Dedicated team works around the clock to help

Nov 18 2008 by Francesca Craggs, The Journal

DAY or night, if an environmental incident occurs, the Environment Agency’s operations delivery team is on call to respond to it. From a major pollution incident such as oil and chemical spills, to flooding, the team is deployed to take action.

Thirty-four field officers are spread across the North East, working from depots in Wooler, Morpeth, Crook, Darlington and Newcastle to ensure that they arrive at an incident as quickly as possible.

Before and during the September floods that hit the North East, the team worked tirelessly to secure and strengthen flood defences and deploy pumps to those areas affected. Nine weeks on, the team are still hard at work. Having cleared the enormous amount of debris left in our rivers after the floods, and ensured that flood defences are structurally sound, they are now repairing those defences that were damaged.

Katja Leyendecker, operations delivery technical support team leader, said: “The impact of the flooding was widespread and devastating. We are focusing our efforts on the restoration of urban areas, where the flood risk to people and property is greatest. Despite working flat-out, we still have a lot to do.”

As well as the field-based staff, there are also a number of technical support officers in the team. They have a vital part to play as they plan the team’s work, both the day job and their emergency response.

When they are not responding to incidents, the operations delivery team can get on with the day job. This includes carrying out routine maintenance on rivers, such as grass cutting, watercourse clearance, pest and weed control.