EA a National Disaster

[Punch]

How much dredging was done in the Levels?
Has it sorted the problem?
If so it would be a useful case study to put in front of EA, MPs etc.

Owen Paterson when he was DEFRA SoS granted extra funding and they dug out the river Parrott IIRC. There will always be flooding but the recovery is a lot quicker when a man made/managed river is working to its full capacity.

 

[Skimmer]

I feel the financial loss damage and distress caused to people by the EA must be equal to that of the post office scandal though what can be done about it I've no idea.

 

[robs1]

If this winter becomes typical then the answer to flooding is to hold heavy rain higher up stream and then release it as soon as lower river levels fall, it is so very simple yet the clever bar stewards with lots of ologies can't grasp it . A few demonstrations with a handful of buckets a few taps and a water supply should open even their eyes on how to control water flows.

 

[matthew]

don't hear of so many problems despite the amount of rain

Certainly not headlines anyway.

Owen Paterson when he was DEFRA SoS granted extra funding and they dug out the river Parrott IIRC. There will always be flooding but the recovery is a lot quicker when a man made/managed river is working to its full capacity.

Owen also left his hospital bed, * came to levels, banged some heads together and hired some huge Dutch pumps. With the deep dredging, doing the draining that the EA etc. had neglected. Our pumps were too small and seized up apparently. Deliberately so, to comply with that wetlands directive. “Just add water” was the mantra.

* Detached retina - required an operation and he was supposed to be resting.

 

[Happy]

Was down at river putting up electric fence today.
This is what beavers do to riparian woodland. Prior until a couple of years ago this river bank was full of Alder & Willow. Almost jungle like in summer that you couldn’t walk or see through.

Now looks like this with all the space looking like it will be taken up by Hymalan Balsam & Japanese Knotweed. What a great ecological improvement

The idiots releasing these are absolutely clueless to the damage they are doing and I have seen none of the supposed regenerative improvements in the 12 years since they first appeared.
Miles & miles of riverside Alder been replaced by this wilderness

Incidently the river is incredibly brown today for only having had 12mm of rain. Probably been a landslip upstream due to burrowed into bankings but farmers who get the blame for silting them up.

 

[Will 1594]

MLC took dredged hundreds of tons of silt out of Salters Lode lock but the river the other side is EA and is currently completely silted up so no boats can use the lock

have you seen them with a little digger and a water pistol trying to move that silted up bank will get pics this week when go spraying

 

[Cab-over Pete]

It's another post office scandal in the making really.
The government have got to make these organisations answerable for their inactivity in maintenance and pissing their budget away on studies to show they're doing well......

All these waterways, especially the bigger ones are man maintained, if they're not they'll simply change their course, and the best result would be a senior MP getting wet because of it
Nothing will change otherwise

I agree, it doesn’t affect them, so bugger all changes.

The NHS won’t get any real change until a top cabinet minister has a close relation die on a trolley after 9 hours waiting in a corridor.

That might sound nasty, but it’s how I see it.

 

[PSQ]

If this winter becomes typical then the answer to flooding is to hold heavy rain higher up stream and then release it as soon as lower river levels fall, it is so very simple yet the clever bar stewards with lots of ologies can't grasp it . A few demonstrations with a handful of buckets a few taps and a water supply should open even their eyes on how to control water flows.

If you were running a bath and the tap handle fell off, the first thing you'd do to prevent a flood would be to take out the plug as early as possible and let the 'early' water away.
Change the scenario to catchment area hydrology, and clearing out the lower stretches of rivers has a similar effect, it allows the 'early' rainfall to drain to the sea before a backlog causes flooding.
Slowing the 'response time' between rain hitting the upper levels of a catchment area and the same water reaching the sea can be a double edged sword. Instead of the early water being out of the system, later rain just doubles the problem and the hypothetical 'bath' will overflow.

It's just unfortunate that 4 years at Uni and a name badge from a dead end sinecure government agency will always trump common sense and generations of lived experience.
Exhibit one: Clarksons pond. If he wasn't 'playing to the crowd' and instead brought in an experienced digger driver, then his new dam would never be noticed. Instead you've got Charlie Ireland reeling off a list of organisations who will want to stick their oar in and needlessly hold up the work until endless boxes have been ticked stop the job in its tracks to 'protect invasive crayfish'. FFS, do you laugh, cry, throw the towel in, repeatedly bang your head against a clipboard, or JFDI?

 

[onthehoof]

have you seen them with a little digger and a water pistol trying to move that silted up bank will get pics this week when go spraying

Hoping link will work, they’ve been doing this for about 3 weeks, pity the poor bloke holding the hose

Silt dispersal in progress in Denver on the tidal section to Salters Lode. Shame it's not being removed... But progress at least. | By Shaun DunbavinFacebook

Silt dispersal in progress in Denver on the tidal section to Salters Lode. Shame it's not being removed... But progress at least.

fb.watch

 

[onthehoof]

Was down at river putting up electric fence today.
This is what beavers do to riparian woodland. Prior until a couple of years ago this river bank was full of Alder & Willow. Almost jungle like in summer that you couldn’t walk or see through.

Now looks like this with all the space looking like it will be taken up by Hymalan Balsam & Japanese Knotweed. What a great ecological improvement

View attachment 1180357View attachment 1180358View attachment 1180359View attachment 1180360

The idiots releasing these are absolutely clueless to the damage they are doing and I have seen none of the supposed regenerative improvements in the 12 years since they first appeared.
Miles & miles of riverside Alder been replaced by this wilderness

Incidently the river is incredibly brown today for only having had 12mm of rain. Probably been a landslip upstream due to burrowed into bankings but farmers who get the blame for silting them up.

Masses of giant hogweed too!

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Is the bloke on the hose trying to wash the silt downstream?

What futile nonsense if that’s the case.

It would be far better off being stacked on the bank until it dries a bit and then spread on a field. That stuff will be incredibly fertile.

I expect the moment it’s out of the water it becomes controlled waste or some such complete bollox.

 

[onthehoof]

Is the bloke on the hose trying to wash the silt downstream?

What futile nonsense if that’s the case.

It would be far better off being stacked on the bank until it dries a bit and then spread on a field. That stuff will be incredibly fertile.

I expect the moment it’s out of the water it becomes controlled waste or some such complete bollox.

Yep, and doing it on an incoming tide, there’s another lump about half a mile downstream that they go onto next, boaters peed off as they can’t use either lock until finished but EA keep whacking up the licence fee

 

[dynosoar]

In a previous life I used to be a freelance plant operator trainer/assessor. (20 odd years back!)
One of my regular jobs was with the EA either setting up CPD with experienced operators or training up new guys.
At the time it was said the EA was actually the largest plant operator in the country. Well that was likely the case with specialist equipment such as long reach and floating 360’s and low ground pressure tracked dumpers etc. I think a lot of this stuff was actually bought rather than hired.
Anyway, apart from a sometimes almost ’ work to rule’ attitude which involves packing up in case it rained rather than a let’s crack on and finish before it rains there was a hell of a lot of works routinely done. A lot of which would hardly be noticeable due to the remote locations.
such as building up or repairing river banks.
all of this work dried up (pun) when someone made the decision to off load all of the plant equip and seemingly let nature take over.
i didn’t get involved with pumps and stuff but Andrew Ward highlighted the crazy situation of non running pumps in one of his you tube videos back in Oct.
i really feel for those affected by the situation.
how do we get some sense into the system?

A

 

[beardface]

Was down at river putting up electric fence today.
This is what beavers do to riparian woodland. Prior until a couple of years ago this river bank was full of Alder & Willow. Almost jungle like in summer that you couldn’t walk or see through.

Now looks like this with all the space looking like it will be taken up by Hymalan Balsam & Japanese Knotweed. What a great ecological improvement

View attachment 1180357View attachment 1180358View attachment 1180359View attachment 1180360

The idiots releasing these are absolutely clueless to the damage they are doing and I have seen none of the supposed regenerative improvements in the 12 years since they first appeared.
Miles & miles of riverside Alder been replaced by this wilderness

Incidently the river is incredibly brown today for only having had 12mm of rain. Probably been a landslip upstream due to burrowed into bankings but farmers who get the blame for silting them up.

The trouble with all this rewilding/reintroduction bollox is that alot of animals plants etc have adapted to live in habitats that are suddenly altered back the other way.