Bishop Hill A ghostly message
Feb 16, 2014 Climate: WG2 Environment Agency Commenter "Corporal Jones' Ghost' left this comment on one of the flooding threads. It looks to be quite important.
I want to tell you what really has happened on the Somerset Levels.
I am remaining anonymous for good reason, I think you'll understand why.
You have to go back to 1939, when the MOD decided that they needed a new Munitions factory for HDX explosives, HDX uses a lot of water, all munitions manufacture does, but HDX is greedy.
The levels had too much water and so we built one on the Levels, ROF37 or ROF Bridgewater or ROF Woolavington, it's all the same place.
To ensure that there was enough water even on the waterlogged Levels, we built the Huntspill River, we then connected it to the River Brue to the North and the Kings Sedgemoor Drain via a pipe to the South, we also widened the River Sowy to get water to our factory.
We would use >5 thousand million litres every year, rain or shine.
We then disposed of it into the sea, we had to do this regardless of the tidal conditions and we had steam pumps that did this remarkable task, they pumped out at the Huntspill sluice 3 thousand million ltrs a year, the rest was either evaporated, too contaminated and shipped off-site or left the factory in the product!
Part of the legacy f the fall of Communism was that we didn't need quite so much ordnance to practice killing the deadly foe.
In the mid 1990s the decision was made and we ran down the ROFs.
By 2000 ROF37 was given an execution date of 2008 and like all state executions, it was carried out on time.
We all knew that the 'run-on' from our departure would be that the EA/Levels Boards needed to take over pumping, they couldn't afford our old system as it was very old and on restricted land.
I should explain at this point that the ONLY pumping done was ours, we could and did pump no matter the tides, we'd taken over the responsibility/control in 1940 for all high volume pumping on the Levels.
We advised that the Huntspill be automated and the Kings Sedgemoor Drain be pumped and made strong representation to that effect.
But every meeting with the EA ended in frustration as they never sent a single seriously knowledgeable Drainage Engineer to any meeting. The Levels Boards understood the issues and tried to get the pumps installed.
It didn't happen.
One of the problems with draining the Levels is silting, we used to pump in such a way as to utilise 'scour' of all the rhynes and ditches and pipelines to keep them clear, when we shut down in the 50s due to a slight mishap and explosion on site in just 15 days of reduced use we found the lines lost about 1% of their 'flow sympathy' meaning we had to suck about 1% harder to get the same amount of water through the top metering point.
We all hoped that the 2007 flood would wake the EA up and get them to re-think their stance on the KSD pumps, they would not even agree to a meeting! We were pumping furiously on a limited facility in that year or that flood would have been horrific.
Today, looking at the flood charts and pictures it is obvious that the connection to the Huntspill is blocked, silted up.
So the water can't be 'smeared' over all the levels as in the past, that is why 'record' levels are being recorded in certain areas whilst others are barely affected.
The poor chap who has built an Island out of his home has my sympathies, he the KSD pumps been in place for the last 6 years he'd not be in the predicament he is in, nor for that matter would most of the others on the levels, the water won't be going anywhere soon.
This is the reality of the situation, if you wish to check for yourself, you can go to even the Wiki pages and read about it (until they get edited no doubt!) but all that I've written is a matter of public record and can be verified elsewhere.
I enclose a single link to the fact that we did our best to convince the EA that the matter was serious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Sedgemoor_Drain
Quote from above... Floodwater is removed from many of the moors of the Somerset Levels by pumping stations, which were originally steam-powered. These were superseded by diesel engines, and more recently by electric pumps. The King's Sedgemoor Drain is unusual in that it operates entirely by gravity. Consideration was given to replacing Dunball clyse with a pumping station in 2002, which would have allowed water to be discharged into the estuary at all states of the tide, but this course of action was not followed. Management of the Drain is the responsibility of the Environment Agency, whereas the numerous rhynes or drainage ditches which feed into the Drain are the responsibility of several Internal Drainage Boards, who work together as the Parrett Consortium of Drainage Boards.[19]
The reference point... ^ The Parrett Catchment Water Management Strategy Action Plan. Environment Agency. 2002. ISBN 1-85705-788-0. Retrieved 16 November 2010.
I thought someone ought to know the real truth behind this fiasco.
Bishop Hill
Reader Tomo sends this map of the Levels with the relevant locations marked.
As Tomo says, the EA seem to have some questions to answer.
Bishop Hill
Anthony Watts has been uncovering more pictures and videos which seem to back up Corporal Jones' story.
Bishop Hill
Anthony now reckons this story doesn't...hold water. See the update at his site.
Reader Comments (41)
A remarkable story - first picked up at Tallbloke's - and, one has to admit, a powerful use of pseudonymity. I'm sure the EA don't like it up 'em.
It is really time for a Commons debate on the EA. It could be instigated by the back bench committee, as I don't think government will push for such a debate. There are many back bench MPs who would relish examining the Agency's internal politics.
Well this may very well have some basis but whatever this persons expertise is, it isn't pumping and this single sentence explains why:-
<meaning we had to suck about 1% harder to get the same amount of water through the top metering point.>
Any engineer will tell you; and I am one, is that pumps DO NOT suck so the concept of sucking 1% harder is nonsense.
">5 thousand million litres every year" is about 3 million gallons a day in real money, a reasonable flow from a biggish factroy but I suspect a fairly small flow in the overall volumes of water flowing through the rivers and drains of the Somerset Levels. I am sure this made a contribution, but how significant is questionable
Mike: I think you are being a bit pedantic. After all, we use the term 'Net Positive Suction Head'. Unless you work directly with pumps or are a pump engineer, you are unlikely to know that a pump works by lowering the inlet pressure so that water is forced into the pump by upstream pressure, rather than being sucked.
Over at Tallbloke, Corporal Jones Ghost added the following:
Mike, it's job slang.From Tallbloke's:
"Corporal Jones Ghost says:
February 14, 2014 at 5:00 pm
Thanks to Joe Public… you are entirely right!
I’m afraid I’m guilty of slipping into ‘site slang’ we produced HMX and RDX… we shortened it to cover all process requirements… were drainage engineers, we talk in code!
Sorry.
NOTE TO SELF! Do not use job slang!
Mea culpa.
On another point about the meetings, the last one we attended we left thinking that the ‘plan’ was for the Levels to return to tidal wasteland, it was never articulated as such but we felt we were not privy to a greater plan for the area, if you can understand what I mean, a sort of “Yeah, don’t worry, it won’t matter” sort of attitude."
I think this refers to RDX and not HDX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX
I came across this comment by shirehorse on the Telegraph article.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10639773/Flooded-Britain-A-deluge-of-political-insensitivity.html
If it is correct (no reference given) on what grounds can this be environmental work? This is surely misappropriation of EA funds.
There's a good book/film in this. Anyone remember the wonderful Bob Peck's 'Edge of Darkness' on BBC in 1985. IIRC it hinged around nuclear waste being stored in old mine workings. So.....if you had tons of nuclear waste in an old ROF location and you desperately needed to keep it under water......
Edge of Darkness on Wiki here
Feb 16, 2014 at 10:48 AM | Derrick Byford
It could also refer to HMX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMX
Mike
Centrifugal force doesn't really exist either, but everyone knows what it means...
Hi.
The pumps, I could start talking about how we would allow for barometric pressure so as to not 'dry' the moors when the air pressure was high and vice versa (the Levels are huge and air pressure effects collection heads and pumping rates) I didn't bother with the Maths because that would just make the message barely comprehensible to the vast majority of people who are not Engineers.
Pumping itself, we used the borrow pits to ensure we had a few hours E/O supply and drew the water for them at night at huge rates, virtually maxing out our pumps every day, this provided the necessary scour to ensure the moors needed only the bare minimum of dredging and the Huntspill became the main repository of silt making dredging a very simple task. the difference is like having a tap running on a toilet cistern for 3 minutes to drain and flushing the cistern conventionally, scour was and is a Moors Drainage Engineers best friend at times.
Thank you for taking the time to read.
When their orders come from Brussels, the EA is irrelevant, and their (in)action quite sensible. A guffaw here, a snigger there, and their work is done. A wind report every morning can give them a feeling of accomplishment that lasts all day.
Mike (9:35 AM): it does depend upon what type of pump you use. A reciprocating pump will suck quite happily, and there are many times when that feature is very useful; an eductor can also suck effectively. Even centrifugal pumps, which, in theory, have no suction ability whatsoever, can display a certain amount of suction.
You are right, though, in the terminology, and I suspect that this just shows “Corporal Jones Ghost” might still be a butcher, not an engineer – I mean, how can one measure 1% more sucking? I suspect he is probably talking about flow rate, and its reduction due to increased solids in the water.
Electricity driven pumps are very useful to ensure you discover any block or restriction in the system, if for one mega-watt you pump 'x' amount of gallons and you've allowed for barometric pressure etc, any additional energy needed to maintain that flow over a 24hr period is an indication of restriction, the pumps are 'ganged' it would need all three to simultaneously go on the blink to create that addition demand from the generation plant.
So 1% is a huge amount of energy over 4 days, it is very simple to calculate to a high degree of accuracy, the Munros' later confirmed the problem after analysis.
Any engineer will tell you; and I am one, is that pumps DO NOT suck so the concept of sucking 1% harder is nonsense.
Feb 16, 2014 at 9:35 AM | Mike
Er - I'm an engineer. And I have a pump at ground level that sucks water from my well around 6m below ground level.
And I assure you that I can suck Diet Coke through a straw as well as any other McDonalds customer.
Much has been made of the EU's malign influence on the EA in the matter of Somerset and Richard North + Christopher Booker deserve considerable kudos for their research.
Where there are laws it's finally down to the enforcer who they "nick" for misdeeds - and as I think it's clear when you look at variations in the enforcement / implementation of EU-ness across the member states - which laws you actually enforce at all....
For all the EU regulation - I don't see 4mm intake screens on the present hire fleet of PANIC! pumps - they don't exactly look "eel friendly" (unless you like eel pâté) and I don't see hundreds of Hi-viz-ed hardhatted,newly ex-students wading around with hand nets rescuing minnows, given the power of the pumps and groundworks required - where's all the spoil going? are the emergency pumps compliant with abstraction regulations? Have all the requisite regulations had every T crossed an i dotted? - the regulations being flouted now - will they be prosecuting / fining themselves?
The ROF pumps would not stop every inundation and Paul Homewood has turned up much archival evidence for this - they would and did I suspect - reduce the frequency and severity of flood events and for that I believe it's reasonable to claim that the EA should have put somebody competent in charge and made provision to pump past the shut-down of ROF 37.
I mean... it's not like they can claim pumping isn't required now is it?
To give you an indication of how much water could be pumped if the EA wanted to/were able to, In December 2012 they pumped over 300 million gallons in 24 hours using Gold Corner pumping station.
The specs of the pumps are 4.39 cubic metres per second each and there are 4 of them.
I would be interested to know if they have been pumping again this winter, and if not, why not. At a guess the Huntspill sluice is not working properly so all they would be doing is adding water to an already full Huntspill river. This doesn't necessarily explain why water is not getting out of King's Sedgemoor Drain though. It should mostly be leaving by Dunball sluice - which is where the pumps from the Netherlands are/have been installed IIRC.
I've drawn a cartoon about this, inspired by this article -
http://www.itsnotclimatescience.com/0029.html
In the references/Links I've linked back to this page.
This is one reason why Wikipedia provides permanent links to each revision of every article. This is the link to the current revision of the King's Sedgemoor Drain article, with the last edit being on 8 February.
From the Somerset Drainage Board website:
King’s Sedgemoor and Aller Moor Water Level Management Plan (pdf)
Othery, Middlezoy, Westonzoyland and Chedzoy Water Level Management Plan (pdf)
Both provide lengthy details about the features of the waterways, what infrastructure is available and other things. Both state that in flood conditions Dunball sluice is to be open.(Page 40 for the first one, page 18 in the second one) With some of the Dutch pumps being at the site of Dunball sluice is this an indication that the sluice is inoperable?
Page 29 of the second pdf also says
This suggests that at the time the water level management plan was drawn up in June 2009 they weren't pre-empting flooding by lowering the water levels in King's Sedgemoor Drain. And if they still weren't by this winter then it's no wonder water has backed up significantly.
The trouble is the EA want natural England no weirs Somerset levels back to flooding and fuck up as as many businesses as possible skip company's scrappiest ect?
Any engineer will tell you; and I am one, is that pumps DO NOT suck so the concept of sucking 1% harder is nonsense.
Feb 16, 2014 at 9:35 AM | Unregistered Commenter Mike
You don't say what they do, mike. In french they aspire (suck) in english they suck, in american they suck what do they do in mike, I pray.
"Government is not the solution to our problem. It IS the problem."
R. Reagan (ca 1979)
Pumpe don't suck?
Then why these specifications for a common self priming water transfer pump in a catalogue at hand?
Litres per hour 36,000. Suction 8 metres.
And how did our drought stricken windmill manage to pump out to the bottom of a dam which is about 20 feet below the mill pump?
Anthony is certainly right to highlight the overall picture - and the ROF pumping is only a part of that overall picture and it wasn't my intention to mislead and make it seem otherwise. Given enough rain the area will flood and management is what it's about - if it didn't need pumping why are there dozens of Dutch pumps? .
I'm not sure that Anthony appreciates the AIUI connection across from KSD to Hunstspill via ROF 37 and the way that it was managed by keeping the flows up in Sowy and KSD to promote scour clearance via pumping from KSD into the Hunstpill where flows lowered and sediment settled out in one easily dredged area. The ROF drainage guys wanted to permanently pump KSD out the end into the Parrett after ROF 37 closure but were snubbed by EA.
But yes - it's about management and AFAICS - a struggle between the Drainage Boards and the EA which hasn't I suspect been helped by Chris Smith's assertions in the Gurdian today.
Hi.
I posted this on another site (WUWT) as questions were raised about the apparent 'separation' of the Moors North and South.
"The Moors are tidal, right under the green grass and soil, there are numerous underground streams and tidal soaks that connect the Moors as a whole and the surface terrain is nothing to do with the vast amount of water that is present., that is why ‘drying’ a moor that is 7 miles away from a potential tidal disaster will often lessen the matter (although not avoid it entirely).
By pumping furiously at the Huntspill (North Moor) for sometimes a whole day, the water level as far away as Langport (South Moor) was kept below critical.
Drainage is often as much as about what you can’t see as what you can.
Due to the unique nature of the Moors, the ‘Bath Road Ridge’ between the North Moor and South Moor is not some sort of impermeable barrier at all, it is just a surface feature as far as drainage is concerned."
I hope that helps some here see that the Somerset Depression is a single entity, not two!
Thank you again for reading my original and this letter.
"Anthony now reckons this story doesn't...hold water."
Richard North has done a researched update on his blog about this, and the bucket has no bottom...
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84714
Clever stuff is Google. You put keywords into it and it tells you facts. If you do it a few times, you then have many facts. Then when you have many facts, fiction becomes immediately obvious.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84714
Some seek to disagree with my comment that pumps don't suck and we have an engineer who sucks water up 6m and another commentator who can suck coke from a can. Well neither of them are doing that. What both are doing is creating low pressure in their pump/mouth and atmospheric pressure is forcing the fluid into the pump/mouth. While this may sound pedantic it isn't.
You can have as powerful pump as you want and it will not be able to pump out fluid from a sump more than 10m deep; or suck coke up a straw longer then 10m, because that's the amount by which a perfect vacuum will lift the fluid.
Nobody with any knowledge of pumping would make the statement that "Corporal Jones' Ghost' has made about pump efficiency in these terms and later events now seem to confirm my initial suspicion that this story is at least 1% down on efficiency.
The obvious error in this tale of why areas flood is that the levels were by no means the only area of the UK to end up underwater.
Clarification on my previous comment...
You can have as powerful pump as you want and it will not be able to pump out fluid from a sump more than 10m deep;
For clarification. The depth of the sump is irrelevant, you will not be able to pump out fluid from a sump where the surface of the fluid is >10m below the pump inlet.
I hold my hand up to in part perpetrating the promulgation of this. It was sloppy of me to not point out that any effect from ROF pumping would be only a part of the picture . fwiw I think it's clear that the siting of the present emergency pumps at Dunball and Beer Wall reflect the importance of the Sowy>KSD route for flood relief and tie with Cpl Jone's assertions about the way this has been handled - I hope he's more forthcoming about detailed evidence....
It seems clear that (EA topo map) the land north and northeast of Bridgewater presents a drainage choke point from the combined river catchments. Assuming you don't want to actually flood Bridgewater more often having significant pumping capacity there at the Dunball end of the KSD looks like a prudent move?
As Anthony said this is about management in the real sense - there seems to be considerable enmity and petty power plays between the public bodies tasked with dealing with the inevitable results of heavy rain onto the catchment of The Levels.
As to the volume pumped I'd add that the Dunball array of VanHecke pumps are rated at ~ 10 times (15.5m^3/sec) the "average" capacity that Cpl Jones Ghost quotes for ROF pumping at ~1.6m^3/sec. or a ton and a half or so of water a second.
The VanHecke pumps have quite a bit of "catch-up" to do.- one wonders what the EA would have done had there not been the public campaign about the flooding?
"The obvious error in this tale of why areas flood is that the levels were by no means the only area of the UK to end up underwater."
A valid point, if it were true.
We stopped drastically reduced pumping at ROF Burghfield in Reading a few years ago too as well as three other facilities along side the Thames in the last five years.
http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2014/02/09/97571-reading-firefighters-in-24-hour-battle-to-stop-flooding-at-burghfields-pingewood-electricity-sub-station/
I am not saying that the same situation as on the Moors exists there and the 3 other high water use sites, but all shut within a year of each other and all should feel the effect after 2/3 years.
But coincidences are always to be viewed with a jaundiced eye.
Some seek to disagree with my comment that pumps don't suck and we have an engineer who sucks water up 6m and another commentator who can suck coke from a can. Well neither of them are doing that. What both are doing is creating low pressure in their pump/mouth and atmospheric pressure is forcing the fluid into the pump/mouth. While this may sound pedantic it isn't.
Oh yes it is. In fact it's worse than pedantic. Being pedantic is fretting over a trivial error. This is not an error.
We all know the physics of what happens perfectly well. And that is what in normal language is called sucking.
because that's the amount by which a perfect vacuum will lift the fluid.
Ha ha - now you are doing it yourself! What's that if it's not sucking in different words?
Everyone’s an expert, Google and Wiki must be right, it’s all compiled by someone in an office somewhere.
I worked at ROF in the 1960s and 1970s, I was part of the department involved in supplying water to the factory. It was a complex and demanding task. The ROF had it's own waste water outlet to the sea wall via a private effluent ditch. The men who ran this operation were all time served engineers some coming from the Armed Forces post war and some, like me, home grown as I served my Apprenticeship in mechanical engineering at ROF.
The point is they were proper engineers who understood and knew how to run and maintain the operation, people qualified to do their job. How many of the managers and ministers who hold that responsibility today can say that. We have people in charge today who don’t know shit from pudding.
Let’s have fewer self serving paper pushers burying themselves in mountains of bullshit and more engineers like the Dutch guys who are helping us out now.
Years back I worked for a large electronics company. The chief of the mechanical engineering workshops was a promoted draghtsman (and very capable in general). The research lab ordered a steel vacuum reservoir to be constructed.
It was normal to test vacuum vessels in a pressure chamber at two atmospheres. But in this case, the workshop chief gave instructions for the testing to be done at four atmospheres. "Why four atmospheres instead of the usual two sir?"
"Because those scientists in the research lab are bound to produce a much higher vacuum than normal".
I have recently responded on the WUWT site in regard to the question that forms the first sentence below:-
“Is the assertion that failure to pump into the Huntspill as previously maintained by ROF Bidgewater caused this flooding still alive?”
It most certainly is!
Just dredging alone will cause greater problems in the long run and will be regrettable in the extreme.
Dredging should be minimal, it used to be when we were in charge of the pumps, the scour we produced was not the action of a blade and the amount of Dredging was minimal and therefore the damage minimised.
If the pumping doesn’t resume and dredging alone occurs to clear/clean the entire Moor then in 20 years we can kiss good bye to the natural look of the place,
The concrete topped line of sheet piles will creep further and further up the Parrett, the run-offs will be concrete channels, the ‘idiot advocates’ of Dredging alone will have that as a result of their pleading for a single answer, they are morons. There is no other term for it… morons.
Because the pumps were off and the Huntspill became a ‘Fishing Amenity’ rather than essential part of the draining of the Moors there is a pressing need for dredging and that cannot be avoided, but the if they remain off each dredge will be as aggressive as the last and damaging as a result.
Dredging has to be a ‘light touch’ operation in combination with controlled and planned pumping with its concomitant scour.
Even with all the ‘knowledge’ available at their finger-tips the internet is still infested with the vociferous moron who wouldn’t understand the term synergy if their life depended on it.
On it’s own Pumping is not the answer, on it’s own Dredging is not the answer, put them together with a sprinkling of intelligence and skill and they will do all the work required with no damage.
Shame on all those who can’t/won’t see this.
Thanks for your ongoing comments Corporal Jones
Do you have any comment on the recent plan put forward for the levels?
It seems to propose both pumping and dredging, but are they pumping and dredging in the right places?
Nice post. Thank you for posting something like this.
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