Plans are afoot to use Blackburn’s large Corporation Park Lake as a salmon hatchery.
During recent storms which hit the British Isles, damage was done to some Scottish fish farms, leading to their enclosures being breached. This led to an escape of thousands of juvenile salmon into the surrounding seas. Concerns were raised over possibilities of disease spreading from these farmed fish to their wild counterparts. This has led to not only calls for greater security across fish farms, but also more environmentally friendly ways of carrying out this breeding process.
What the Department of the Environment, Fisheries and Food (DEFRA) would like to do is have greener kinds of salmon farming rather than enormous fisheries. This would stop the spread of disease coming into the wild and immediate countryside. Their way around this is to try and create more local fish farms. They also want these to be on a much smaller scale than are currently in use. It would also be very handy to create new ones which could be put into use on a commercial basis.
Blackburn’s Corporation Park has two lakes, known as the Big Can and the Little Can. The larger of the two was originally used as Blackburn Corporation’s water supply reservoir. This originally was put into use in 1772. It used to use wooden pipes to take water from the reservoir. These lakes were called Big and Little Cans due to people collecting water from them using cans.
Eventually this area became Corporation Park, which we know today, in 1855. The area which became the park was originally known as Pemberton Clough. A stream which flowed through was dammed to create a reservoir. This had an outlet which flowed through the park and went into Snig Brook, a tributary of Blackburn’s River Blakewater. This latter river, from which our town gets its name, then flowed into the River Darwen and subsequently River Ribble to the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
Juvenile salmon have various names. In their early stage they are known as Alevin. Once they have eaten their yoke sacks, they become Fry. In their next stage of development they are known as Parr. And when they are ready to head for the ocean, they become Smolt. At least it’s a downhill all the way from Blackburn.
Navigating returning salmon from the Atlantic Ocean to spawn in Corporation Park Lake will be no mean feat. Various adaptions will have to be placed on the stream flowing from the lake in the park. One of these will have to be some kind of salmon ladder or maybe a wheel to get through its dam holding this lake’s water back. No doubt thoughtful planning is already taking place for the Big Can’s new residents homecoming.
