Beginning Again

March 14, 2014

Having left the Environmental Protection Agency on 31 Dec 2013 and taken a little time out I am now up and running as a freelance environmental consultant specialising in the aquatic environment.

Taking a water sample using an ice-auger! You're not in County Mayo any more.

My first trip was New York to Helsinki for a meeting of the LakeAdmin project. At minus 14°C it was pretty cold but the Finns were happy that the real cold weather had at last arrived there. Walking on ice and taking water samples with an augur was some experience. Last time I had broken ice on a lake was back in the late 1970s on Lough Ennell taking a stovepipe sample on the west shore - bare hand down through the icy water.

Then an interesting trip with Dr Ken Whelan Director of Research for the Atlantic Salmon Trust to the Annan Valley in Scotland to discuss a project on the sea trout of the Annan and Strangford Lough.

More anon.