Annual Report

Some of you Grauniad readers may have picked up that the Angling Trust have just published their Annual Report for 23-24. Your club has contributed to this of course by submitting results from our monthly testing of the water under the WQMN (Water Quality Management Network) project. The testing takes place just below the footbridge at Harpers, so should pick up on any nefarious happenings at the Horsmonden Waste Water Treatment Works (Outfall pool).

Here is a link to the report for you to read it for yourself : https://anglingtrust.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WQMN-2nd-Annual-Report-v2.pdf?dm_i=7KOI,U61H,4KQKQ,2FXVU,1

You may be somewhat alarmed to see that one of their highlights is that every river sampled in the Medway Catchment exceeded the Phosphate levels during the report period.

I thought you might like the data for the Teise during that period, so here it is:

Date	Level	Flow	Temp	Electrical Conductivity	Phosphate	Nitrate	Observations
07/07/2023	N	Below Ave	14.7	310	0.33	0
05/08/2023	L	Ave	17.1	62.8	0.13	2	Pumping from Bewl stopped
06/09/2023	L	Ave	18.5	215	0.16	2
06/10/2023	N	Ave	16.6	256	0.13	2
22/11/2023	H	Above ave	9.8	238	0.05	2
08/12/2023	H	Ave	7.6	210	0.23	2
11/01/2024	H	Above Ave	3.6	247	0.05	2
06/02/2024	L	Below Ave	8.7	225	0.18	2	Updated 12/2
09/03/2024	N	Ave	8.8	150	0.04	2
13/04/2024	N	Ave	13.2	230	0.09	2
01/05/2024	N	Ave	12.4	220	0.19	2
03/06/2024	L	Below ave	13.4	269	2.5	2	Phosphate prob an error

As you can see, there were two dates when our Phosphate readings exceeded the upper limit for 'Good Ecological Status' (0.31 ppm). In July 23, our reading was 0.33, so marginally high, but other readings were well within limits, so no action was taken, since it did not persist. In June 2024, the reading was 2.5 (the maximum on the meter), which was assumed to be an error, since again all other readings were normal; the meter is a tricky blighter to use.

Technically therefore, we did exceed Phosphate levels (though all other readings have been fine), but it doesn't seem to be cause for alarm, particularly because all the Phosphate readings since July 2024 have been well within the limit. We certainly don't have the pollution issues evident in other rivers in the Medway Catchment, such as the River Grom, but we will continue to monitor the water quality, and take action if we perceive a problem.

Now go and enjoy the Mayfly hatch, and don't worry about the water.

Cheers

PeterB

P.S. If you want more details on what the readings mean etc, please look at the Blog entry for 2 Dec 2024.