>>1458033

Billy Burnell, a local angler who regularly fishes in the area, told the BBC he noticed the pile in September. He said it was “horrific” and called the potential runoff into the river an “environmental disaster waiting to happen”.

Anya Gleizer, a geography researcher at the University of Oxford, said: “What we have on our hands, right now, is an environmental and health emergency that threatens not only the Cherwell River and its ecosystem, but also poses a direct risk to us: the communities living downstream from the dump-site,” she said.

“As an ecologist, river guardian, rower but also, more simply, as a mother of a child that enjoys splashing about and fishing for aquatic invertebrates, I have to emphasise that this crime has more far-reaching consequences.”

The Environment Agency has obtained a court order to close the site to all public access for at least six months.

A spokesperson said: “Specialist officers are investigating waste dumped near the A34 at Kidlington. Their role will be to find who left the waste there and take appropriate action.

In a report released last month, the Lords environment and climate change committee said organised crime gangs were illegally dumping millions of tonnes of waste across the countryside every year.

The committee identified incompetence at the Environment Agency as a factor in the growing crisis.

But Philip Duffy, the agency’s chief executive, hit back, and said: “I think it’s very unfair on my hard-working staff to be accused of incompetence.”

>>1458033
Oh no! a ten ton pile of rubbish near a river! This is nothing compared to the environmental damage caused by construction of the HS2 rail link. Over the past six years this fucker has a cut a swathe of destruction across the middle of the british countryside, uprooted entire communities, destroyed forests, park and farmland, all because that twat Boris wanted a legacy project as a way of hosing money at his chums in the building industry. Now the thing won't even be completed, cut short at both ends due to cost over runs and mismanagement.

We also have a water industry that since being privatised has directed all it's profits to shareholders instead of growing or even maintaining the system they adopted, meaning now that most of them (unable to manage the sewage levels of today) regularly flush untreated shit into our rivers and coastal waters. Good job we left the EU though, eh? As they brought in laws restricting these practices and would have forced our government to sort this shit dumping out. A ten ton pile of fly tipped garbage is nothing compared to what is happening everywhere else on this island.

>>1458033
It's a pattern for conservatives to defund a government agency, then blame them for poor performance so you can defund them even more.