I was down P8 at the weekend and noticed that the streamway has a rust coloured deposit along its bed. This extends from upstream of the rusty water tank near the entrance (i.e. it doesn't seem to be the source) to quite some way into the cave. Unfortunately I was supervising a group so I wasn't able to follow the stream to identify the source of the 'rust'. Has anyone else had a look?:?:

Well done the lads/lasses who cleared the junk from Gautries it looks much better now.

You tend to get a lot of Iron deposits in the streams and soughs that undercut the shales around that area (odin sough tail most noticably) I assume the shale is rich in iron ores of some descript. - you also notice it in the little streams that come off the mam tor face.

I dont think its 'pollution' as such though.

SamT said:

You tend to get a lot of Iron deposits in the streams and soughs that undercut the shales around that area (odin sough tail most noticably) I assume the shale is rich in iron ores of some descript. - you also notice it in the little streams that come off the mam tor face.

I dont think its 'pollution' as such though.

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Sam is right, I've seen it many times over the years and it is simply Iron Oxide in the ground colouring the water.
Always good to check though with the pollution problems in the Peak.

I had the pleasure to stop in the TSG hut in Castleton over the weekend, entertaining 3 Australian cavers with P8 and Layby Pot (both very different to any caves they had done in Oz, not being dry walking!)
I did notice the note (from English Nature and someone else) on the door about orange deposits being noted in Peak Cavern streamways. I wonder if the two are connected? (that's instances of polution, not caves!)

Dave - I very much doubt that they are connected. The orange staining of the walls of the streamway in Peak Cavern a few years ago was a result of the massive scale tipping of paper waste on various parts of Castleton Moor. It was derived from two main underground sources; Ink Sump and the left hand branch of Far Sump. (The latter is the most upstream point in the cave where the Peak Cavern main stream can be followed to.) The orange deposits were a fibrous material - presumably xylem vessels from the wood from which paper is made. Bacterial decay of this organic material cause lowered oxygen levels in the water which resulted in all the invertebrates in the Peak Cavern stream being killed.

The orange "rusty" deposits in P8 are more likely to be iron staining as the shales overlying the limestones contain pyrite (iron sulphide) which oxidises to "rust".

Incidentally, although many cavers were appalled by the state of the Peak streamway at the time, the pollution in the sumped sections was far, far worse. It was so bad that gelatinous "stalactites" formed on the roof of underwater passages and great streamers of the stuff coated dive lines. We have a set of underwater photographs to record this. So much for National Parks and SSSIs. The good news is that a recent dive in Buxton Water Sump revealed no such pollution remains.

Yes I was one of the first people to see the piles of paper waste dumped on the moor above Peak Cavern. The idea was to use it to back fill open cast mineral workings at the time .I reported it to John Gunn who took his students to see it.One of them fell into the stuff and had to be pulled out!
But how many of you know what it was?
It was used toilet paper extracted from sewerage works!!!They process the juice not the solids.When it was first dumped a brown rust coloured liquid had drained out of the stuff to the nearst shake holes and sunk.
I suggest this practice is still going on in secret on land with no public acess out of site out of mind .It could explain all the bad air problems in Derbyshire caves.Cavers are going to have to be much more vigilant and do more surface walks and even some trespassing to find out what is happening.
Regarding the Peak cavern incident the powers that be did not seem inclined to take any action at the time.
It is possable that the water authority concerned has convinced people that this stuff is harmless!!!I just can not accept that this stuff is harmless.

On the matter of rust running out of Mam Tor how many people know the the Edale shales contain Uranium Phosphate nodules.When these wash into caves they are responsable for the very high Radon levels in Castleton caves.

perhaps that explains why that student working on the Elaterite deposits in Windy Knoll Cave lost all his fingers to cancer all those years ago - thought it was due to the carcinogenic organic compounds, never thougt it was Uranium!

Regarding the Peak cavern incident the powers that be did not seem inclined to take any action at the time.

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Actually action was taken but the defendant had very high power lawyers and nothing could really be made to stick against him. Samples taken in Peak matched the stuff on the surface but dye traces were not accepted as evidence as noone could conclusively prove that the dye put in at source was the same dye being captured in the streamway. I believe JG eventually did get somewhere by doing fixed ratio dye tests involving several dyes together - they were picked up in Peak in the same ratios as they were released on the surface. Whether or not the prosecution was successful I'm not sure.

Sorry, I stand corrected. What I wrote above was only my memories of what was said at the time as I had no direct involvement other than collecting my own samples from Peak Cavern and examining them with a microscope. Whatever the ultimate source of the pollution was, there is no doubt that Derbyshire's finest cave system was in an appalling condition - but I don't think that this was at all related to the discolouration of the P8 stream referred to by the original posting.

It was used toilet paper extracted from sewerage works!!!They process the juice not the solids.When it was first dumped a brown rust coloured liquid had drained out of the stuff to the nearst shake holes and sunk.
I suggest this practice is still going on in secret on land with no public acess out of site out of mind .It could explain all the bad air problems in Derbyshire caves.Cavers are going to have to be much more vigilant and do more surface walks and even some trespassing to find out what is happening.

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Apart (!) from caving I also search ploughed land on Mendip for prehistoric artefacts like flint arrowheads and consequently know of land where such human waste byproducts is spread - it's a bit obvious when you're surrounded by little bits of dried up bog roll and pantyliners; from watching Countryfile I understand this is a standard method nowadays of reducing sewerage problems elsewhere although have no further details (but would be keen to know more).

IF similar activities are occurring on Mendip as in Derbyshire (and both places have CO2 problems) is it unreasonable to posit a causal link? - OK so there may be other dynamics involved but this could add to them as well..... just a thought.

Yes to get back to the original topic,pollution in P8.
The Orange stain on the stream bed has probably built up because of low water flows due the the dry summer.When the normal water flows are restored the colour will be removed.You will probebly find it has gone by next weekend.

Sorry about the digression - it seemed relevant but obviously is not Derbyshire/P8 based!...

Your comments about Medip were interesting, but the stuff dumped over Peak was not a thin layer, it was lorry loads about 4ft high!!Very concentrated which is why it caused all the damage it did.At the time my further inquireries about what was being done about it were very frustating.I was led to belive no one was interested,and nothing was going to be done about it.So I was very intersted to see that a court case followed.I suppose the good side is that being pushed aside as I was there was no danger of me being called as a witness.

Just a semi-informed comment - dived Buxton water when it was bad, and just a day or two before going abroad with work for a week. Slightly mis-judged the choke and ended up drinking half the sump. Got a tad worried due to going abroad, and so went to the quack. The nurse smiled and said she couldn't get away from sewage - fortunately she had just left Severn Trent where people not infrequently fell in raw sewage. From what she said, and other people I talked to at the time, it was treated sewage cake (the dry residue) that was spread on the surface, not raw sewage, the main health problem would probably be gastro-intestinal disorders - stomach bugs. I had a course of antibiotics and suffered no ill effects, but not keen to repeat the experience.

By the way, Buxton Water Inlet was never polluted.

Marcus