Posted By Homer As per norm I have everything dumped on me for a job that is to start Monday, the site based team are "not paperwork people" and I am allegedly an expert on everything.....NOT!! I am looking for some help on two points and I need this urgently. A nice short sharp staement on silting mitigation procedures for protection of watercourses on new road development and we have also been asked for a procedure on causing silting of watercourse...waht the H is that? Please help I've managed to pul everything else together but running out of time.

Posted By MP Grayson Not too sure if this is what you are after or not, but here goes. This is in layman’s terms and some are worst case scenarios. The problem with silting is that it does several things. 1. Covers plants or colours the water and reduces the sunlight reaching the plants and micro-organisms. So you switch off the food chain from the bottom up. 2. Damages the gills of fish and other thingies living in the water. Nymphs etc. So again you upset the delicate food chain balance. 3. Damages water treatment plant equipment. (A bit extreme, but it can). 4. Reduces the depth of rivers. As boats pass over it, it all gets stirred up and the process starts again. Or by displacement it increases the risk of flooding. 5. If it contains nutrients it can cause Eutrophication. That is basically a flush of nutrients, causing a massive increase in goodies at the bottom of the food chain. Once the nutrients have gone the whole food chain, which has expanded proportionately all the way up, collapses from the bottom upwards. What you need is an accumulator or holding tank of sorts where the silt and water run off can be allowed to settle prior to re-entering a river etc. But be careful you have just opened a can of worms. You need to look on the Environment Agency website at “consent to discharge” regulations etc. This is a big problem with sugar beet factories for example. They have to have large settling ponds for the soil which is washed off the beets as they are processed. EA law is a real minefield and very messed up. H/S law is a breeze in comparison. Crack on and have fun.