He hasn’t been charged with anything, and the issue isn’t picking up trach, but dredging the river with heavy equipment and removing silt.
That can have severe unintended consequences. You’re changing the speed and flow of a waterway. That’s a big deal.
I don’t see anything about heavy equipment. According to the article, it’s a creek rather than a full river, but it does claim that the scale of the cleanup could cause a flood risk.
Either way, the real crime is that the authorities never cleaned it up. Authorities failing to do their job will eventually invite people to take matters into their own hand.
they brought in a backhoe and started digging.
I can say in chicago there was nasty stuff down in the silt that they by and large do not want to com back up into the water.
I can say in chicago
what did you do?
🤦♂️
(Sorry… have no other reaction to this…)
He doesn’t appear to have actually been charged of anything, despite the questionable headline wording. That said, the fact that he even could be charged indicates that the law is poorly written.
Surely, any sane and reasonable person would not regard the removal of human-generated garbage from a body of water as dredging it, no matter how much of it they removed. The law’s vague/poor wording, similar to the lackadaisical wording of many laws, allows bad-faith actors and nit-picking trolls to “gotcha” people like this for very pedantic technical breaches of the law’s letter, despite them acting very much in the law’s spirit.
If doing an objective public good is illegal, it is the law that’s bad, not the lawbreaker.
He hasn’t been charged with anything, and the issue isn’t picking up trash, but dredging the river with heavy equipment and removing silt. ~ they brought in a backhoe and started digging.
Tl;dr: It seems the group was well intentioned but this actually could have been pretty environmentally detrimental.
According to this article, it appears the issue is the team used a digger in some capacity. Details on how are sparse.
I’m a microbiologist (environmental micro), but I studied a few things in grad school. A big chunk was hydrology and riverine engineering, more specifically erosion control and environmental remediation. I promptly went on to work in a different field, because who does what they actually study in university?
I’ll spare you the details (unless you want them, I will go HAM on erosion control autistic data dumping because I rarely get to talk about this) but it’s pretty easy to fuck up a river if you start digging it up. Given they mentioned flooding concerns, I checked to see if the area is in a flood plain and confirmed it is.
Humans engineer rivers in floodplains to prevent the previously cyclical flooding as well as reduce erosion. If those controls are damaged, the flooding and erosion can resume, and downstream effects (…pun?) can be pretty serious for humans and the environment.
I’d need more information to confirm exactly what happened, but there may be some merit to the complaints about their project. If they didn’t have even a cursory environmental impact assessment, they could have done a lot of damage while trying to do something good.
That is good context, and I’ve seen first hand well-intentioned work have unintended consequences like you describe.
I guess I had assumed that they were just hauling out debris with the diggers, but if they were changing the topology of the riverbed and surrounding floodplain, I could see that causing flooding or other problems.
You mentioned microbial composition; do you think that judicious use of digging equipment like I had assumed would be damaging to the microbiome, or only if they were indeed dredging?
I think the some countries may be under the control of the Smoggies.
I know nobody ever reads the article but it still makes me despair every time.
For that transgression, the environmental regulator sent Powlesland a notice informing him that he’s been placed under investigation for “permitting and waste offences.”
He was given a notice. Not only has he NOT been sentenced to 2 years, he hasn’t even been charged. He’s been told he broke a law, for which the maximum penalty that a judge is permitted to give is listed as 2 years.
To further clarify: the transgression, according to the Guardian, wasn’t just removing waste, but the fact that “Powesland […] organised a team of volunteers to tackle the removal of litter, weed and silt from a section of the River Roding”, and they collectively “removed 200 bags of rubbish, branches and silt”, which goes beyond just picking up trash.
The EA [Environmental Agency] alleges dredging has been carried out and waste has been left on site within the flood plain, constituting a flood risk activity under the regulations that would have required an environmental permit.
Dredging is the act of removing material from the water environment, here presumably from the riverbed, which is a tad more involved than just picking up pieces of trash and might have ecological knock-on effects. I find it perfectly justified that the Environmental Agency would want to be involved in the decision to take such steps.
The only real scandal is this guy having petitioned the Agency about the trash problem for years without success. That they’d now get pissed when someone takes the matter into his own hands is understandable, but might just be the only way to get them to care about the issue.
I just watched a YouTube video showing them working. I was fine with it when they were just a group picking up litter. Then they brought in a backhoe and started digging.
Yeah, that’s where you go from helpful volunteers to reckless vigilantes. Shame that they couldn’t leave it at cleaning up.
Also, shame that these articles bury the lede of “dug up the riverbed” for the sake of outrage.
And of course, shame that it came to this at all.
Removing silt can be pretty bad in some cases, heavy metals sink to the bottom and will not cause problems if left undisturbed, if you start removing silt you will make those pollutants bioavailable again.
Even removing the branches and larger tree limbs can cause issues with removing habitat for aquatic critters and changes the currents and flow of the river.
Cleaning the trash by hand and hauling it away is one thing. They went beyond that.
I wasn’t aware of that. I suspect the guy in question didn’t either. That’s why experts should make those decisions who do know that stuff.
I suspect as an environmental lawyer he knew
Do you think the government environmental agency is trustworthy? You do realize the neoliberals are in bed with big money.
There is zero fucking chance of “experts” working in the public interest at the EA. 0%.
You don’t have to work for a three letter agency to be an expert. I guarantee you that if they took the time to consult anyone remotely connected to ecological science they would have said no to hacking up the river bed without a proper survey and sampling.
I mean, the agency did drag its feet until the guy got pissed enough to do something irresponsible. Doesn’t excuse his actions, nor does it make him an expert either.
If he had an expert advising him on this course of action, cool. The articles don’t seem to mention it, and the articles prey on outrage, so saying “he even had an expert telling him to do so!” would have been worth a note.
So if you’re right, we’ve got two bunches of idiots; one negligent in their inaction, the other reckless in their action.
You might be right, but in the grand scehme of things, allowing sewage plants, that combine industrial waste with sewage, to dump in the rivers without consequence, while prosecuting this guy, rubs many of us the wrong way.
Only regular people get the shaft, not big money, that’s why this outrage is here.
For sure, the priorities are screwed. I initially just wanted to point out that it’s not “guy picks up trash, gets punished for it” but “guy assembles a group to dig up riverbed”. If we’re gonna be pissed (and we should be), let’s be pissed accurately and for the right reasons. Let’s be pissed that the EA is doing jack squat about problems. Let’s be pissed that so many agencies have been defanged and staffed with industrial bootlicks to the point of wilful incompetence.
have you ever been to a wastewater treatment plant? the modern ones are really cool. only the fertilizer drying fields smell.
In this case the silt is a good share shit overflows from sewage releases though, which go unpunished I would add.
Careful now, you are going to harsh the righteous indignation with your facts and context.
I mean, the agency doing nothing for so long does deserve some righteous indignation. Keep your pitchforks and torches, just make sure you torch for the right reasons.
The headlines should reflect that better though.
I won’t argue the poor headline at all.
yeah but the easiet way to get upvotes is to provide a tldr for an article.
i don’t know the british legal system very well. i know statesia. does this translate across the pond to informing him he’s been indicted?
Possibly barely even that. As far as I can tell from Google, “indictment” in the US involves a whole process with a grand jury and stuff and implies the judicial system has already been kicked into action. This notice is someone at the Environmental Agency telling him to get his shit together. A more direct parallel would be the EPA telling someone that they were under investigation.
Fair point, but let’s be real. He’s getting those 2 years sooner or later.
You can’t hand out food to the homeless without getting arrested, nor can you leave water for people in the desert without facing decades in prison.
As heinous as those laws are, they’re from a totally different country
they’re the same flavor of bullshit which is why they draw the similarity i think. to point out that the UK saw the US doing this bullshit and said “hey, why not us too?”
deleted by creator
hey UK, statesian here. We’re supposed to learn our bullshit from you, not you from us. Please keep it that way.
Strange that the article didnt mention that Paul Powlesland the man accused is an environmental lawyer.
What do you mean it states that in the first paragraph. Is this ironic or something.
Working over ten days, they hired an excavator costing roughly £1,000 and cleared a heavily polluted 250 metre stretch of Alders Brook, a tributary of the River Roding in Barking, East London.
The main issue is that he used heavy machinery for cleanup. If it was by hand it probably wouldn’t have resulted in any legal matter
Is 2 years ridiculous? Probably. But using an excavator for cleaning is definitely not a smart move for someone who’s a lawyer
For reference an excavator is one of the construction machine with the hydraulic hand that is used to dig or grab stuff
The main issue is that he used heavy machinery for cleanup. If it was by hand it probably wouldn’t have resulted in any legal matter
Yeah, he went way beyond simply removing trash:
The team removed more than 200 bags of rubbish along with branches, thick layers of silt, weeds, discarded household appliances, used needles and even abandoned weapons. Their goal was to restore the natural flow of the water and remove years of accumulated waste.
He basically dug up the entire riverbed. That isn’t something people should just be doing ad-hoc.
He basically dug up the entire riverbed. That isn’t something people should just be doing ad-hoc.
Fully agree, but there seems to be no better alternative.
Powlesland told the Guardian he’s asked the agency numerous times to clean the river, but it’s been ignoring him for years.
Exactly, it seems the environment agency is useless.
or the environmental agency has other more pressing matters to attend to in its 50-year plan, and dredging the river there could drastically disrupt their flood planning.
my county’s 50-year plan just finished. we just turned the entire damn county from a 10-year floodplain to a 100-year floodplain (by dredging creeks and digging new canals). It took fifty. damn. years. Easiest way to tell who was a local was who was celebrating when they finished.
yup. in the judge’s place might even sanction him for acts unbecoming or discreditable to the profession or whatever it’s called over there. as a barrister or solicitor you are supposed to display good judgment at all times. This is his area of expertise. Like ho lee fuck did he err in judgment.
In the same post they say he’s facing up to 2 years in jail and a image saying he’s jailed already for 2 years…
edit: and if you end those permit law I think it might open ways for bad things mostly.
Make it make sense 😢🤮
He wasn’t just picking up litter. He rented a backhoe and actually started digging in the river bed.
so?
So it is a pretty different situation compared to if they had been removing trash by hand, which is much less likely to cause unforseen harm. The heavy machinery will compact soil, potentially leak oil/fuel. The mechanized digging of the stream bed could disturb benthic species and stir up silt that could have negative impacts further downstream.
Without appropriate precautions, this fellow could easily cause more harm to the ecosystem, which is one of the reasons that this is not and should not be legal. It sounds like this group did do some background work to try to make sure they were doing the right thing, but I don’t think it should be open season for anyone with a backhoe to dredge a local body of water based on their own judgement.
Ahh, you’re not being serious. Noted.
You’re imagining problems where there are none
Do you legitimately believe that people should be allowed to use industrial excavators to dig up whatever public land they want?
People without training and coordination with a larger system can cause problems, especially if he encourages other untrained people to do it.
It sucks but there’s billions of us so it’s gonna suck. At least that’s what my local councilman (and dad) said when I complained I needed to ask permission to change my deck.
Two years in prison is stupid though. Make him work with the groups who have approved plans.
And I hate that this is the answer I’m giving but honestly it’s the only thing keeping me from renting a bulldozer and making my neighborhood walkable.
I feel like this is only justifiable if the officials aren’t given time to act. It would be one thing if he fired off an email and ran out and did this the next day, but according to the article he spent years contacting officials before doing it himself. If they want to live by perfect world rules where stuff like this is overseen and coordinated with experts then they need to do it in a timely manner. It’s unreasonable to expect people to live in an area full of garbage for years and just do nothing about it.
I like this argument because there’s a right to petition the government, and to a timely trial.
I get that the official body probably didn’t have the resources to be able to clean it up, but imagine if there had been a compromise solution in which volunteers could have done this work but with the guidance of a professional, sanctioned by that official body. That seems like it could have been the best of both worlds. It’s a shame that this ended up as it did
Just make sure to up armour it if you do.
Cue the A-Team montage music
I advise studying the Killdozer event to prepare for your montage!
I pity the fool who ain’t studied Killdozer
if they didnt want the hazmat to be a hazard they shouldn’t let it into the river; this way people won’t have to risk lives to clean it up. from this firefighters pov - i can understand how dangerous it is to work around rivers but imho i am happy to hope the damages to a person voluntarily working to clean up an organization’s messes will, after trial, be paid by the said org.
i know that’s not gonna happen. i just… it fucking sucks this fucking country.
Somebody didn’t read the article. The problem is flood risk from dredging (in the UK)
fair point. i didnt. :)
Yeah you need to run an environmental impact study and a 6 month observational survey to determine the long term impacts of removing pollution from the environment.
Your councilman is trash. I don’t want to encourage bulldozing a neighborhood but you’re right to feel that way. Then again, I do encourage making places walkable so you’d get critical support from me. Just get utilities marked so you don’t hit a gas line.
It’s not just “removing pollution” it’s dredging the entire riverbed. That releases silt, and anything contained in the silt, to flow downstream and collect elsewhere. It can smother fish eggs, it can clog infrastructure, it can kill plants and invertebrates .
I don’t think this dredging means machine based digging on the riverbed in this case. 200bags over 10 days. That’s manual labor.
If the city wasn’t even considering the residents requests then i don’t blame them. The city should do better if they’re concerned about flooding and fund a proper survey and cleanup plan to facilitate the citizen action.
There’s videos of them with a backhoe scraping the river bed and indiscriminately hacking up plants on the riverbank. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
This is sad, but also understandable.
I totally agree that the punishment is unnecessarily harsh, but well meaning people can cause damage while trying to do good. The road to hell and all that.
Those responsible for maintaining the area not doing their job is a separate, and I’d say more serious, matter.
It’s Britian. He didn’t have a permit and organized a group.
It’s in the fine article:
The EA’s main complaint seems to be that the dredging was significant enough that it constitutes a flood risk.
bwergh :)
Can’t, since it doesn’t 🤬
I want to speak to management, like NOW!
That would be this dude, I guess 🤷🏻
name and shame
Alan Lovell
there you go you got a reply that makes sense
now be nice and magnanimous and thank them or maybe give a friendly reply, maybe even start a discussion if you don’t understand
go on it’s how to be a better lemming
you’re not the boss if me! Fracking lemmings. Always the same with your lot 😤
Wow, this is a weird one. I thought for sure this was going to be someone being charged with mudlarking without a license (still outrageous but justifiable if they were also scooping up historical artifacts), but apparently it’s for creating a flood risk?? Brother, your flood protection shouldn’t be a mass of garbage. Someone make this charge make sense.
Wasn’t just removing trash. Drove heavy machinery (excavator) into the stream bed to remove silt thereby changing stream hydraulics and releasing silt downstream further degrading water quality and potentially smothering fish, invertebrates and vegetation. Used backhoe to uproot vegetation from stream bed making it more susceptible to future erosion. Dumped and left materials on the streams flood plain which could alter hydraulics in a flood.
As an environmental lawyer he knows permits and extensive planning needed when changing streamflow. (EDIT first comment after just reading links, just followed up with video links, a bit of a puff piece but monitoring/surveying/planning was done END EDIT) As a lawyer and an officer of the court is held to a higher ethical standard than ordinary civilian. Despite this he first conspired to break the law, and then proceeded to break the law. Not a minor transgression, deserves more than a minor punishment. EDIT Not minor transgression but with some mitigation already done, perhaps lessor punishment
‘Environmental lawyer destroys stream for no reason’ makes an even less compelling narrative.
I’m gonna lean on another commenter who made me realise the legitimate reasoning behind something like this (disregarding the fact that two years is absurdly high): If we permit anyone to do whatever “cleaning” they themselves deem reasonable without approval, we risk that unknowledgable people with good intentions cause serious damage. One reason could be that they create an acute flood risk (you’re right: garbage shouldn’t be flood protection, but the actual flood protection is built around existing circumstances, and if removing the garbage causes a major risk to people losing their homes, the correct approach is to first prepare the flood protection, then remove the garbage). Another is that people can unknowingly or unintentionally destroy habitats or otherwise damage the environment.
The point is: We have some very competent people that are capable of assessing the impact of various cleaning operations. We need to let those people do their job. There can be very complex interactions in play, that turn your good intentions into catastrophic consequences. Therefore, we cannot allow laymen to judge how large cleaning operations should be conducted.
Full disclaimer: While I think the above reasoning is sound, I think we should be very careful regarding how unauthorised cleaning operations are punished. For example, it seems absurd to me to give jail time for it. When the person in question is obviously acting with good intentions, it’s much more reasonable to sentence them to take some course where they can learn about why what they were doing was potentially harmful, and perhaps sentence them to community service working on some authorised project. That way, you help them learn, let them work on something they want to contribute to, and get more resources for the authorised projects.
If people were doing this for clout/ad revenue or on a whim without trying to engage with the proper channels first I would agree, but it just isn’t reasonable to tell people to accept living in an environment full of garbage while their local government does nothing about it for literal years. If you walked along a river in your neighborhood with your pets and/or children how long would you accept seeing it choked with trash and sewage? Would you be okay with teaching them, through inaction, that this is fine? I’m not asking for you to answer, I just think all those things deserve as much consideration as ‘could this cause a flood if XYZ happens?’ Because of this has already caused a flood we clearly would have heard about it.
To me, this was a good faith effort made in the absence of any other resources. If this was load bearing garbage (!) then that needs to be communicated in their refusals/delays, along with a specific timeline for addressing it. That’s also assuming they have detected a real risk of significant flooding, which I’m skeptical of.
I absolutely agree with your point here. I think part of the problem is probably the system/law. When you go for literal years without any action from the local government, there need to be laws/channels that you can use to escalate the issue.
Basically, a clean and safe environment should be mandated by law. If the local government doesn’t uphold that law, the issue should be raised to higher levels (and the individuals responsible for the local government breaking the law should be punished accordingly). If higher levels don’t resolve it, your division of power is broken, since the government is blatantly violating rulings from the judiciary. If the division of power is broken… revolt?
Full disclaimer: While I think the above reasoning is sound, I think we should be very careful regarding how unauthorised cleaning operations are punished. For example, it seems absurd to me to give jail time for it. When the person in question is obviously acting with good intentions, it’s much more reasonable to sentence them to take some course where they can learn about why what they were doing was potentially harmful, and perhaps sentence them to community service working on some authorised project. That way, you help them learn, let them work on something they want to contribute to, and get more resources for the authorised projects.
I feel like the punishment should depend on whether they did it competently or not. You should definitely get punished for screwing up even with good intentions, but if you actually are good enough to know what you’re doing, you should get away with a relative slap on the wrist.
I a bit sceptical of basing punishments in situations like this on competence rather than intention, I say that as an engineer myself. If you give milder punishment to people that “know what they’re doing”, you’re essentially subverting the whole premise that there is a single entity responsible for evaluating what is safe and what isn’t.
Powlesland and his team pulled 200 bags of garbage and organic debris out of a creek
Emphasis mine. I feel like that’s at the crux of the whole issue and the article doesn’t attempt to dig in.
What did they remove? I find it hard to believe that even the pettiest of bureaucrats would take issue with someone picking up actual trash.
He rented a backhoe and was actually digging up the river bed.
Organic debris is kinda vague, that could be twigs or a bakery’s worth of white bread.
It makes sense when you think of it less as a beurocrat taking issue with cleaning trash, and more like the ruling class making sure the poors don’t get any ideas that the world can be better, since they might decide to hold them to doing something to help.
My God. How do we get off of this Merry-go-round?
Sir, this is a jet engine compressor blade… The way out is the combustion chamber.
Or we could fail and get hurled out through the nacelle?
Chip chip cheerio guvna, got a loicense for that?
