Originally Posted by Pfloyd

They do know there are eels in the goyt because I spoke to one of there fisheries officers about the very subject back in about 2005. After fishing the river for several years caught one and thought it was worth letting them know they were there. The officer I spoke said they knew they where present in the upper mersey but the numbers were low, hence the infrequent captures. Paul

Cheers. I have told them again, and asked them whether they have sent out the eel screening legislation notices to the owners of weirs, inflows/outflows and hydro schemes.

Is this all thats needed to make an eel pass!!

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Hmmmm. As a crude example that would probably work... but only for the very few elvers that managed to find the lower end of the pipe. Elver pass construction is pretty cheap, couple of hundred quid or so, and I think they often comprise something like a strip of wet astroturf or similar at one or both edges of the weir. Sometimes with some sort of covering to keep off predators.
A number of companies sell pre-fabricated elver passes. As for eels migrating downstream, not really sure a pass is totally necessary, but some sort of screen at the intake to a hydro is probably required.

See http://www.aquaticcontrol.co.uk/Elve...20Brochure.pdf for a rather better pass design, one seemingly aimed at hydro systems.

I got that eel photo from this link

Environment Agency Provides Consents to Massacre Eels on River Trent - The Angling Trust

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h2ope will be kick starting investment campaign for PM hydro very soon.
Plus more local sites.

http://www.h2ope.org.uk/project_listing.html

Been told off the record from council staff that PM field will be closed to public when building starts and until hydro has finished.

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Elver passes are very simple and easy to construct, a simple pipe/guttering lined with brush bristles/net/straw will suffice and a trickle of water running through it as elvers are not strong swimmers, they will climb though. Elvers are also attracted to areas where there is very little flow as opposed to Salmonids which look for strong flows.

Downstream movements in Silver eels require intakes to be screened, they will move during periods of high water and will actively swim midwater as opposed to hugging the bottom. In fact its quite supriseing how many eels are caught " off bottom" not bottom huggers like people believe.

Is building a fish pass a compulsary part of construction permission with these hydro schemes?

I have a pdf document somewhere that i recieved upon request from the mersey basin campaign a couple of years ago regarding weirs on the goyt , those earmarked for fish passses , passability etc. Quite interesting. If anyone would like me to forward it to them let me know and i'l see if i can root it out.

Kurt.

As far as i am aware any obstruction to migratory fish requires a fish pass...however i have spent the last 20 years in Scotland and that is the case there although it does seem to only apply to Salmonids....hopefully this will change as i feel eels are just as important, Coarse fish also migrate within river systems so it should apply to all species. But i can bet my bottom dollar it will only apply to Salmonids and at a push eels ( down here). Its time the powers that be started to look at the bigger picture instead of counting the pounds.

Angling Trust Press Release, please click to download PDF file

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