Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels Catchment Partnership
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Poems about the Partnership

These poems were written by Clare Whistler, who works wth fellow artist Charlotte Still on the projecct UnderwaterEdge - a journey around the Pevensey Levels. They were created from words spoken at the Partnership meeting on 22nd April 2015 in Arlington.

 

Drop Level

To address a weir
A tilting weir
A spring loaded tilted weir

To locate a pipe
an elbow pipe
Plans in archive, lost pipe

To open the weir
in two snapped the weir
underneath the river weir

Invasive

Invasive

floating penny wort
 
seed
germination confirmed

on the level
its outside former parameters

floating penny wort

tolerates all
no limit to growth

adapts, survives
is here to stay

floating penny wort

Invaded

local knowledge

Picture
I’ve seen the river black with sea lampreys
glide shallow glide
over headwaters
in the river at night and day

once you got a skim of bream
they are all gone
the water is clear, clearer
but lost is that healthy colour

swim backwards depressed fish
over submerged archimedes
over the whole thing clotted with structures
impounded by  the riverbed

                 electric fishing



pevensey risk mapping

Picture
find old maps
with knowledge
of rainwater

one needs a fresh pair of eyes
to capture water
and open landscape pathways                        (we plough the fields and scatter)

where poor husbandry
and soil erosion lead to
scratching the top                                                 (not in Sussex clay you can’t)       

deteriorating water
traces  through soils ,slopes, slugs -
they die underground                                                                   (metaldahyde)

map the stilling basin
where sediment chokes water
bleach washes over watercourses                                (milk strips oxygen out
                                                                                            then water is dead)

groundwater and the
drip drip drip of pollution
what happens if something gives way                                              (firewater)

agronomists, farmers, responsibilities! 
people out there!
be our eyes on the water                                         


water bodies

Picture
Waterbodies are described by a plethora of different names in English- rivers, streams,ponds,bays, gulfs, and seas to name a few. Many of these terms’ definitions overlap and thus become confusing when one attempts to pigeon-hole a type of water body. http://geography.about.com/od/

classify prioritise protect

EA WFD DEFRA TRAX WDFCIL SDNPA NFU RPA CSF DWPA SSFR

aline elements
on the levels

regards surface water
white ground water
bathing water

the goalposts have moved (repeat)

any actions in waterbodies?
catchments deteriorating
floating reedbeds

point and diffuse

the goalposts have moved (repeat)

waterbodies
natural, artificial, heavily modified

navigate tidal estuary
town on top of a stream

erosion
drainage catch- 
                        ment
surface waters orange
it could hide a whole bunch of things

these goalposts change

a large sigh

waterbodies
ecology is still adapting to the morphologyy of the channel
dissolved oxygen
‘not a proper river’

highly modified waterbodies
local interpretations of
heavily modified waterbodies

diffuse pollution

waterbodies

a plain english explanation


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