Pevensey Levels Floating Pennywort Control 2017-18

Tender description

Pevensey Levels is a 3500 hectare wetland site consisting of wet grassland criss-crossed by over 450 km of human made freshwater ditches. The area is Site of Special Scientific Interest, RAMSAR and Special Area of Conservation because of the plants and animals found in these ditches. The aquatic alien Floating Pennywort was first recorded on Pevensey in 1995. In 2009 Environment Agency and Natural England jointly funded a survey for the plant and found that 10% of water courses and approximately 45km were infested. Floating Pennywort is harming the site and need to be controlled and ideally eradicated. The Environment Agency and Natural England have trialled various control methods to assess how effective they are at removing Floating Pennywort and what impact the treatments have on the sensitive plants and animals of the protected site. The first four years of the treatment took place from 2013-2017. This is the fourth year of treatment. The overall aim and objective of the contract is to control and eradicate floating Pennywort from the Pevensey Levels wetlands. This will include the following: a) Removing biomass mechanically in the late summer (i.e. August onwards) using a sieve bucket. This needs to be done carefully in order to ensure that the maximum plant material is removed and placed safely at least 3 metres from the ditch edge. b) Any residual infestation will be sprayed twice with Glyphosate with Topfilm using a specification provided by the Environment Agency. No substitutes can be used immediately after mechanical control and 4 and 6 weeks after mechanical clearance. Spraying should only be done where necessary and may not be undertaken on organic land.