Credulous Fools or Willful Delusion?

I thought to attempt a bit of humor and irony here - but on reflection this actually is beyond parody - and goes to the core of why we have lost any trust in the Environment Agency. 
  
Some EA officials, as you will know if you've been here before - have a history of  being a tad inventive and economical with the facts. We're now into fantasy and shameless concoction territory.

There are purportedly two hydro schemes competing for the water at Avoncliff - each is obliged to provide considerable evidence in support of their application. Indeed, the EA have gone much further than their statutory remit in soliciting information from North Mill - some of this information being commercially sensitive -  EA officials have shared some of that to third parties without authorisation.

That said - there is an overarching issue that simply remains unresolved. North Mill have provided engineering details of their proposed turbine and can point to an installed base of operating units available for inspection and evaluation.   

The latest proposal for a "home made" Kaplan turbine at Weavers Mill(1) however is not supported by any of this and the EA have accepted the proposal  without receipt of independently verified test data or quite unbelievably without having even seen an operating unit - of which there are 3 supposedly "in operation" - since the constructor of said turbines apparently refused to tell them where these units are! (Great marketing strategy!)

This stretches the bounds of credulity to snapping point. A turbine of the size claimed must be subjected to the EA's own licence process QED

So,  Environment Agency officials have accepted assertions about a significant and critical piece of heavy engineering to be installed in a public space - utterly unsupported by any verifiable evidence about its safety, efficiency or reliability  - and the question just sits there....

Credulous Fools or Willfully Deluded?

 There is of course another explanation - but I'll leave you to think about that...

FYI - the turbines we're talking about have to handle up to 6 tons of water every second  24 hours a day for years....

(1) We're not sure if it's sunk in with people familiar with Avoncliff so I'll repeat... The Weaver's Mill turbine proposal has also actually been moved from near the bank to a large concrete structure almost at the middle of the river... - "not a significant change to the scheme" which  requires any public consultation  according to EA officials.... so they do irony too - who knew?