Victor believes the Angling Trust is just plain stupid

ONLY fools would try to get people to believe that a freight barge would kill 100 fish at one pop—especially on the Aire & Calder.

Which is of course what the Angling Trust wants us to believe, even to persuading Canal & River Trust to investigate!

We have cruised the wide and deep Aire & Calder three times, (here's a picture showing plenty of space for the fish!) that was obviously built for carrying freight to and from the docks. So for an organisation to tell that a freight barge, much smaller than those it was built for, has killed 100 fish by just passing, is absolutely stupid.

All at one place too—not scattered along the whole of its trip!

And the Angling Trust adds insult to injury by proclaiming (as NABO pointed out):

'The carnage that is occurring now is the result of an ill-conceived idea by a green venture programme to keep lorries off the road and use antiquated, polluting, oil burning mega barges on a precious fish-rich area for the task of transporting aggregate. Because of the extent of this carnage killing flora and fauna, this self-defeating operation must be stopped immediately.'

With this as an example of its thinking, what's next?  The banning of narrowboats on the waterways also killing it 'precious' fish?  For it certainly wants the Aire & Calder to itself.

Only recently, pressure by the anglers on the Environment Agency forced a banning of a proposed landing stage for the Derby Trust's trip boat on the Derwent being built before March as it would kill the fish.

One thing for sure, the Angling Trust is not 'green' as there is not only the ridiculous claim concerning the Aire & Calder, but a successful attempt to stop the construction of a water turbine at the Trent weir above Sawley Cut, it stating that the proposed lock would lower the water too much and kill the fish—though no lock was proposed, as not needed with the level fluctuating no more than it normally does. 

As the turbine installed further down river at Beeston has clearly proved. But the fish won, so no extra 'green' power for the community.

Will they get back?

So the Ripon moorers have been told they can escape through one gate of the re-broken Oxclose Lock, but what about when those contractors—who you may remember had already repaired it last summer—get at it again?

When they get back on site anything can happen, as they have well shown, whilst they have 'another go'.

So will those boaters who have escaped be able to get back to their moorings—any time soon?

What a difference

What a difference indeed, between the contractors employed by Canal & River Trust and those employed by the Yorkshire Moors Railway charity.

Showing what a real charity can do—replace two railway bridges with a giant crane on site for £1.26 millions, as Ralph Freeman discovered.

Just about the same price as a breach repaired by Canal & River Trust, and not taking five months as in the case of the Leeds & Liverpool breach, but replaced in two days.

A worry for dog owners

The discovery of an unknown near-fatal illness caught by a dog whilst walking the Leeds & Liverpool Canal towpath is a worry for dog owners, Keith Gudgin reveals.

Nicola Jane's six months old dog became very sick after walking along the Leeds & Liverpool towpath in Leeds, becoming lifeless and limp after coming back from the canal.

She contacted the emergency vet who was unable to discover what the illness was, with the owner clarifying that the dog was taken straight on to the towpath and back, not being around any other area.

The dog fought the infection for five days which nearly killed him, Nicola relates, he becoming ill four hours after the walk then not eating for five days. becoming like a skeleton and limp but then the antibiotics took hold and he started to recover.

There have been reports of dogs catching an unknown illness on the Yorkshire coast and it is feared that this is now spreading inland.

Victor Swift