I always feel that January seems the longest month.  Despite having only 31 days like many other months it drags by almost never ending.  The reason for this I know not.  Perhaps its the persistent dark mornings and evenings, the cold or just jet lag after Christmas and new year, but from this vantage point mid way through the month spring seems very distant.

The very wet weather we have had here over the past few weeks has not helped.  The sun now is just a distant memory and each morning we have woken to damp grey skies or a veritable monsoon as we had on Thursday,  This brought one of the potentially more serious problems I have had to deal with in the past 4 years as keeper.  I had a phone call early on Friday morning from  a resident down by Rowe End.  Those of you who know the river at Horton will be very familiar with the large concrete sewer pipe that forms the west bank from just below Rowe End farm for a few yards downstream and which is used as a footpath.  The caller told me that he was watching this pipe disgorging a large volume of grey water into the river.  I dropped what I was doing and belted down to Rowe End and sure enough the two inspection covers on the top of the pipe were spewing water like small fountains.  Clearly this had been going on for a few hours and had probably been much worse during the night as the furthest cover had lifted and discharged a fair amount of solid matter onto the bank some of which had washed into the river.

A quick call to the Environment Agency and the problem was well on its way to being sorted.  Their efficiency and effectiveness is reassuring and by lunchtime I was back on the bank with the local field officer who had already organised a team from United Utilities to come up to Horton to clear the blocked pipe and clean up the mess.

Not a catastrophe as the river was running bank full and had been in spate during the worst of the discharge so I'm sure that there will be no lasting damage downstream from here, but it does go to show that you have to be vigilant even in a place such as Horton where pollution seems less of a threat than lower on the Ribble.

Since this spot is just below the main site where we regularly sample invertebrates we have no baseline data with which to compare a sample taken here now, but I may well do a quick kick sample next week just to see what turns up and how the results compare to New Inn just a few yards upstream.  As I say, I doubt if there is any damage here, but the results may be interesting.

Ian