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Fleet Pond is Hampshire’s largest freshwater lake and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The open water is an essential part of the reserve’s wildlife value as well as being its prime attraction to visitors. Over the past 30 years, increasing volumes of silt eroded from the Army Training Lands around Long Valley has entered Fleet Pond. The silting of lakes from high ground is a natural process; it cannot be stopped entirely. There are, however, ways in which the quantity can be significantly reduced in the case of Fleet Pond. The Defence Estates has produced a comprehensive report on measures that could be installed to reduce the escape of eroded soils.
We cannot begin the
production of a dredging programme, or start to seek Lottery and other funding
to pay for the programme, until English Nature has the commitment of Defence
Estates to minimise the inflow of silt.
The Defence Estates has
expressed a wish to help by installing mitigation measures. They have offered an area of 4 hectares
to which the silt in Fleet Pond could be pumped. Nothing can
begin without the necessary finance.
The report on Long Valley estimated that the Defence Estates would need
in the region of £1.5 million to install Phase 1 of the mitigation
measures.
A silt survey in 2000 showed
133,581 cubic metres of silt on the bed of the Pond. This is very likely to have increased
significantly since the restructuring works on Long Valley for Farnborough
Airfield CAA requirements, which removed the tops of two hills. The pond is little more than one metre
deep over most of its area and, by Sandy Bay, no more then 200mm. It will not be long before the area of
open water has shrunk by at least a third of its present area. Urgent action is needed now to start the
restoration of one of our most valuable assets. If we lose the lake, the valuable
wetland wildlife habitat will eventually disappear as well. For example: Our extensive reedbeds, home to Reed Buntings and Reed Warblers in summer
and a retreat for Water Rail and Bittern in winter; the marshland, rich in
floral diversity and home to a wide diversity of invertebrate life; these are
also threatened.
UPDATE - August 2005 - FLEET POND SILT UPDATE
The Save Our Pond campaign for Fleet Pond has resulted in some more positive responses to the hopes of Fleet Pond Society for a solution to the problem of reducing the inflow of soils eroded from Long Valley Training Area and from the newly cleared heathlands on Defence Estates Training lands. Many Fleet Pond members wrote to the Minister for Defence and have received assurances that the MoD will seek solutions.
Some initial funds were released at the end of the 2004/05 financial year, which paid for:
• Monitoring of the Gelvert Stream for a 12-month period.
• Trials to assess if surface water can be deflected away from the wide vehicle exercise tracks, as these are seen as the major conduits that carry water and eroded soils past the silt traps and into Gelvert Stream.
• A provisional chemical analysis of the silt in Fleet Pond at Hemelite Bay, Chestnut Grove, Brookly Bay and Sandy Bay.
The chemical analysis has already been done by Environment Agency. The results are that the silt can be safely pumped to the designated dumping site on DE land with no adverse environmental impact. Contractor, Entec, has started the monitoring process and is looking at trials. From the point of view of the contract work, the serious lack of rain in recent months will have hampered any effective measures of silt quantity or trials of mitigation options. This is my main concern. A comment from one of the Entec team that they “had not found any evidence of sand escaping from the Training Lands” was not encouraging, but they had only been on site a month at that time!. If the dry weather of the last nine or more months continues, Entec certainly will not find any “evidence”. Entec has not yet investigated the fact that there is a vast quantity already in the pond.
Fleet Pond Society owes a debt of gratitude to our members and supporters who have written to the Minister and a special thank you is owed to our local Member of Parliament, the Rt. Hon James Arbuthnot, who has supported us throughout the campaign so far and has taken the matter personally to the Minister. He has helped to stimulate the new emphasis in the priorities of the Defence Estates Agency.
Now that there is a stated commitment of the Defence Estates to address the issue of erosion and to reduce the inflow of silt to Fleet Pond, it provides an opportunity to start looking at ways in which the existing silt can be removed. To remove even part of the 134,000 cubic metres of silt will not be a quick or cheap project, but we can seriously look at employing expert advice in how it can be done and how we can find the grant aid funding that will be required for this major task. Rushmoor Borough Council has accumulated some funding for environmental projects from the commercial aviation operations at Farnborough. If they were prepared to pay for an expert to draw up a dredging programme and recommend effective ways of gaining the required funds, a big step forward could be achieved.
There is much work still to be done, but we believe that the first positive step has been taken.
Colin Gray.