SEPA tackles fish barriers to bring life back to Scotland’s rivers

SEPA tackles fish barriers to bring life back to Scotland’s rivers - Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Two projects, directly commissioned by SEPA and funded by WEF, have completed to help repair rivers in Scotland. Full weirs have been removed from the River Eden at Gateside Mills in Fife and the Bronie Burn near Ellon in Aberdeenshire.

Two projects have been completed to help wild fish return to rivers in the east of Scotland.

Full weir removals have taken place at Gateside Mills in Fife and Bronie Burn in Aberdeenshire allowing fish to pass through.

The work was directly commissioned by SEPA and funded by the Water Environment Fund (WEF).

salmon jumping out of the water up over a weir covered by brown fast flowing water — salmon run (image: pixabay)

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is continuing its efforts to restore nature to Scotland’s rivers with the completion of two more projects. It comes as some fish, such as Atlantic salmon, begin to make the annual journey from sea back upriver to their breeding grounds.

In a changing climate, it is more important than ever that we preserve, manage and improve Scotland’s water environment. It’s fundamental to safeguarding biodiversity, ensuring that our unique aquatic wildlife is protected. However, while the condition of rivers and lochs in Scotland is generally classified as good by SEPA, many environmental challenges remain such as pollution and water scarcity as a result of more frequent, prolonged spells of dry weather.

There are also historic, physical alterations to rivers to contend with. These include straightened and embanked channels that are cut off from natural flood plains and heavily concreted urban river corridors with little chance for the creation of wild habitats. There are redundant weirs installed in some rivers, making them impassable to fish such as Atlantic salmon and sea trout, which spend part of their lives in the ocean before returning to Scottish rivers.

To help repair these watercourses, SEPA administers the Water Environment Fund (WEF) on behalf of the Scottish Government and works in partnership with local authorities, land and structure owners, fishery trusts and conservation bodies to deliver an annual programme of river restoration projects.

In the last month alone, two projects have completed involving full weir removals from the River Eden at Gateside Mills in Fife and the Bronie Burn near Ellon in Aberdeenshire. The removals, made possible by more than £500,000 of funding from WEF, will reinstate the natural migration of fish and allow them to access up to 30km of upstream habitat that had previously been blocked off. In turn, this will improve the wider health of the rivers by improving their status for fish migration from poor to good. Carbon emissions were also cut by around 40% for the Gateside Mills project by working with contractors to find ways to be more sustainable.