Further to the Bog Standard post last month, a reply to our letter has been received from Mr Nigel Doar, Sheffield Wildlife Trust's Chief Executive, but none yet from the council's Director of Parks and Countryside. As SWT only received our letter on Monday it was disappointing that his reply arrived on Wednesday giving him no time to properly investigate, merely to do a 'desk job'. It's not unexpected of course as SWT staff, like their CE, don't seem overly fond of moving out of their offices. This seems to be the age of conservation via computer and paperwork. Blacka is managed remotely from work stations in a headquarters 5 miles away.
The bog issue is only one of a number of things all connected to access and footpaths that were raised, but Cowsick Bog was probably the most important. His response is interesting for what it reveals about SWT, conservation people generally and how important it is to pin down people in office who are addicted to mystification via convoluted self justification. This is the default position of all bureaucrats and officials whether in the local council, the civil service or even top-heavy charities. Hence we get the usual fictions about having 'widely consulted' and the plan having 'considerable support at the time'. We know this is nonsense, just tired off-the-shelf stuff from the bureaucrat's phrasebook.
There's some hilarious stuff in there as well. It's said that the channel (grip) that drained the bog was 'artificial' and blocking it up was going to make it much more 'natural' - and much bigger. Well I'm fairly persuaded that someone a hundred or two years ago did do some digging there to help maintain the grouse and sheep grazing moor. But how can anyone advocate the bog being returned to some highly debatable 'natural' state when at the same time they are poisoning and felling trees to recreate a wholly artificial adjoining grouse moor style heathland? If Blacka is to be 'natural' what are we doing with barbed wire and imported cattle ?
He claims the water level is not excessive and explains that the dams were inserted so that "the water levels in the bog will rise up to the level of the top of the dam and no further..". The picture below shows that even now with the path flooded and the bridge nearly engulfed there is a foot and a half more for the water to rise!
Are notices to be put up warning walkers to bring their own bathing costumes? Amazing! So why did they waste money on having the flagstones put in if they expected them to be swallowed up?
Even SWT's own flawed surveys from 2000/2001 have shown that local people wanted Blacka to be left alone and not changed. They used this to justify tree cutting on the spurious grounds that trees spread and after so many years there will be more of them! But nobody I have spoken to wants more boggy ground on land which is set aside as a public pleasure ground.
2 comments:
Blacka Blogger -
I have only just noticed your photo of one of our dams at Cowsick. Under the circumstances, I'm not surprised you are so scathing about my comment that water would flow over the dams if it ever got that high.
The normal approach to installing these dams is to bang them in so that the top is level with the adjacent ground - allowing any water that rises above the top of the channel to flow over the top. Sometimes they have a lower section or a notch in the centre of the top to assist this. For some reason, obviously this dam was only banged in as shown, and still stands proud of the surface; I can't argue with that, and don't know why it was only banged in so far.
The only difference this makes in practice, of course, is that water reaching the top of the blocked channel will flow round the dam rather that over it, but it will still flow, and it will still end up in the drainage channel the other side of the dam... And water levels will still rise no higher than the level at which the sides of the channel part company from the board.
Having the board dam standing proud like this may marginally increase the likelihood of it failing (if water flowing round the edges of the dam erodes the peat where the board meets the surface of the ground), but it will have negligible effect on the depth of water being held back by the dam.
Thank you for that Nigel. It is of course self evident that the water would first go round the dam as it stands.
The substantial point though is that the path and the old sleeper bridge are now in an unacceptable state for paths taht were meant to be maintained as originally (1933) intended to standards consistent with a public pleasure ground. And when the Dore Village Society were solicited to donate funds for the flagstones they should have been told that - not much later - they would be in the condition they are now in.
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