Clean-up

The Denso-Marston nature reserve at the bottom of the village runs alongside the River Aire and was inundated during the Boxing Day flood. Now the water has receded all the detritus that the flood water picked up on its journey has been left behind, so a call went out for volunteers to come and help clear up the site this morning.

I was one of 60+ people that showed up, and after a few hours work we had gathered this collection of large and small items. My best find was a pristine Royal Mail boot - hopefully the postie it belongs to is safe and well somewhere. We weren't able to access the river bank and there is still a lot of larger stuff there, but we've made a big difference to the main body of the reserve.

Alongside the litter there were substantial deposits of alluvial sand and mud, it will be interesting to see how this affects the ecology of this mainly woodland site. A long-term view would be that this is a natural event, but nature reserves are often heavily managed sites that keep a specific ecological moment in place, so it may be the mud is seen as problematic. I'm sure the warden will come up with a plan which is best for the site.

Update: The local paper has given some coverage to the event and the warden, Steve, suggests that the silt is being treated as a natural asset. There has also been a fund-raising site set up to replace all of the educational resources that have been lost and which are essential to the valuable work with children at the reserve.

https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/denso