For the purposes of clarification, could you let us know what you think the ideal win-win solution should be?

Sound scientific facts have proved Magpie is taking from the Lathkill, by three separate people. I am not a scientist but can identify, along with many others, that the Lathkill is living. Viktor Schauberger first claimed water to be alive, I think of the plants and animals that rely upon the flow to be the living factor.

What is a regretful sympton of the modern world is that people living outside an area feel they hold great sway over it. We feel this keenly as residents of the Peak District National Park. The place has become a playground for outsiders!

You what???? Not a scientist? Come, on, I worked out who you were on your second post, as has Peter. I would also point out that I am a resident not only of the Peak Park but the area in question, so if anyone here's got a right to shout about outsider interference, I'd say it's me.....

On other points:

1) Please re-read what I said about the Countryfile bit, the critical issue to me is not the exact wording of what was said on this but the impression that people will take away from this. I went into Mandale with friends on Tuesday night (water level in the stopes a good 10-15ft down and no flow at all from the upper sough into Forefiled shaft, before you ask) and the first comments I got on meeting them were "Did you see Countryfile? Are they going to block Magpie Sough?". I'm gratified to hear that no proposals are on the table yet and will not start haranguing NE, but I hope you can see why when an issue I've known about for some time but not discussed publicly comes out on prime-time TV, I might just assume the worst!

2) I am not willing to comment on what might or might not be acceptable in terms of a blocking proposal. Given my position in PDMHS, any such comment beyond voicing a general opposition now could prejudice future submissions if/when a firm proposal is tabled so please do not throw "what ifs" my way, I won't voice an opinion even on my own account other than what I've already said.

3) There is no formal access agreement in place for Magpie, PDMHS request permission prior each occasion when we wish to arrange access. Given our good relations with Chatsworth I am not aware of us having had refusal in recent years. There is no access agreement at all for Hillcarr sough so I don't think that's a fair comparison, and given conditions in the sough now, Haddon are _extremely_ unlikely to allow "leisure" exploration.

4) If there is evidence in the public domain around how and how much of the upper Lathkill water ends up in Magpie other than the thesis already linked to, please would you inform us as to what journals these are in.

5) I've read some of Schauberger's work, and interesting though it may be, I didn't think there was any scientific proof for a lot of it. Living water may be a nice metaphor, but it is a metaphor still.

Finally, a question which I've alluded to before but I'll now ask explicitly. Why, if is it such a problem that parts of the Lathkill dry up, is similar effort not being applied to solving the problem of the Hamps and Manifold which also dry up for long stretches in summer?

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You flatter me. I am not a scientist. Prof John Gunn didn't mention the blocking of Magpie in the programe although I understand how knickers are twisted. You arent suggesting not mentioning a problem just so a single interest group don't become concerned?

Thank you for the update on the water situation in Mandale.

You can comment on a possible solution without prejudice but I still fail to see what you can put on the table, that could be lost.

Have you been up Hill Carr? There is no water pressure at the back of the blockage which would indicate a big collapse and a substantial blockage. Prof John Gunn has been up, I can see no reason why land owners shouldnt allow access at the back of the blockages in place for 10 years or more. The level in Mawston, above the blockage is now down to 10' by the way.

I dont know about 'in the public domain' but NE commissed the work by PJG and hold the data and the conclusions from the study they worked hard to fund. Ask them or PJG. I am so glad no one is rubbishing PJG, or his work by the way.

To answer your question. The Lathkill has status as a Nature Reserve, SSSI cSAC and English Nature had their offices in Over Haddon before moving to Deepdale. It is also seen as having solvable problems and workable solutions.

A quick return to the topic, not to add to the subject under discussion, but because I felt I really ought to apologise to Prof. John Gunn for assuming that he was posting here. I have a much more likely name in the frame - the wonders of the internet 😉

No access has ever been denied to Hill Carr Sough by the way while under its current ownership at least.

Prof John Gunn didn't mention the blocking of Magpie in the programe

Sorry but he did, hence my original post.

He did! Sorry. After the 'I had some shoes that colour' he said 'the only way we can get the Lathkill permanently up on the surface is toblock the Magpie Sough which is the main impactor on the system, and to seal the bed of the river'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017j31k/Countryfile_13_11_2011/ 

37 minutes

For the purposes of clarification, could you let us know what you think the ideal win-win solution should be?

It would involve the local fishery extending an amnesty for a period of time so that caving can be carried out prior to any works. It would involve a new access agreement to venture in and up to any blockage, having removed the 'silt to the river issue'. It would include an enormous amount of good will acquired by the cavers from the local landowners. This could include opening achives that were previously restricted and access to other mines, shafts and soughs; all without prejudice of course.

Maybe I'm missing the point here.
Why would anybody want to go up 50 yards of sough to look at a concrete dam??
Hillcarr is now a fairly boring walk up to a whopping fall. It used to be an epic exploration past several unique features in very deep fast flowing water. Sadly that has gone until such time as somebody wants to pay a lot of money to alleviate the blockage problem.

1 300 people are served with water from the blocked sough via Youlgrave Waterworks. Backed up water from the Sough, via Thornhill Sough keeps year-round flow in the Lower Lathkill. The new wetted areas around Bowers are home to visiting waders and breeding plover as well as frogs and toads, GC newts, herons and kingfishers. In this case the blocking of the HC Sough has been seen as a good thing.

Brown Trout with red colouration on their flanks? Brown Trout with more/larger red spots maybe but I am sticking to red flesh. Of course there are references to species and strains of fish now lost - a very interesting one appears in Gallichans book re. Wales. But please, do not tell me that I do not know my Trout and cannot tell the difference between Brown and Rainbow.
Magpie Sough might not be lifeless. Lathkill Head Cave and associated system has a population of fresh water Shrimps - they can be seen underground and the last place I saw them was on the footpath when Holmes Groove flooded. A PhD for someone studying these? Do they migrate upstream to occupy the cave system? Have they been resident there for - how long? There is some other "wildlife" from the pollution too! Then there are the fish that I have seen and been told about way upstream in Soughs, Culverts and other dark places.
Re. the Hamps and Manifold attempts were made to block both and provide a more scenic journey for the Light Railway passengers. Plenty of evidence of this but it did not work. Some of the old accounts of "underground lake", "blind fish" might be fancyful but I do wonder what was accessible before the railway was built. For example, the track bed/embankment/river bed/sinks between Redhurst Bridge and Thors Cave are worth pondering upon.

Thank you!

Everyone always wondered how shrimp were in evidence the day after the river came back in through Palmaston Wood, even though the river was dry above. It seems, if you have seen them in LHC, that we now have an answer. Does anyone share my view that the Lathkill Sough began at the Wheel Pit btw?

The rescued fish from Lathkill Dale should only be two types; brood fish having run to spawn and their summerling babies. The river dries up every summer, and for the last two years, upstream of Carters too (Elly's dam head in the Countryfile piece). Where on earth do the two year olds come from that are there every year in numbers? I've never seen them in the Lathkill Sough and dont know anyone that has. They could follow the leaks into the sough and follow the recharge in the winter but I find it very unlikely.

Brown trout with red flanks. Read Prosek, Trout of the World and see a Lathkill fish in there. The reddest and best fish in England. Like I said, many have made the same mistake. I think WG was seeing the Ghosts (wild rainbow trout), Brown Trout and old brown trout (his welsh mountain stream) having gone back and now quite black.

I am absolutely not saying you don't know your trout, but a Lathkill fish has tricked you by having a crimson bar along its flank and perhaps even spots on its tail. No rainbows come above Alport, because the weir is not passable.

Definitely worth studying underground Shrimps and looking for other wildlife down there too. I had read about those Trout that appear where and when they should not.
I was suggesting that Rainbow Trout would have been stocked, by someone, sometime, above Alport and they would be the ones I have seen - whenever that was. I have only seen Browns in the upper parts of the Lathkill. I can remember lots of them in some places and in the odd feeder stream of the Lathkill system, long since dried up.
I will look up my Trout(s).
WG referred to "Red Fins", a migratory fish caught in the Wynion (and Mawdach - I must dig out the book). Some form of Char, now extinct?
The photograph of the fishing party can be found on htttp://141207.blogspot.com entry for June 18 2008. The suspected date is 1901. Which takes us back to the discussion - Bateman's House intact, plenty of fish and logically, plenty of water.
Keene's photograph (it is in one of the Derbyshire old photograph books) shows the aqueduct pillars, still full height and bare hillsides. Not easy to see just where the picture was taken, with the lack of vegetation then and the valley as it is now.

Time for a bit of levity.
Anyone out there more interested in Ellie Harrison than where the water goes? Great disappointment from son that she has made other arrangements. I'm keeping my thoughts to myself. How do you volunteer to help?

http://dryflyexpert.blogspot.com/2011/10/dry.html 

There is a photograph showing the footbridge below Over Haddon within the above post. It also shows a lack of trees on the hillside.

The water feed to Youlgreave was installed before Hillcarr was blocked. There was more than enough water availabe then from that which was flowing in the level just off the shaft.
When Hillcarr blocked itself the water level came up into the shaft, swamped the existing pump setup and required a different pump to be installed.
The village supply would be available whether or not Hillcarr was blocked.
As it happens the security of supply is not as good now as before the blockage. Previously, the take off point was inbye of the shaft. Now it is in the shaft itself and so subject to contamination with whatever was to go down the shaft.

At a meeting held in Youlgrave on November 7th to discuss the dry River Bradford (over 100 people attended) a member of the Youlgrave Waterworks said that they were very pleased that the sough had blocked because there was only 10’ for water left down there and without the blockage the pump would be dry. The member is also the tenant of the flooded land on the Lower Lathkill flood plane.

As I said before, the pump was previously installed in the drainage level away from the shaft where there was plenty of water flowing before the blockage.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody from the waterworks has ever been underground and they have little appreciation of the layout or nature of the supply from the mine.

Yes, if the blockage was removed, the pump would need to be re-sited back to it's original position but that is all. There is unlikely to be a shortage of water at that point ever, the feeder is very strong.
Part of the original plan for water abstraction was for some to go to the village and some to go for bottling.
Whilst the bottling idea was shelved, it was due to economics, not shortage of water.

Very interesting. Thank you. They take 310m3/d at the moment.

You dont know of any photographs or survey notes that can be viewed of the base of Mawston do you please? It's a very interesting subject and I would like to know more, especially with regard to the Watterworks and their interest.