River Erewash Restoration Project

Today was the 1st working party to take place on the River Erewash Restoration project and boy did we make it count. Local volunteers turned up armed and dangerous, keen to jump in the river and get cracking. The Erewash has been truly neglected by all so when I tell you this forgotten little river looked alive, it really did when we'd finished. We collected all the litter, plastics and many other waste products off the trees and banks for a stretch of around 1/2 mile.
Every now and then a quick glance upstream left me flabagasted at how much the appearance had improved, and the flow increased.

We made a fire to burn off the waste wood after a few 110 yrds and then carried on moving downstream again. The huge amount of rubbish held in this river suprised me and in all honesty. I admit to under estimating how much work is involved in restoring this river but it hasn't put me off one little bit, in fact I can't wait to get cracking again.

Happy with the length of river we had already cleared, we decided to spend some time clearing the huge dam/blockage. On arriving at the dam we didn't know where to start as everything was entwined, and the amount of debris backed up was collosal.

We had a mad hour to try and dent the dam and this pile below, is just the tip of the iceburg and we could be dealing with this problem for a while yet. Notice after all the hard work though, these 3 were still smiling, and so they should be as from today they became one of the few who care about this river.