SRA Annual Report 2022-23: Water injection dredging and silt monitoring
Two weeks of maintenance dredging in January 2023 covered 3.75km (2.33miles) of the River Parrett between Saltmoor Pumping Station and Andersea. This activity was organised for Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) by the Parrett Internal Drainage Board (IDB), working as a partner in the SRA.
The IDB again deployed water injection dredging specialists Van Oord. For over 150 hours, the dredging vessel Borr pumped out high volumes of targeted water, so that 37,000 cubic metres of sediments were forced off the river bed and then dispersed through natural processes, downstream as the tide went out.
As has been the case every year since 2016, this dredging was combined with a programme of silt monitoring along sections of the Parrett and Tone, led for the SRA by the IDB.
January’s dredging coincided with the Major Incident of flooding across the Somerset Levels and Moors declared by the Environment Agency, and so helped to free up capacity in the Parrett at a crucial time. In a special operation, the Borr’s powerful side-jets removed silt built up around Elson’s Clyse. This enabled two temporary pumps to be set up overnight to pump water from Park Brook into the Parrett.
