AMEC has started to model the groundwater effects that a quarry at Straitgate might cause, based on water measurements from boreholes and streams around the farm; AI's Head of Geological Services has supplied this summary:
… a significant volume of ingress into the various streams is derived from the flanks of the streams with only a small proportion of flow derived from the springs at the proposed extraction footprint. It appears that most of the flow from the proposed site flows beneath the sandstone block and enters the groundwater system further downstream and this element would not change in our proposals because we will not be dewatering. That is comforting in some respects, however it does mean that the small amount of flow that does get into the ephemeral upper parts of the streams may well be affected. With the continuing monitoring rounds AMEC will look more closely at these areas. Do our proposals affect these upper reaches and make them any more ephemeral?; do our proposals move the spring-line say 100m further downslope and is this material?; are we able to mitigate?
Talk of a moving spring-line will of course be no comfort to the many people on and around the farm relying on surface springs for their drinking water supplies.
Great crested newt surveys have now been performed, and we await the results from this and the other ecological surveys performed last year.
