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River Itchen vandalised again.

Paul Collins

Paul Collins

Senior Member
https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/station/1056

Been keeping an eye on the Itchen levels prior to a trip down for Salmon soon. It would appear from the above that the Woodmill center have AGAIN literally opened the floodgates, completely draining down the river to zero level, TWICE yesterday. I strongly suspect that this was to enable a bit of 'white water' canoeing. They did the same thing a few years ago and killed off a whole years Roach spawn at the very least.
Have been in touch with the EA and not surprisingly no one is answering their phones, according to the switchboard.
The 'big girl' Barbel caught at 16lb 8 oz from Lower Itchen fishery earlier this season would have been affected by this and thousands of other fish, Coarse and game.
I'm incandescent with rage.
Just spoke to Woodmill and they deny any responsibility, the EA control the levels, then again they would say that wouldn't they.
There's going to be some ears ringing later.
 
Report it as an incident on 0800 807060 (number on the back of your licence). Get an incident number and ask for feedback. We get similar incidents in our area when boaters don't shut lock gates properly.
 
I really hope it is a glitch in the system but as explained above they have got form for this.
First thing I did was report it to the EA, got an incident number, still no phone call.
 
That's almost certainly a technical issue with the system, just look at Weds:

5.45pm - 1.79m
6.00pm - 0.00m
7pm - 1.81m
7.30pm - 0.00m

And then today:

9am - 1.78m
9.15am - 0.00
9.45am - 1.78
 
I love the word 'glitch' - like a wotsit or thingamajig. If/when they clean their probes they should put a message on the site to say so.
 
Have had an email from the EA to say that their 'telemetry ' was wrong and the river levels have not been affected.
The fault has been corrected.
No communication from Woodmill and no telephone communication from the EA.
I asked for someone to call me about another query, nothing yet.
The EA are not fit for purpose .
They didn't take my email address,
I can only assume they harvested it from my licence.
Why are they frightened to speak to people?
C***s
 
Would you expect anything else Paul ? I've given up reporting to the EA both pollution incidents, and out of season poachers, fortunately i was able to deal with the poachers myself, but obviously not nick them, fed up to the back teeth with the EA !
 
I'm fed up with waiting for a doctors appointments, having my hospital appointments cancelled, pot holes in the road, no pay rise each year, can't afford to buy a house in Oxford as they are as expensive as central London, pensions doing naff all and climate change to top it all.....so I would be amazed if the ea managed to function near anyway we would like it do...sign of the times.

You old codgers don't realise how good you had it!
 
Paul Collins said:
Have had an email from the EA to say that their 'telemetry ' was wrong and the river levels have not been affected.
The fault has been corrected.
No communication from Woodmill and no telephone communication from the EA.
I asked for someone to call me about another query, nothing yet.
The EA are not fit for purpose .
They didn't take my email address,
I can only assume they harvested it from my licence.
Why are they frightened to speak to people?
C***s
Click to expand...

Hardly surprising.

Since 2010 the EA has had its budget cut by around 50% in real terms. And how much of that slashed budget has been spent on mostly ineffective, environmentally damaging 'end of pipe' flood defence work such as dredging and tree removal against the advice of most hydrological experts? It's almost as though the Govt. wants the EA to fail..

And if you think its unfit for purpose now, just wait till they merge it with Natural England.
 
Paul has raised an important issue here and we should be working to find a solution. Getting fobbed off by the EA or any other body is usually because the person reporting it has little or no evidence to back up their concerns. I know this isn't relevant to all rivers, but for those that are (such as the Itchen), why don't BFW members get together to help police their stretches of local rivers. If there was a list of volunteers who could be contacted to check river levels local to them (when there appears to be an unnatural fluctuation such as the one reported above) they could quickly confirm that either it is a glitch or that the levels are indeed way up/down and can film/photograph the evidence (most of us have smartphones) with which to back up any correspondence with the relevant authorities. I am of course only talking of doing this in emergencies, not on a daily basis to feed back on the state of a river.
 
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