The dog ate my erosion control plan...honest!

I've received a few polite responses to recent "busts" on Contractor Report.  I'm not going to reprint them because I don't want to embarrass people over their communications with me--and the excuses are embarrassing.  

(I do want to embarrass specific individuals for allowing mud to leave their sites.  So except for some general comments below on responses, I'll stay focused on the mud.)

Here are some of the sad things I see in response to a bad report:

• Excuses.  "The dog ate my EC plan...  but we were 'proactive' by placing it up on the table, so the dog had to stand up before he could eat it."  Isn't erosion control by nature supposed to be "proactive?"
• Denials of things you can clearly see in my photos.
• Semantic quibbles. For example, about whether or not something is a construction entrance.  If I see muddy tracks coming out, then it's an entrance.  If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....
• Blaming the weather for problems with erosion control.  That's like blaming gravity when you fall and break your arm.
• "We followed everything in the EC plan, and more."  Yes, but it clearly wasn't working.  Following a lame, incomplete ER plan isn't much of a defense, if the goal is to protect the lakes.
• The most important violation is not responded to, but is buried under highly detailed explanations of minor issues.
• The responsible higher-ups, to whom I send my reports, send me back the unedited excuses of their subordinates.  This means the bosses are refusing to take leadership or responsibility.  Either they believe those excuses themselves, or they hope I will.  Either way, they don't bother to look into the problem.

This response will make you laugh (until you cry)

Before I start this story, I need to explain that I track statistics about visitors to my blogs.  It's possible to deduce a lot about your readers, though not the identity of individuals.

I published a bad report about a firm that likes to advertise it's environmental awareness.  A day or so later, I noticed that the public relations firm for the contractor had spent over three hours on Contractor Report.  They looked at every page.  That's probably more attention than I've ever had before.

But before I could congratulate myself too much, I had to admit that the PR people probably left their computer connected to my blog, while they went out for lunch. 

Then a few days later I got a call from the supervisor of the project, saying he would clean up his act if I'd delete the bad report.  Things did improve, so I deleted it.  But now there's mud leaving the site again.

The solution for this site was simple.  It wouldn't have taken much work.  Instead of complete cleanup, the company probably spent more for their PR firm to read my blog, than the contractor spent on erosion control.