Fwd: MRA: November Notanda

Looking forward to our Annual Dinner on 10th December, 6.30pm, at The Ivy House. @ £34.95 for 3 courses, £29.95 for 2 courses. PLEASE let me know asap if you wish to join us as we need to finalise details with the venue.  Why not spoil your supportive significant other who waits at home while you are having fun in the river, or just come to show your support and enjoy a great start to the festive season?  As reported previously, feedback from last year was excellent.

Recent weeks have provided a great demonstration of the Misbourne mystery.  During summer and into early autumn many were asking “How come the river is still flowing after all this dry weather?”  And, now, after we have had reasonable, though still less than average, rains for a couple of months, the river in Chalfont St Peter has dried up for the first time since 2023 and there is no flow above Deep Mill Pond!  Of course the answer is that flow through the dry months was sustained by the reserves of groundwater in the aquifer from winters of ’23 (especially) and ’24, while the bulk of the recent welcome rain has been taken up reducing the soil moisture deficit in the dry ground and has yet to reach the aquifer level.  We can only expect stream recovery in January at the earliest.

In fact, there has only been flow all through Chalfont St Peter for 8 of the past 34 Novembers, 16 in Chalfont St Giles and only 6 at Missenden Abbey.  Perhaps surprisingly, despite an average fall of 1.8m since November last year, groundwater levels are still marginally above average – see graphs below.  

Several small work parties in the month made good progress clearing autumn debris and some excess sedge etc from Mill Lane CSt Giles all the way to fields below CStG: also in central Amersham; and just upstream of CStP.  Meanwhile members tackled the overgrown planters by the ford at CStP.  Good to welcome several new volunteers and hope to see some more of you out and about in 2026.  Not sure about more work parties this year but any will be advertised through our busy and occasionally entertaining WhatsApp group.  If you would like to join it, let me know.

Lots of interesting and useful stuff regarding biofilm monitoring, farm clusters, flooding, balsam bashing, Colne Valley Park pressures, beavers, and more from Chiltern Chalk Streams Project and ColneCAN conference, plus a very informative visit to Amersham Balancing Tanks to see the impressive work Thameswater are doing to mitigate possible sewage pollution in future storm periods.  You may also find the comments in this link are of interest and maybe encouraging – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/711368?reveal_response=yes. To keep this note reasonably short, we’ll leave all this for our not-a-meeting at Chalfont Sports Club,  SL9 0QA, next Monday 10th Nov at 7.15pm – All welcome!