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I got an email that said:
"do you want to come and see

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an amphibious weed-cutting boat?"

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Yes!

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DEBBIE McNAMARA: It's an amphibian boat,

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so it can work in shallow waters,
because it's tracked.

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JAMES DILNOT: On the front
it has scissor cutters,

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and as it goes along,
the T-cutter on the front

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cuts the bottom of the river
and the weed lifts up

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and flows down stream.

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JD: We've got a tree in the river,
we're just going to

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pull it up onto the bank with the tractor
winch in a minute.

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There's probably in excess
of 15 tonne of weed

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actually matted up and behind it.

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When that tree gets released,

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and the weed starts to flow down,

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he can break the weed up, and then

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take it out at the weed tie
further downstream.

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DM: The weed will then carry on
down the watercourse,

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and it'll get caught at
what we call a weed tie.

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So we put in two deflectors in the water,

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they're like two barriers, and then we've
got an excavator

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that will lift the weed
out of the watercourse

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and put it on the bank.

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(LAUGHS)
Eels are a protected species,

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and we do our best
to not harm them.

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And we have to make sure that
when we remove the weed,

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we do it very carefully.

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And we have a set method
of removing the weed

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so as to allow the eels
to carry on going down the watercourse.

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JD: Along here it's what we call a W2A cut,

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it's an 80-20.
80% comes out, 20% gets left in.

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Where the water flow goes through,
it rips the weed

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out the bottom of the river,
and that'll take it down

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through the centre of Canterbury,
into the sluice gates there.

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And it could potentially
cause an obstruction there

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and take out quite a few houses.

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DM: Because if tunnels and culverts
block completely,

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then the water will back up,
flood properties,

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flood businesses,
and we'll have huge problems.

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TOM SCOTT: Thank you very much to the
Environment Agency for showing me around.

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If you've got something
similarly odd in your company

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or your organisation, let me know!

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I want to film it and I'm fairly sure
my audience want to see it.

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And now, GoPro footage of
chainsawing a log,

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and raking some weed
to make sure it's free of eels.

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That is a really weird sentence.

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