for a while) to try and get some sanity back – the wildlife have such a hard life even on a relatively ‘safe’ Slea but I just cannot bear to watch what the Navigation Trust get up to.