Campaigner threatened with prosecution by Environment Agency after waterway cleanup

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/17/campaigner-threatened-prosecution-environment-agency-river-roding-cleanup

A river campaigner who organised a cleanup of his local waterway is being threatened with prosecution by the Environment Agency for acting illegally.

Paul Powlesland, a lawyer and environmental campaigner, organised a team of volunteers to tackle the removal of litter, weed and silt from a section of the River Roding, after repeatedly asking the agency to act.

The team of volunteers from the River Roding Trust removed 200 bags of rubbish, branches and silt over 10 days from Alders Brook, a tributary of the river that runs through rural Essex and Barking, earlier this year. But the EA has sent Powlesland a letter saying he is being investigated for illegally intervening without a permit.

16 points · 4 comments · view on lemmy.world

4 Comments

Aliktren@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 78d

They should countersue

PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 78d

The EA are nothing but a money collecting scheme at this point, they’re toothless to deal with actual polluters, but demand huge fees for granting any small abstraction license, and massive fines for this kind of bullshit. The whole agency is a farce

FarceOfWill@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 78d

Removing silt sounds sus. Weed too to a point.

Treczoks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 78d

What a bunch of assholes.