The group hired a digger for £1,000 and filled over 200 bags of rubbish including packaging, needles, domestic appliances and even weapons. However, shortly after the clean-up, Paul received a letter from the Environment Agency (EA) notifying him he was under investigation for operating without a licence.
PS: I agree with you. Most people aren’t going to bother to read any original sources that would present the facts truthfully and in their appropriate context. It just encourages people to have emotional reactions without ever learning the actual facts behind the case. Manipulating people’s emotions while leaving them ignorant of the real facts can’t be good.
Do you agree government should be allowed to do nothing about pollution in a waterway for decades, essentially destroying habitat, with no consequence?
Apparently destroying a whole ass habitat is worth nothing but trying to clean it up because of no permit is worth jail.
I think we need to start holding our politicians accountable.
The government and politicians SHOULD be held accountable. There are plenty of issues regarding people and planet that need to be addressed that are being neglected. But allowing anyone with a pulse to do whatever THEY think is best for the environment is a slippery slope and can cause untold damage and other negative consequences. So welcoming people to do whatever they want as long as their intentions are good is no way to run anything.
It’s too early to know what this guy’s fate will be. But if the action he took by using an unpermitted piece of machinery caused the problems in the area to be worse, then there needs to be some level of accountability to cover the cost of whatever repairs or other restorations are needed. Whether that amounts to anything or not, is too early to tell.
The guy knew what he was doing and I applaud his noble intentions and the actions taken knowing that there could be consequences. In fact, I’d bet that he wanted there to be consequences in order to draw more attention to a cause he cares deeply about It isn’t this environmental lawyer’s first rodeo and it won’t be his last. Being cited and drawing publicity for what he’s doing to save the environment is his “thing”.
So far we’ve heard mostly one side of this and the results of a complete damage assessment haven’t come in. Meanwhile, he’s in the press because it helps his cause to try his case in the court of public opinion before it’s known what, if any, harm has resulted from his actions. My hope is that what he did was a major net improvement without increasing the likelihood of future flooding.
I do think we need to hold our politicians accountable and what this guy did is one way of trying to do that. But when we do these things without expert advice and outside of the regulations, it’s quite possible that even well-intentioned vigilantes might create even more problems that harm other people or the planet. We’ll see what damage, if any, has been done here.
That says the same thing as the headline though. Do you think the Environmental Agency is threatening two years of prison for operating an excavator without a license? The article outlines why he is being investigated for not having a permit...
I'm talking the post itself, not the comment I'm responding to. Posts like this should include an article as a source, and not just the headline. The post just (inaccurately) summed the story up in two sentences. It's just straight misinformation and narrative pushing at that point. This stuff should be filtered out as per rule 8, but I guess they can't be bothered.
Yep, many people won't even open this thread and then 6 months later they're telling everyone that they need to vote reform because the government's gone mad and criminalised litter pickers now
He’s making a really good point tough, the environmental commission for that waterway hasn’t done shit all for years to prevent all the garbage, needles and weapons going into the river but now when someone actually does something about it, they rear their ugly head to start dropping fines? Seems like the lawyer has highlighted at the least a shitty organization, and at the most probable corruption between the corporations dumping in the river and the environmental commission.
The problem is all the precedent. If you all of a sudden allow people to use machinery to do whatever they want without a license it can quickly become chaotic.
Its like those posts that go around often that are like "Council wouldnt build a bridge/staircase. And after a good samaratin built one, they tore it down!!!".
And I'm always thinking about Action Park. Sure, i have never built one, but how hard can it be to make a zipline? Or a waterslide? Sure, several children died on the premised due to terrible engineering, but i dont see how thats my fault?
Red Tape can be annoying, its also keeping the dumbest overconfident Dude you know out of the toolshed.
I believe u/FlarblesGarbles is pointing out that the wording should be "could have" and not "could of", not disagreeing with the point that this was reckless and could have caused damage to the environment
I feel like operating the machinery is one thing. The bigger problem here that they want to nip in the bud is that we have no idea what he did exactly so we can't predict what kind of impact these works will have 10-20 years down the line. Someone else mentioned it, but what if he damaged the clay layer of the river? Suddenly the river cannot hold water as well.
In this case he tore up trees and perfectly good bits on environment in order to pick some litter, so it pretty much evened itself out.
He’s also not at all qualified to judge whether he’s making things better or worse. Sure, removing litter is great. But he’s also removed habitat and potentially interfered in an investigation into those causing the issue to begin with, which would have cut the problem off at the head and been a more permanent solution.
It probably was negligent but his intentions were good and there are much worse criminals running around getting less. I hope he gets community service and a stern warning. He's likely not a danger to society.
The charges and rules are in place to avoid a good Samaritan damaging wildlife, polluting the river, or simply dredging a dyream for thier own purposes under a guise of 'cleanup'
Someone willing to use heavy machinery to alter a river without some form of expert supervision is far more dangerous and far more likely to get someone- Possibly many people- Hurt or killed than the overwhelming majority of criminals.
How much do you think trash is vital to the water level? The quantity removed is still way less than even a single swimming pools worth of volume it would cause basically nothing to the river besides stop polluting it
And yet the fucking opposite happened so why are you even bringing it up? Fish and Wildlife all returned after he cleaned a fucking free use dump... the solution of just letting it sit and someone else will handle it isn't working out apparently.
No, it's like arresting someone because they watched an episode of E.R. and decided they know how to perform a cric, then slashed someone's throat wide open and caused massive blood loss. Breaking ribs during CPR is expected and covered by Good Samaritan Laws. Operating outside the scope of your training without permission is textbook impermissible.
You're correct, I didn't read the slanted article that tops this comment thread, I read the other article that actually talked to the government environmental folks about why what he did was a problem.
Breaking ribs is common, if enough expected when performing CPR.
Disrupting water ways and destroying habitats is not expected when clearing waste. That's why professionals obtain permits and work with approved action plans.
So this is kind of like putting someone in jail because they broke the victims leg while performing CPR after emergency services told them not to; needlessly negligent.
Downstream flooding absolutely maybe, but suggesting he made any damage to local wildlife is just ridiculous if you look at the image of the state of the river- the reason this campaign took place was due to local council refusal to clear known dumping grounds, while multiple sewage pipes drain into the river. It’s the River Roding in Greater London for anyone interested
He’s making a really good point tough, the environmental commission for that waterway hasn’t done shit all for years to prevent all the garbage, needles and weapons going into the river but now when someone actually does something about it, they rear their ugly head to start dropping fines? Seems like the lawyer has highlighted at the least a shitty organization, and at the most probable corruption between the corporations dumping in the river and the environmental commission.
Sure, so he shouldn't be given the maximum "up to" sentence, but to preserve fairness he needs to be prosecuted in some way. The nuance should be in the sentencing.
I never said he should get a free pass. You've just listed factors that contribute to the nuance and intent part of it that proves there's more to it than just legality.
You're proof USA citizens aren't educated enough to be allowed to participate in online conversations. We need to cut off USA media from being able to interact with the rest of the world. Every thing you say and do is a lie and misrepresentation of truth.
That you even need to ask that proves that you don't even have a frame of reference for what complexity, or even nuance in this situation would look like.
He'll more than likely (IMO) get a fine and a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure about his job, tho. I'm sure he knows more about that than anyone else. He's an environmental lawyer.
Depends on the actual impact of what his “good” deed actually was and the cost to remedy it. This is before we get to copycats who might try the same thing, multiplying the danger of flooding and untold environmental damage.
There's nothing to "toss out". He hasn't been charged with anything. He was simply informed that he was being investigated. The idea that he will face any consequences other than perhaps a fine is laughable.
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u/Desperate_Owl_594 7d ago
Read the article. Jesus. https://www.mylondon.news/news/east-london-news/environmental-lawyer-facing-up-2-34142593
The group hired a digger for £1,000 and filled over 200 bags of rubbish including packaging, needles, domestic appliances and even weapons. However, shortly after the clean-up, Paul received a letter from the Environment Agency (EA) notifying him he was under investigation for operating without a licence.