Low water levels, should we be dredging?

[ARW]

isnt this the perfect time to dredge out 40 years of sludge from our rivers? Prepare for the inevitable monsoon and create some volume in our rivers?
The ea are flooding large parts of farmland locally in the next few years to hold water back from houses built on land liable to flood, yet there is so much capacity wasted.
There’s a picture of a bridge in a local village in 1936, there’s kids playing under it, you could just crawl through it nowadays.
When will we see sense

 

[icanshootwell]

isnt this the perfect time to dredge out 40 years of sludge from our rivers? Prepare for the inevitable monsoon and create some volume in our rivers?
The ea are flooding large parts of farmland locally in the next few years to hold water back from houses built on land liable to flood, yet there is so much capacity wasted.
There’s a picture of a bridge in a local village in 1936, there’s kids playing under it, you could just crawl through it nowadays.
When will we see sense

Totally agree, there is a big lake near us that could do with cleaning out, imagine spreading that on the land, best fert money could buy.

 

[Exfarmer]

Common sense and the EA are not words you would normally put in one sentence, or possibly a book together

 

[kiwi pom]

What do you do with all the stuff you dig out of it?
Would be a good idea but I don't suppose they have the money, staff or machines to do it.

 

[No5]

Not allowed to round here as it may harm the water voles!

 

[Exfarmer]

What do you do with all the stuff you dig out of it?
Would be a good idea but I don't suppose they have the money, staff or machines to do it.

I suspect the dredged material would have to be treated as contaminated waste and sent for landfill if not incineration. Instead of a very good source of nutrition to be spread on surrounding land as it has been since time immemorial!
Local to me Anglian Water are digging a hole for a new sewage tank. It is goung to be 20 metres deep about 6 metres round. All the material coming out the hole , pure chalk, is being sent to landfill 30 miles away .
I am told this new tank , essentially a slurry pit holding 565 cubic metres are going to cost £1,200,000.

 

[kiwi pom]

I suspect the dredged material would have to be treated as contaminated waste and sent for landfill if not incineration. Instead of a very good source of nutrition to be spread on surrounding land as it has been since time immemorial!
Local to me Anglian Water are digging a hole for a new sewage tank. It is goung to be 20 metres deep about 6 metres round. All the material coming out the hole , pure chalk, is being sent to landfill 30 miles away .
I am told this new tank , essentially a slurry pit holding 565 cubic metres are going to cost £1,200,000.

Nothings simple anymore I guess. You'd get the whole access problem too, by the time you get the money, permission and gear it'll be the middle of winter and chucking it down again.

 

[ARW]

Not allowed to round here as it may harm the water voles!

But if they have all died of thirst then does it matter?

 

[ollie989898]

Environment agency?? Bunch of muppets.

The drainage boards dredged rivers and ditches for decades and put the mud on the banks.

Numpty boy EA arrive and determine that the mud needs to be put in landfill.


You couldnt make it up.

 

[Chae1]

@holwellcourtfarm

 

[Dry Rot]

Totally agree, there is a big lake near us that could do with cleaning out, imagine spreading that on the land, best fert money could buy.

Don't the regulations say it should be carted to landfill? Yeah, you and I know, but do 'they' know?

The council cleaned a roadside ditch here and carted the "spoil" to a landfill site over 10 miles away. Then the penny dropped that it was all water weeds and they left it on the verge where it disappeared in a couple of weeks!

 

[icanshootwell]

Don't the regulations say it should be carted to landfill? Yeah, you and I know, but do 'they' know?

The council cleaned a roadside ditch here and carted the "spoil" to a landfill site over 10 miles away. Then the penny dropped that it was all water weeds and they left it on the verge where it disappeared in a couple of weeks!

There was a farmer i did work for some years ago, they cleaned out a large pond and spread it on some maize ground, i kid you not the maize grew as tall as a house. Well nearly

 

[renewablejohn]

Saw our local reservoir last night on the national news and United Utilities are now using that to implement a hosepipe ban. Pity they did not also show the compensation flow leaving the reservoir which is absolutely rediculous in a drought.

 

[milkloss]

So what is actually wrong with the spoil that requires them to landfill it? I’m quite glad they would landfill the road ditches as all they do is dam the road up so it falls apart from all the water that can’t get to the ditch.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

So what is actually wrong with the spoil that requires them to landfill it? I’m quite glad they would landfill the road ditches as all they do is dam the road up so it falls apart from all the water that can’t get to the ditch.

It's all about contaminant levels. We even had silt fail on organic compounds and diverted to landfill

Roadside watercourses are almost always over the limits for hydrocarbons these days so the silt gets landfilled. That'll be because the councils don't maintain the drainage oil interceptors any more (if they even have them in the first place)

I wonder what they will do when we run out of holes in the ground to fill

I'm SO glad I don't work in that line here any more.

 

[Dr. Alkathene]

Saw our local reservoir last night on the national news and United Utilities are now using that to implement a hosepipe ban. Pity they did not also show the compensation flow leaving the reservoir which is absolutely rediculous in a drought.

Never mentioned all the reservoirs that UU have decommissioned either.....

 

[ollie989898]

Of course the silt or mud needs to be put back on the land, that is where it came from anyway. So long as it is spread dilutely over a big enough area who cares. You cant landfill stuff think of the environmental impact of that.

 

[Dry Rot]

Of course the silt or mud needs to be put back on the land, that is where it came from anyway. So long as it is spread dilutely over a big enough area who cares. You cant landfill stuff think of the environmental impact of that.

The roads department made a total bollox of that roadside ditch. No contaminants as it is a small rural side road. They estimated that it would take three days to clean and turned up with a fleet of vehicles. The digger driver knew what he was doing, however, and completed the job in half a day! And they wonder why I hate bureaucrats! In previous years, it was the neighbouring farmer who cleaned the ditch (as it benefits his fields) but seemingly they fell out or the regulations did not permit "contracting out". You could not make it up!

 

[Sweepa]

It's very damaging to any species on the river bed otherwise it's a no brainer

 

[ollie989898]

It's very damaging to any species on the river bed otherwise it's a no brainer

Of course it is damaging, but then you are not dredging the entire watercourse in any given year, it is done rotationally over the course of many years.

The EA in particular seems to have protecting people's homes and livelihoods rather lower down the list of priorities than they should be, hence the reason why half of Somerset ended up under water a few years ago. They are staffed by a collection of muppets with more degrees than a compass and little understanding of why things were done as they were historically. They also, categorically, did no drainage or dredging for over 13 years in that region.