The Environment Agency (EA) has claimed it is "almost a victim of its own success" when it comes to pumping water off the Somerset Levels.
When a major flooding event occurs - such as that which Somerset endured in January and February - the EA responds on the basis of 'trigger points', which determine where and when additional temporary pumps can be deployed on top of the county's numerous permanent pumping stations.
The EA committed in mid-February to reviewing these trigger points following a meeting with flooding minister Emma Hardy MP and Sarah Dyke MP, whose Glastonbury and Somerton constituency was badly hit by Storm Chandra.
The agency has confirmed that this review will be completed by the end of September - but said it was not as simple as installing more pumps or having them operating much sooner.
Bryony Sadler from the Flooding on the Levels Action Group (FLAG) addressed the matter when the Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) board met in Taunton on Friday morning (September 11).
She said: "Has the trigger point plan be redone since the events of earlier this year? If not, why the hell not?
"We are so close to this winter, and everyone is now panicking with this El Niño effect. Why has somebody not already done this?
"I think the triggers at they stand at the moment are pretty static, and we've learned in the last winter that they need to be much more fluid and be able to react to wherever rainfall has happened.
"Northmoor and Saltmoor pumping stations were suffering because the site where the pumps need to go in isn't low enough.
"Is there any action being taken ahead of this winter to look at digging those out or re-siting the pumps somewhere different?"
EA representative Ross Edwards responded that the work on reviewing trigger points (e.g. when pumps can be deployed across the Levels) would be completed by the end of September and would be made publicly available.
He added: "We appreciate that is definitely needs to be done by the winter.
"We are reviewing the trigger points to ensure that we have the right balance. The triggers ultimately unleash probably north of £5m of taxpayers' funding, and we have to make decisions about when is the right time to do that.
"We appreciate that if someone has been flooded in the past, whenever it starts raining they think: roll things out now. But in reality we've got to make informed decisions - and we've got good insight.
"We can see water coming from quite a long way away, and we know that getting the temporary pumps in quicker is important for the community and our staff.
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"The temporary pumps are the enhanced addition to the permanent pumps on which this landscape depends."
Responding to Ms Sadler's comments about the two pumping stations (both of which are downstream of Burrowbridge on the River Parrett), Mr Edwards said it was not as simple as finding new locations where this infrastructure could be deployed.
He said: "It's more complex than just where the pumps are. The challenge is getting the water to those pumping stations so they can operate more of the time.
"If we put so many pumps in, we evacuate it all and then we're waiting for water to arrive again - so we're almost a victim of our own success when we put in so much pumping capability."
Mr Edwards added there was "a good chance" that some of the £50m recently provided by Defra to combat Somerset flooding could be used to improve the existing pumping stations.
SRA vice-chairman Tony Bradford (who also sits on the Parrett Internal Drainage Board) said that the EA needed to respond quicker to future wet weather and take local knowledge more strongly into account.
He said: "These trigger points are important, but basically all they do is stop a person from making a decision - they are afraid to make a decision until that point is met.
"This year, we were 200 per cent sure that we would meet the trigger points a week before the EA acted, but we had to wait.
"We are now halfway through September and we've still got no clarity on what changes are going to be made to these trigger points. We've got to have clarity, and we've got to have it soon.
"We've got to be smarter and get ahead of the game."
Mr Edwards replied: "The trigger points do not delay decisions; they are there to make sure that we make decisions in the public interest.
"Last year we deployed, on the advice of the internal drainage boards, earlier than the trigger points might have directed us to do so. Hence a review is absolutely the right thing to do this year."
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