A 7lb fish for Michael Morris on fly seems to be the only fish yesterday.


See below from WUF.  Despite all the talk and WFD etc. etc. it just shows what farmers get away with time after time and the concern the Welsh assembly government has over the issue. precious little.  However run off from fields has always happened and the river has always run red,The Lugg in particular, and such incidents may well be just a drop in the ocean compared to natural erosion.

Welsh Government Responds to Your Concerns Over Silt In Rivers 11th August, 2016 Our 30th June e-news "Do We Need More Silt in Our Rivers?" highlighted a serious case of soil erosion resulting from poor agricultural practice. A farmer in Powys had ploughed a slope so steep that the subsequent landslide closed a main road and sent tonnes of silt into a tributary of the Hindwell Brook (Lugg catchment). We also called on readers to write to the First Minister to ask him to do something about it and are very pleased to say the number of responses led the Cabinet Secretary for Environment & Rural Affairs to ask us to disseminate a letter to all the Foundation's subscribers on her behalf (see link at the bottom). We would like to thank everyone who took the trouble to respond. It is very encouraging to all of us in the river restoration business but more importantly, it shows politicians the level of concern regarding unsustainable practices that cause damage to our rivers. In her letter, the Minister confirms that the farmer in question was not in breach of Cross Compliance regulations because he left a buffer strip of more than 5 metres. In this case, it is quite obvious that a buffer strip fifty times that size would not have been adequate - the landslide crossed the buffer strip, then an "A" road, went over a hedge and then across the whole of the field below (a further 120 metres) before entering the stream. In addition to this, the Minister also confirms that the site was outside the remit of agricultural Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and that no breach of these regulations had taken place either. This highlights the inadequacies of the current regulatory system in Wales, where leaving a 5 metre buffer strip or planting a crop means that however risky the activity or disastrous the outcome, no actual breach of the rules takes place. This is not the case in England where soil erosion on a much smaller scale would have been a breach of Cross Compliance, regardless of mitigation or scenario and would have led to the farmer having his single farm payment withheld. The differences in the application of the same rules either side of the border has led to some farmers, who previously took high risks with soils in England, moving their operations to Wales. Another concern is the Minister's claim that it was an "exceptional incident" and that "the weather was quite possibly at its most unpredictable we have seen for a number of years." The e-news in question revealed another steep-sided field that had been ploughed a little further up the valley. Just the month before, our e-news of 3rd June showed excessive silt entering the Usk from a high risk potato field (again, there was no case to answer) while an e-news in January showed soil washing off fields and closing the A470 before ending up in the Llynfi Dulas. We have noted similar incidents numerous times before that. At the time of the A44 incident, there were no floods in the area and rainfall, although heavy, was nothing out of the ordinary. We welcome the Minister's acknowledgement that "it will be important for the Welsh Government to engage more closely with the farming sector in order to prevent such incidents in the future" and that she has instructed her officials "to review the effectiveness of the	Lesley Griffiths AM, Cabinet Secretary for Environment & Rural Affairs. The A44 landslide - was a 5 metre buffer strip ever likely to stop this? A SCIMAP analysis of the risks of ploughing in terms of soil loss would have been freely available. The example map above shows how good the system is at predicting high risk fields, which are all over Wales. current regulatory requirements." This is especially important considering that such "unpredictable" weather is expected to become more common. The efficacy of these actions remains to be seen but the end of the last sentence of her letter perhaps reveals where Welsh Government's priorities lie: "any interventions in the future will need to be applied proportionately without restricting farming within the uplands of Wales." We are also uncertain how Welsh Government's approach to farming and soil protection fits with their own flagship 'Well Being of Future Generations' and 'Environment' bills. What is certain is that the Foundation will continue to work confidentially with farmers to protect their soils. The SCIMAP computer program we routinely use clearly highlighted the site in question as extremely high risk for anything other than light grazing. This information is freely available, as is the weather forecast of course, which we used to advise our fishers of impending rainfall that week. We will also continue to press our concerns to keep the Government and their agencies' attention to ensure they remember that the bad agricultural practice of a few and its effects are not acceptable to the majority of people, including farmers. Please click here to read the Minister's letter in full.

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