Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 25th May, 2023)

What a flippin mess. Look forward to the finished photo Mick.

How long before Salmon are going to use these fish steps? If the water companies keep pumping sewerage into our rivers unchecked then we will see less fish and aquatic life in our rivers.

How amazing is this project, in a few years time Wiganers will be able to see sea trout and Atlantic salmon swimming up the river Douglas to spawn in the shallows of the upper sections of our river.

That's one heck of a fishing rod.

I can’t imagine what ‘fish steps’ look like - in my over active imagination - I’m seeing fish sprouting little legs!
Seriously I hope there’s not going to be a monstrosity built over Wigan’s famous river. How wonderful it would have been to see the river before industrialisation began in previous centuries. I can picture calm and tranquility with the river wending it its way through fresh green fields… no wonder Cromwell stopped to drink water and marvel at the countryside….still back to the ‘nitty - gritty’..

MEN reported Salmon back in the Duggie ten years ago.

(https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/return-of-the-salmon-1158371)

They were so commonplace in England's rivers prior to industrial pollution, the the founding statutes of Eton College contain the clause, "The boys will not be fed salmon more than five nights per week".

Exactly Peter P, further down the River Douglas near Tesco you can very often smell sewage in the river Douglas that's been released into the river from the Standish sewerage pumping station on Chorley Road. There was a major outflow of sewage into the river from there a few years ago if you remember, with dead fish and eels being seen floating down for a few days afterwards, besides it will never be pollution free because of the many toilets and washing machines which have been mistakenly plumbed into the rain water drainage systems, which then run into streams or brooks and then the river.

Veronica, I thought that too at first, I imagined fish saying to each other give us a leg up onto next step. All that frothy scum coming from the pipe reminds of coming back to Wigan on the train from Wales in the early 1970s, after seeing clean running streams and rivers there I was always shocked to see the foul looking streams and rivers which began to be seen near Warrington onwards, they were always full of foaming scum and other floating detritus released from the industrial areas, we'll never know what lethal poisons exactly got repeatedly dumped into these waterways which is all now in the sea, and is now happening in India and China.

She errupted from the river
By the Tesco car park ,
Diamonds dripping from her arched back ,
All silver pink and yellow like a rainbow ,
Her gills pumping like bellows
In the town centre air
Before she tumbled and crashed ,
Like a restored monarch
Back into the Douglas .

The workmen have been using our pub

thats why they were on about bitter coming from then Joan, Arthur was saying he thought that he tasted frog spawn in his pint the other night, I put it down to him having had a few too many, I had to laugh fancy him having that in his drink

Poet, great poem, though what can be seen bobbing around and slithering over the fish steps in the river Douglas; especially looking down from the car park of Tesco are distinctively brown trout, the river is abound with them, even during the day.