Local Lochmaben residents Alsion Rogerson and Jane Purdie have been raising awareness to help restore the loch to its former glory.
Mill Loch has a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) designation and there are concerns about the environmental impact on the deep loch from raw sewage, an invasive water lily, and garden waste.
There are long term hopes to reintroduce the Vendace which is Britain’s rarest freshwater fish.
Local resident Alison Rogerson told DGWGO “This is a beautiful, beautiful site. Unfortunately, the Mill Loch is dying. Myself and Jane are hoping to be working with local
authorities to improve the water quality, improve the nature.”
“We’re also working along, thankfully with the Community Council which have been fantastic and we’ve had a good meeting recently to save this beautiful site for our children and our children beyond that – for the local community.
Jane Purdie said “Mill Loch is quite a special site. It’s a triple SI site. Meaning that there’s species here that don’t have a habitat anywhere else and they need to be protected. The loch itself is in trouble at the moment. I’m sure that in Lochmaben everybody wants to protect the lochs and protect the animals on it. This year we’ve lost quite a few things. We’ve lost some predatory birds. We lost cygnets and we lost moorhens.”
“We’ve lost fish found on the loch and the reasons for that is that the water itself is what they call eutrophic which is nutrient rich and that comes from farmland and garden waste and raw sewage which has been going into the loch. We’d like to stop that and we’d like to fix it. We’d like to get the loch back to a more natural state and help the wildlife that’s on it survive. ”
Alison’s hopes to see Britains rarest water fish back at Mill Loch “Yes there was originally a fish called the vendace, in fact some of the streets round here are named after it. I don’t know whether any locals know much about the Vendace fish but it was one of the last resting places for it. But because of the water quality being so nutrient rich it can’t survive here anymore and my passion would be to introduce it back once we get the water quality to a better situation.”
If you would like to contact Alison or Jane then please get in touch at [email protected] and we will pass on your details
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