Hayle Harbour Master visits Save Our Sand meeting, Tuesday 9 July 2013 Hayle Harbour Master Peter Haddock reminded the meeting that the re-introduction of sluicing from Carnsew was a planning condition for the proposed supermarket development on South Quay. He has prepared a paper on sluicing which should be made public in due course. The first stage would be to dig out the sluicing channel, the spoil going to South Quay to help raise levels as on North Quay. The bridge over the channel would be replaced with a stronger structure to allow access to the tunnels at Black Houses, which would be temporarily blocked. Increased water flow through the cleaned-out sluicing channel would keep Carnsew Pool operating as normal while the tunnels were cleaned, assessed and renovated with new penstock gates. A programme of water quality testing had shown that the mussels growing in the tunnels were a viable source of income for the harbour, and in the future mussel farming was a possibility. Buro Happold are consultants to the work. Much thought is going into the health and safety aspects of a future sluicing regime, including warning lights and horns. English Heritage expect sluicing to take place a couple of times a year, but the Harbour Master wants to use the sluices on every spring tide. The system would initially be manually operated by trained harbour staff, but if a power supply was installed automatic operation was a possibility in the future. There were still people in Hayle who remembered the old system in use and they would be a great help in agreeing working practices for the new system. The Harbour Master was investigating the possibility of grant funding to replace the bearings on Copperhouse Floodgate to enable it to be used for sluicing. With the co-operation of the Environment Agency, this gate could also be used to keep the harbour channel clear. Additional staff would be needed to cope with sluicing operations from both Copperhouse and Carnsew pools so funding is also being sought to create another staff position. Natural England currently allow 7 impoundments a year at Copperhouse Pool and work to a 48 hour limit to minimise damage to flora and fauna in the pool. More frequent but shorter impoundments would be possible with the gates under local control. This would be beneficial to the Harbour and Town. The Harbour Master was also investigating the possibility of plough-dredging the channel. This brought sediment into suspension allowing it to be more easily flushed on the ebb. The Marine Management Organisation were consulted and have provided the necessary consent for the operation and Gabion baskets to reinforce and extend the channel walls were also being looked at.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 19:07:39 +0000
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