The Environment Agency's Hubris Knows NO Limit

We could have predicted this...  :-p  we're a bit late to the party but still - there's much to enjoy.

Instead of admitting to an honest mistake born out of pure ignorance - The Environment Agency have decided to defend poetry scholar and EA Chairman Chris Smith (Salary £110,000 year - part time) over his ill advised sock puppeting of the new weirdy weather "wrong type of rain" house mantra some deluded PR policy idiot has dreamt up in a likely attempt to deflect criticism of the Environment Agency's performance during the recent weather. That weather, amazingly - hasn't actually obeyed Environment Agency policy - and something obviously must be done.

 

It would be too easy to simply portray the utterances of  Lord Smith, Chairman of The Environment Agency as the witterings of a single (overpaid) ignorant fool seeing out the twilight years of his career in an undemanding and handsomely rewarded sinecure - and some people believe that - we see it as part of a pattern of toxic behaviour emanating from a delinquent public institution.

Well known and long time weather forecaster Bill Giles said a few days ago:“How on earth could we have appointed as chairman of the Environment Agency someone who so obviously doesn’t understand basic meteorology [like] Lord Smith?”  - if it's any consolation Bill, if you ask nicely - maybe Chris can do you a short poem? a Japanese haiku ?  A whole load of other people have taken umbrage at the EA's hubris in this matter (Here, Here and a bunch of other places GIYF)

Smith's rain assertions - as with so many things emanating from the Environment Agency do not survive close scrutiny and his claims are pretty well debunked (Using Met Office data) over at notalotofpeopleknowthat - we'd say that the EA's "wrong type of rain" claims are self serving lies and a contrivance - harrumph... we're now on familiar ground.

The Environment Agency is supposed (legally obliged) to deliver water licence determinations within 13 weeks (91 days - Penfold Rules - details of which the EA have deleted from their web site) - it is now 338 days since they were instructed by The High Court to determine the water licences at Avoncliff "without delay". The EA will not advise us of any progress on the licence  (Note1)

Senior managers and executives  have also begun a determined campaign of  disinformation littered with material inaccuracies that they must be aware aren't supportable and which are entirely self serving in their attempts to pervert proper process at Avoncliff. EA communications seeking to misrepresent a revised and skewed history of Avoncliff water licencing  have turned up at our MP's office and other places where they have been treated with sceptical curiosity since many claims conflict with the recipients existing knowledge of what's been going on.


(Note1)
The Environment Agency will not talk to us at all! As in nothing - when we telephone they get all flustered and say "we've been instructed not to talk to you" - it would be comical if we didn't have a whole load of stuff entirely dependent on the outcome of the determination process. As we keep saying - they've demanded £37,000 to tell us what's going on.

11,500 staff  and a £1bn budget

It's a bit late to issue a PR release saying it was all a joke 

If you want some entertainment we suggest you ignore Baron Smith of Finchley and book Bill Giles Weather Show 

Ah Yes... The Wrong Type of Rain

Now that the snow has gone....

EA Flood Prevention Operative

We are authoritively informed, by a career politician whose education is in English with expertise in 18th and 19th Century Romantic poets with life experience in the bureaucracy of council housing, as an MP,  and as a Labour government minister responsible for Culture, Media and Sport that we are experiencing "the wrong type of rain". 

(DailyMail  - but original article in the print version of The Sunday Telegraph)  Rainfall infographic

Goodness!  I don't suppose that is anything to do with The Environment Agency's Roy Stokes telling us to build snowmen to stop flooding?   - they had to tell everybody later that it was intended as a joke.  Tut... at the least they could have elaborated all the 'elf 'n safertree implications and included a tick box risk assessment form - falling down on the job as usual.

A commenter in the Telegraph riffs :
Build snowmen on a mass scale? Has there been no consideration of the health and safety aspects? What if the wrong type of snow is used? Will the mass construction of these snow people - surely in the 21st century they should be gender neutral - create nationwide shortages of carrots, coal, hats and gloves as they are used as accessories?What if even only a small percentage take to the skies? Has Aled Jones been consulted? We've seen the video evidence. We know it can happen. This is a potentially dangerous plan, so take care out there!

Even the BBC got in on it - but the "joke" had to be spelt out for them 


Yep - these are the people we have been dealing with for over three years at Avoncliff - ahhh... now we get it - it's all been a joke - oh, yes ... very good ha-ha

We'd suggest that Chris Smith is put out to grass ASAP to concentrate on his poetry...  where he just might have some detectable talent. That he is being paid £110,000 a year for less than one day a week to trumpet this kind of bilge and also not even bothering to properly answer letters complaining about the actions of his civil servants .... priceless.

And remember - there'll be a drought unless it rains

Idiotic, Artless or Stupid?

Well, via the comments here - we've found out that some rather toxic anonymous leaflets have started dropping in Bradford on Avon letterboxes.

It would appear that somebody is trying to "stir it up". So without further ado, a quick drum roll and a cymbal "tish" - heeer...id-izz!  (click on it to embiggen)

Well, start at the top I suppose: 

• Paragraph 1: The North Mill scheme"poses a serious threat to Bradford on Avon residents and businesses"

Erm, no - not according to The Environment Agency's own flood defence engineers who have approved the project and done all the requisite risk analysis and modelling.

•  Paragraph 2: The river will be constricted by 30% by North Mill's turbines causing a "back up" which will "flood Bradford" 

Erm, no  - this displays  profound ignorance of the situation and actually takes a screaming liberty with the actual dimensions of the Archimedes screws proposed for North Mill. In terms of flood risk... since we're talking risks here - the existing proposal from Weaver's Mill to raise the weir by 300mm (*Note1)would have more impact and might well  "soften up" the railway track with some pretty serious (muddy!) engineering consequences... (if it were allowed to happen) 

• Paragraph 3: Inexcusable attempt at scaremongering.
• Paragraph 4: This is a straightforward LIE (we've seen a few during this scheme)

The rest of it ... Duncan Hames MP, Rosemary Brown and Malcolm Hewson of Wiltshire Council have no formal influence on the determination of water licences and I understand the last two aren't comfortable with being named on this flyer...

As to the drawing in the flyer, well some considerable liberty taken with a tape measure there... (understatement)

Scaled engineering drawing of proposed North Mill turbines (click on picture)

We stand by what we say both here and on the web site and we are not anonymous. We'd also like to  (a bit archly) remind you that public submissions of concern / criticism etcetera on the Weaver's Mill scheme can quote : TARRANT NPS/WR/001709 (link to EA web site) and that our list of the compared features of the two schemes is over on the web site 

Note 1) The proposal from Weaver's Mill to raise the Avoncliff weir by 300mm is still "on the books" as a proposal at Environment Agency -  Bridgewater as of our visit to view the physical applications on 14th January 2013 (not that we don't trust the Environment Agency or... something like that) We actually can't imagine how this might be done without our (very unlikely) collaboration or an amazing re-write of the laws of physics. It should also be noted that this is an attempt to make a "home brew" Kaplan turbine actually work near it's supposed efficiency.... 

And a topical fun photo of the day....

What Transparency?
Oh dear, it seems like The Environment Agency aren't happy with us. It would seem they're in a bit of a funk.

Not content with asking for £37,000 for a Freedom of Information request, the EA now refuse to talk to us about anything they deem to be "not directly to do with the determination" and have now wheeled out "discretionary powers" without explanation - ladling on the irony by simultaneously citing "improving transparency".

From our perspective it is foolish and prejudicial to ask idle, time wasting and vexatious questions for what should be entirely obvious reasons. Amazingly, really... we would actually rather be doing something else than communicating with the EA (or worse,  moaning about them) - but we are stuck with it.  The EA are now over three times the supposed legal time limit for deciding on the water licences at Avoncliff and behaving like a stroppy 18 year old .... oh, wait....

Deja Vu

Well, here we are again (biiig sigh....) . It's only three years - and then some - since we originally applied for water licences and only eight months since the Environment Agency signed the court order instructing them to re-determine the water licence at Avoncliff without further delay. that's a whole 8 months to place public notices in two local newspapers.

The slowness with which The Environment Agency has addressed the matter has made glaciers look like rushing mountain streams.

For a while there (April - October 2012), the EA were actually "processing" the wrong applications - yes, you read that right - the wrong applications. We looked at the communications they sent us and had to struggle with them to get it through to them that  "no.... that isn't what we applied for". The EA were also actually asserting that they weren't constrained by the High Court Order!

We would ask you to get your views in to The Environment Agency ASAP on the two schemes under consideration (only one scheme will go ahead). Our table of comparative merits of the two schemes is over on the web site.

If you are minded to get your ha'porth in:
Application Reference Numbers:
North Mill: EARL NPS/WR/002511 (link to EA web site)
Weavers's Mill: TARRANT NPS/WR/001709 (link to EA web site)

email:
PSC-WaterResources@environment-agency.gov.uk
application general enquiries telephone:
Ben Johnstone 01392-352337
ben.johnstone@environment-agency.gov.uk

If you do snail-mail:
The Environment Agency
Water Resources Permitting & Resource Centre,
Water Resources Team,
Quadrant 2,
99 Parkway Avenue,
Parkway Business Park,
Sheffield
S9 4WF



The delays and mistakes (and worse) emanating from the EA have been piling up for three years - is this a leopard that can change it's spots? Yep - we're biased :-)

Since the Environment Agency has had the applications in hand for three years+ essentially unchanged we believe it should take considerably less than the statutory 120 days (which has been flagrantly ignored by EA officials in the past anyway) or even the new  Penfold Review rules at 91 days to arrive at a determination in this matter. To wilfully extend determination out to the legal limit poses the risk that any scheme at Avoncliff will be delayed potentially until 2014 - we leave the reader to do the arithmetic.

The Environment Agency will not even formally commit to a time frame for this licence determination.