๐คฆโโ๏ธ
(Sorryโฆ have no other reaction to thisโฆ)
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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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 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?
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.
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?
hey UK, statesian here. We're supposed to learn our bullshit from you, not you from us. Please keep it that way.
I think the some countries may be under the control of the Smoggies.
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.
You canโt 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?"
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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 heโs been placed under investigation for โpermitting and waste offences.โ
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
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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.
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Working over ten days, they hired an excavator costing roughly ยฃ1,000 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
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.
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 isnโt something people should just be doing ad-hoc.
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Make it make sense ๐ข๐คฎ
He wasn't just picking up litter. He rented a backhoe and actually started digging in the river bed.
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It's Britian. He didn't have a permit and organized a group.
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