Barnoldswick RiverBlitz: Community-led Investigation of Local River Health

When and where?

Saturday 3rd October, 10 am – 4.00 pm.

Meet: Barnoldwick Civic Hall, Station Road, Barnoldswick, BB18 5N

Who for?

All ages (under 18's with a responsible adult), suitable activity choices for all experience levels.

Why?
This event will investigate water and habitat quality around the Barnoldswick/Stock Beck Catchment, an area with a mix of industrial history, agricultural usage, and expanding size, which impacts the River Ribble, in which it feeds into. The information that we will collect on the day will help Ribble Rivers Trust direct the efforts of our River Conservation and Land Management teams to further improve the river health across the catchment.

What will the day involve?

Morning:

• Arrive at 10 am to grab a brew and biscuits
• Introduction session and training session - why we are monitoring? How do you complete a field survey? (no experience needed*) 
• Split up into small groups and head to pre-determined river sites.
• Carry out field surveys and collect samples to be brought back to the venue for analysis.

*trained riverfly volunteers will take riverfly samples, everyone else will take water chemistry samples and habitat surveys.

• Carry out 'classroom' water chemistry tests. Step-by-step guidance will be provided by RRT. We will be testing for phosphate, ammonia and E.coli, which are all common river pollutants.
• Trained riverfly volunteers will analyse riverfly invertebrate samples.
  
• Compare results at the end of the afternoon.
• We will send you a summary of the results following the event.

Other important info:

• Please bring your own packed lunch.
• Hot and cold drinks provided, as well as biscuits.
• Most of the survey sites will require a short drive to get to them. Please let us know if you will have a vehicle on the day that you would be happy to use and potentially lift share to the survey site. If you do not have a vehicle, we will make sure to partner you up with someone who does.
• Please bring clean wellies (at least one person in each group will need to go into the river) and be prepared for all weathers.
• A full risk assessment has been completed for this type of event. Please have a read of it before the event: ribbletrust.org.uk/Risk-Assessment-Stock-Beck-RiverBlitz.pdf
• Please download (if possible) the app 'what3words' before the event. It'll help you to locate your allocated survey sites.

Cant make the RiverBlitz date?

You can still help! Have your say on here: suggest which locations around the local area you want investigating before we run the RiverBlitz - visit https://arcg.is/0OGSOL0

Or to have your say in person, join us for one of our drop-in sessions at Barnoldswick Library, Fern Lea Ave, BB18 5DW 9:30am - 12:30pm

Session 1: Saturday 22nd August

Session 2: Saturday 5th September