The Wild Trout Trust – Objection

Please accept this formal objection to the proposal (Glen Earrach Pumped Hydro Project ECU00005121) in the Ness catchment.

The repeated fluctuations of water level in the Loch as a result of the operation of the proposed pumped storage hydro are highly likely to be ecologically damaging, impacting many plant and animal populations, such as Atlantic salmon, sea trout, ferox trout, Arctic charr, the three lamprey species in the catchment and the highly vulnerable pearl mussel. There is much primary published literature highlighting the genetic uniqueness to particular catchments (and individual lochs) of, for example, salmon, trout and charr and that is very likely to be the case in all large Scottish lochs (Verspoor, pers comm), including Ness.

As the Ness Fisheries Management Plan 2023-2028 describes, the effect of pumped storage hydro on Loch Ness has “unknown effects” on migratory (i.e. all) fish through a lack of data. It is therefore completely unacceptable to jeopardise unique and in some cases endangered animal communities through development of a hydro scheme whose ecological consequences are unknown but very conceivably deleterious.

Shaun Leonard

Director, The Wild Trout Trust