River Almond, Lothian
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The River Almond is a river in east-central Scotland. It is 28 miles (45 km) long, rising in North Lanarkshire near Shotts and runs through West Lothian, draining into the Firth of Forth at Cramond near Edinburgh.
Running through what were, for much of the 20th Century, areas dominated by heavy industry and coal mining, the River Almond has been notorious for its high levels of pollution. With the demise of mining and heavy industry in Central Scotland the river is now much cleaner and is being actively repopulated by wildlife. The river is still the primary means of transporting southern West Lothian's waste water to the sea. While the introduction of a number of water treatment plants have helped to mitigate the effects of pollution, the river still suffers from high levels of detergent pollution along with run-off from agricultural land. This has lead to the river often having a distinct "chemical odour". This is most noticeable within Almondell Country Park, where there is a major outfall from the nearby West Calder treatment plant.
The river runs through the centre of Livingston before travelling through Almondell and Calderwood Country Park where it picks up the Calder and Murieston Waters. It then passes over a weir which supplies a feeder culvert which carries water into the Union Canal. Due to the height difference where the river passes under the canal, this feeder must run for many miles eastwards before reaching the canal. By following paths through the country park and along private land to the east it is possible to follow the river and feeder all the way to the Union Canal. The path to the east of the country park is poorly travelled and is usually overgrown in summer. It then flows east under the Union Canal before turning northwards towards the Forth Estuary.
The industrial heritage of central Scotland can be observed along the length of the river with numerous weirs, remains of mills and other riverside industries of the past.
The M8 motorway follows the course of the Almond for much of its length.
