A Scots farm worker who 'saved his house from flooding' by building a wall of animal dung across his driveway has been blasted for potentially contaminating local water.
Tommy Cannon decided to improvise when heavy rain caused a stream to burst its banks and send water gushing down his street near Dumfries last week.
The 38-year-old claims he couldn't drive to town for sandbags so at around midday he used manure from work to 'save his home from being flooded'.
A viral video shows a digger dropping piles of brown fertiliser across his driveway as he laughs and says 'you know you're a farmer when you're using dung as a flood defence'.
Many Facebook users praised his 'quick thinking' and said the act was a 'no-brainer' given that 'sometimes emergencies call for desperate measures'.
However other users said they were surprised environment chiefs haven't paid him a visit as they feared his ponging barricade could have contaminated local water.
One enraged farmer, known as Dan, branded him 'thick' and blamed actions like Tommy's for the 'red tape' around spreading manure on fields.
Tommy hit back joking 'if you had brains you'd be dangerous' before sharing a video of his flooded driveway, back garden and the fields behind to show how bad the situation had become.
He's since explained he 'did what he had to do' after his area faced four inches of rain in 12 hours and claims he cleaned everything up by 10.30am the next morning.
Tommy's video has earned more than 300 reactions and 50 comments in four days and the following day he posted a photo of his clear drive, which appears to mock his opponents' outrage.
The farmer declares the dung is back in storage and his drive has been washed before asking if there's anything else disgruntled farmer Dan would like him to do.
The Scottish Government's Water Environment Regulations prohibit fertiliser such as dung from being stored or applied to 'waterlogged' land.
Tommy said: "It was what I had to do to save my house. It was the only thing I had to block the road. It wasn't possible to get to town by the road so I couldn't get sandbags.
"A stream had burst its banks and it was coming down the road like a river. I was worried about my house getting flooded.
"It's stored in areas with proper drainage on the farm so it took us five minutes to get it. You can see from the picture from the next day that I cleaned everything up.
"We had a really heavy downpour and within an hour I could see water swelling up around my house and my garage started to flood. If I hadn't done this my house would definitely have flooded.
"I realise there's a lot of people who will say it's irresponsible, but with the amount of water going down the road it would have been well diluted and nobody would notice a thing."
Tommy says the rain died off throughout the day but the water continued to flow down his road until New Year's Eve morning when he cleaned up.
The agricultural contractor was pleased the majority of comments were supportive of his improvisation and brushed off Dan's criticism as 'his problem'.
His post simply reads 'drastic times call for drastic measures. It worked though'.
One commented: "Wow, needs must. I would rather have this on my driveway than the house flooded. No-brainer really. Good job."
Another said: "You grabbed what you had to hand and I don't blame you either. Well done on the quick thinking."
A third explained: "If the place was flooding, the water would have reached the muck and had the same effect anyway!"
Another agreed and said: "Surprised the environment agency hasn't been onto them for contamination of water!" One joked: "That flood defence is a load of sh*t." Another added: "Bit of a sh*t position to be in."
However farmer Dan said: "What a kn*b. Then [he] questions why the Environment Agency is pounding the door. It's idiots like that that make so much red tape for everyone else."
Tommy replied: "[Middle finger emojis]. Swivel on that, kn*b. If you had brains you'd be dangerous."
One member added: "Can we not resort to nasty comments? Sometimes emergencies call for desperate measures. One grabs the nearest thing to avert a crisis."
Dan said: "You obviously have never had to work out the nitrates that each cow produces in a year and move the muck heap every two years and [keep it] 20 metres away from a water course.
"Then these people like to make the job 10 times harder than it needs to be. Put bales of straw or buckets of soil not muck. How thick can people be?"
The user defended Tommy again, saying: "Perhaps a bale of straw would have floated away?. Or the straw wasn't as accessible as the muck heap?"
Tommy added: "Well said. I appreciate what I did might not have been to everyone's taste, but it was that or my house flooded. As far as I'm concerned I did what I had to do."
Tommy's post the next day said: "For the benefit of Dan, this is what my drive looks like today after I cleaned up the mess left by the flood. The dung is back in the midden and the tar has been washed.
"Is that ok with you or is there something else you'd have liked me to do, given that you were so knowledgeable about my efforts to stop the flooding yesterday?"
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency confirmed there has been no complaint regarding the incident and declined to comment further.
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