See the story in
picturesWeed Control on the Rick Pond, Hampton Court MYC.
The Rick Pond in Home Park, Hampton Court Palace, is a lake which, for well over 75 years, has been used for model yacht sailing and racing. For some years now, the lake has been infested with an aquatic filamentous algae commonly known as ‘blanket weed’ - a problem these days for many lakes and reservoirs and one which prevents the sailing of model yachts during the 5 month growth season by fouling the boats’ underwater fins as well as spoiling the amenity for other users and the public at large.Our original plan had been to have the lake dredged but at a very late stage in the planning of this project, the Environment Agency refused to permit the estimated 8,000 tons of dredging spoil to be deposited on the site allocated by the Hampton Court Palace Authorities as this would have raised the level of the indicative flood plain of the River Thames of which the site formed part. The cost of removal of the spoil to a landfill site would have been in excess of £40,000!
Having got over our disappointment of having to abandon the dredging project we began considering alternative means to solve our problem. Up to that time, the weed had been treated (to varying degrees of success) by the Palace Authorities with a chemical weed control, ‘Clarasan’, which we then learned was no longer to be manufactured following a ban on its use under an EU directive.
After much research, the only realistic and viable alternative seemed to us to be to install an electrically operated device which emits ultrasonic sound waves below the surface of the water that break down the cellular structure of the algae and cause it to die - constant 24 hours a day use prevents the algae returning.
We learned that the device only kills algae and has no affect whatever on people, wildlife, fish or any other plant life and is, we were told, regarded by the Environment Agency as the way forward for aquatic weed control of this nature. Although relatively new, the device had already been installed by a number of Local Authorities and Water Boards to eliminate ‘blanket weed’ and other types of algae from public lakes and reservoirs. The Palace Authorities indicated that they were, sadly, unable to finance any aquatic weed control of this nature for the Rick Pond themselves due to a severe reduction in their funding in recent years since becoming part of Historic Royal Palaces (a Registered Charity). However, they were prepared to support a project put forward by the Club to install the necessary underground electrical supply to the clubhouse and thence to the lakeside and for the subsequent installation of the ultrasonic device. They provided the Club with an estimate and description of works drawn up by their own electrical contractors to carry out this work and the Club had discussions on site with the suppliers of the ultrasonic device, Hamford Ltd., who gave details and the cost of the appropriate model to meet our requirements (details of the device, model SS-500, can be seen on the "Virgo Ultrasonic" website - www.virgo.ws and the "Sonic Solutions" website - www.sonicsolutionsllc.com).
Overall, the project involved the laying underground of some 535 metres of armoured cable from the nearest electrical supply to our clubhouse to provide us with electricity and a smaller armoured cable laid underground from our clubhouse to the Rick Pond (a distance of some 100 metres or so) terminating in a waterproof junction box enabling the ultrasonic device (which uses about the same amount of electricity as a 40watt light bulb) to be connected. Now all that remained was to find the funds to pay for the project! We had already raised some £5,000 for the original dredging scheme from members and obtained a £1,000 grant from a local charity and, with the consent of the donors, these funds were transferred to the new project. However, the estimate for the overall cost was in the region of £20,000 and clearly we had a long way to go before work could commence. At this point we had a stroke of good fortune – one of our members spotted an article on fund raising for small clubs and from this information we were able to contact our local landfill site operator’s environmental trust, SITA Trust (www.sitatrust.org.uk), who (in common with all such environmental trusts) are funded with the landfill tax credits received from the Government (see www.ltcs.org.uk) by their parent company, SITA Ltd. Such trusts are overseen by ENTRUST (www.entrust.org.uk), a regulatory body run by HM Revenue & Customs. Fortunately, our project met the criteria set down by SITA Trust (i.e, the club was situated within a 10 mile radius of a SITA landfill site, the project could be classified as the "restoration of an amenity in a public park" and would cost less than the £25,000 limit placed on such projects). Consequently, we applied for, and were allocated, a £15,000 grant on condition that a sum equal to 10.2% of the grant would be paid by "third party funding" to SITA Ltd. to compensate them for the loss in the value of the landfill tax credits which occurs when these are allocated to their environmental trust. This we were able to do out of the funds raised earlier from individual members. Work commenced on the 9th January this year and the ultrasonic device was installed and activated on the 15th May. See the story in picturesThe Club are very grateful for the help and support of the Hampton Court Authorities, SITA Trust, Hamford Ltd, Hampton Fuel Allotment Charity and (by no means least) its own members, in bringing this worthwhile project to a successful conclusion.
Laurie Bower, Secretary and Treasurer, Hampton Court MYC.