Moorland - how unsympathetic am I allowed to be?

[gosub]

Ah yes of course EU directives, the problem with using a floating dredger though is there are several low bridges including the M5 over the rivers so floating them in from the sea might be difficult. It will certainly be interesting to see how & how quickly all the political promises can be fulfilled.

Not sure if you are being derogatory about mentioning EU directives but flooding is an EU competence, so is relevant, especially in a thread that started along the lines of pretty much fuck em they voted Tory. It would have made no difference who they voted for, people had no way of influencing the pen pushers who took decisions that have ruined their lives. Not sure how you would get the relevant name out of the European Commission but I'd certainly think about suing Lord Smith personally, if I was them - give these £100k part time Quangocrats something to think about

 

[JTG]

last time I was in Bridgewater, (4-5 years ago) Parrett was navigable. going to be red boarded for a while Can't see it being done before summer.

Interesting that switching back to grass instead of maize is also moving up the agenda

But when were you last in Bridgwater?

 

[SaskiaJayne]

Not sure if you are being derogatory about mentioning EU directives but flooding is an EU competence, so is relevant, especially in a thread that started along the lines of pretty much fuck em they voted Tory. It would have made no difference who they voted for, people had no way of influencing the pen pushers who took decisions that have ruined their lives. Not sure how you would get the relevant name out of the European Commission but I'd certainly think about suing Lord Smith personally, if I was them - give these £100k part time Quangocrats something to think about

No I mean't about that its not allowed to use the silt to used to build up the banks. It seems the most sensible thing to do from a layman's pov, dig it out of the bed & put it on the sides & its what the draglines did(I think). Although plenty are saying that dredging isn't the complete answer, but from a political view it looks good for Cameron etc to say 'yes its all the fault of the bloody evironmentalists & the previous Labour gov who stopped the dredging' when possibly with this much rain it might have flooded anyway. I would agree its not a political issue but of course its being made into one with UKIP jumping on the anti EU agenda as well.

 

[gosub]

Used to have a mate there lives in Chang Mai now, used to visit quite often, never noticed the lack of an e before. My Mum's family is from Evercrech (not too far away but out of harms way). My old boss (who is recovering from a broken leg from fishing in December) his house near Langport is fucked.

Got sympathy , and some knowledge of the area. Don't feel any embarrassment about what I've posted.

 

[JTG]

Used to have a mate there lives in Chang Mai now, used to visit quite often, never noticed the lack of an e before. My Mum's family is from Evercrech (not too far away but out of harms way). My old boss (who is recovering from a broken leg from fishing in December) his house near Langport is fucked.

Got sympathy , and some knowledge of the area. Don't feel any embarrassment about what I've posted.

No worries, 'tis just a well known local bugbear. Ain't no E in Bridgey!

 

[gosub]

No I mean't about that its not allowed to use the silt to used to build up the banks. It seems the most sensible thing to do from a layman's pov, dig it out of the bed & put it on the sides & its what the draglines did(I think). Although plenty are saying that dredging isn't the complete answer, but from a political view it looks good for Cameron etc to say 'yes its all the fault of the bloody evironmentalists & the previous Labour gov who stopped the dredging' when possibly with this much rain it might have flooded anyway. I would agree its not a political issue but of course its being made into one with UKIP jumping on the anti EU agenda as well.

Farage jumped on the Foreign aid band wagon first. Was slow to the EU dimension cos a lot of the groundwork has been done by Dr Richard North in conjunction with Chris Booker. North used to be a UKIP researcher in Brussels til Farage fired him (I think,he may have quit) anyway no love lost between them. Farage forced to pick up the EU dimension that is there cos a lot of the media now mining North's material for the story and was starting to recieve whinges about avoiding the elephant. The EU figures very little in UKIP campaigning these days bizarrely. I disagree with North on quite a bit, he doesn't understand Climate Change for a start and don't think he is particularly personable but he does pan the occasional nugget at a time when the main stream media would rather be telling me what a celebrity had for breakfast.

It should be a political issue, people making these decisions need to be accountable that's the point (well one of them for me anyway). Dredging did stop under Labour that is true but Cameron didn't start again either. Noone comes out of this looking good. Its all damage limitation and that won't stop people with 4ft of water in their kitchen feeling angry.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Environment Minister Owen Paterson is in hiding (no wonder, putting a climate change denier in charge of environment is like putting Jimmy Saville in charge of Ofsted)

Fat-Arse Eric is standing in for him to weasel about it and says it's all Labour's fault.

 

[gosub]

Environment Minister Owen Paterson is in hiding (no wonder, putting a climate change denier in charge of environment is like putting Jimmy Saville in charge of Ofsted)

Fat-Arse Eric is standing in for him to weasel about it and says it's all Labour's fault.

Owen Patterson had surgery for a detached retina on Thursday. and Pickles seemed to blame the EA

 

[treelover]

I disagree with North on quite a bit, he doesn't understand Climate Change for a start and don't think he is particularly personable but he does pan the occasional nugget at a time when the main stream media would rather be telling me what a celebrity had for breakfast.

North is the go to person when the media want a non scientist climate change denier.

 

[gosub]

North is the go to person when the media want a non scientist climate change denier.

tbf He is helping to keep them honest. but is all seen through a prism of well its not getting warmer you said it would get warmer. And to be fair there a lot in the climate change who do portray it in those terms.
Presume he went after this story to help undermine the"its global warming what to you expect" as voiced by a few at the start of this thread, fortunately for him he found stuff. Not sure he would be saying much about the almost relentess series of depressions rolling in off the atlantic, drowning Ireland, and you lot down south.

 

[white rabbit]

yep, it's clearly all the fault of those tory voters in moorland, i'm convinced.....

I guess the phrase used in another context would be useful idiots. Thought I was never a fan of it to describe left-wing Westerners, so I should endorse it here.

 

[William of Walworth]

My Mum's family is from Evercrech (not too far away but out of harms way).

Surely Evercreech?

 

[gosub]

Surely Evercreech?

thats two e's I've dropped today and I'm getting nothing

 

[free spirit]

Re: dredging, what say people about Monbiot's stuff lately about how it won't be as effective as re-vegetating upland areas etc?

he's as clueless as ever - that area was flooded marshland prior to the Monks draining it, reqild it and it will just revert to flooded marshland.

In some situations he could have a point, but he's symptomatic of the problem here, in that since the Environment Agency took over they've applied a virtual one size fits all policy to flood prevention, and more to the point, with this reqilding of the rivers thing being a case in point.

for 25 years they've taken money from local landowners via the drainage boards, then refused to actually do the dredging they're paid for because of some misguided belief that dredging is pointless / only moves the problem down stream / that it's better to rewild the rivers and allow nature to take its course / slow down the movement of water downstream to avoid flooding downstream... all of which can be valid in some situations, but is complete bollocks on the somerset levels where it's the levels themselves that flood, and the rivers off drain straight out to sea if they're dredged properly from the sea upwards.

Effectively what they've got on the levels is a bath with a blocked drain, and some daft fuckers arguing that unblocking that drain won't have any significant impact on the time it takes to drain the bath.

 

[gosub]

free spirit The bath analogy is a good one that I'm sure my mum has been shouting it at the telly all week, but he does have a bit of point, there is a lot of maize down their these days, which effective means fallow fields over the winter.. Which they might want to think about at a later date after they have gone back to doing what they have for centuries as a "short term solution" - dredging

 

[free spirit]

I've been doing some digging, and it turns out that they seem to have replaced every sluice gate, and added a whole load of new sluice gates with tilting weirs on the North Moor drainage, following a plan launched in 2010, which all seems to be aimed at raising / maintaining the winter water levels to keep Natural England happy re the water levels on SSSI sites.

In the north moor there are around 180 Acres managed as winter raised water level areas, in the west moor area there were 190 Acres managed in this way, but another 155.7 acres were added in 2007. The level varies a bit, but it looks as if they're holding the water in these areas at about a foot above even the summer levels, which seems pretty nuts to me.

No time to look at all the other plans, but this seems to indicate a lot of work being carried out in recent years that has all resulted in raised standard water table in winter, and potentially a reduction in the drainage capacity from these areas (eg if the tilting weirs aren't as wide as the previous banks). I'm not sure how these match up with the flood zones, but I can't see that this is going to be a coincidence when the works are followed by 2 record years of flooding.

 

[free spirit]

this is what I'm on about with tilting weirs having the potential to significantly reduce the flow even when fully opened, depending on how they're installed.

This tilting weir here would reduce the peak flow by something like 60-70% even if fully opened, as that would be the proportion of the ditch width that is actually fully closed, with only around 30-40% of the width actually being open to the flow of water.

Now I've no idea what type of tilting weir they've installed, but if they have installed anything like this version, and have installed ~20 of them across that one area, then this would have had a massive impact on the drainage of those areas.

If this is what's happened, then I'd expect all affected farms, householders etc would be able to sue the companies that did that work, and the agencies that commissioned and permitted the work to be done.

 

[free spirit]

and...

24/04/2012 - Water Minister visits Somerset Drainage Boards
Richard Benyon MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Natural Environment and Fisheries, visited the Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium to see work completed by IDBs to manage water levels in the Somerset Levels for wetland wildlife and farming.

and this is West Yeo, the village right in the middle of the North Moor area where all these new tilting weirs have been installed all around them specifically to raise the winter water levels on the surrounding land.

It's probable that the original flooding would have happened anyway, but dramatically reducing the flow through the drainage ditches in this way has to be a major culprit for why the water hasn't receded.

maps of all the works here

 

[stowpirate]

Are you less sympathetic as long as they are the super rich who are being flooded?
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/riverlevels/136496.aspx?stationId=7267

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It makes sense that there might be particular local characteristics, eg in the Levels. It'd be useful to know more about this stuff given the disinformation storm coming out of Eric Pickles fat arse and other government orifices.

Nice work Free Spirit

 

[rubbershoes]

and...


It's probable that the original flooding would have happened anyway, but dramatically reducing the flow through the drainage ditches in this way has to be a major culprit for why the water hasn't receded.

That's exactly how it works. The Levels are a flood plain and get wet just about every year. In the past the Drainage boards would arrange for the rivers to be dredged so the water from the fields could run off into them. The Drainage boards were run by farmers and locals but were abolished 20 years or so ago and their responsibilities taken over by the EA. Since then there hasn't been the level of dredging in the rivers.

It's easy to say that there should be dredging. but would it mean the water went into the rivers and threatened the towns downstream? Bridgwater on the Parrett and Taunton on the Tone have far more residents than the villages on the levels.

Is the EA prioritising the interests of the many in the towns over the fewer on the Levels? I don't know but if they are should be clear about saying so as at the moment they are just being called incompetent

 

[Pickman's model]

Used to have a mate there lives in Chang Mai now, used to visit quite often, never noticed the lack of an e before. My Mum's family is from Evercrech (not too far away but out of harms way). My old boss (who is recovering from a broken leg from fishing in December) his house near Langport is fucked.

Got sympathy , and some knowledge of the area. Don't feel any embarrassment about what I've posted.

so you think you can sue chris smith personally? try it.

 

[brogdale]

Is the EA prioritising the interests of the many in the towns over the fewer on the Levels? I don't know but if they are should be clear about saying so as at the moment they are just being called incompetent

In effect, yes they have done that. The treasury's restrictions placed upon EA expenditure on flood protection has ensured that outcome. If Cost-Benefit figures have to be at least +£8, it is only built-up areas that can be defended with significant capital investment. The government are. of course, very happy for the EA to be the fall-guys for this disaster.

 

[yield]

What's the responsibility of the Environment Agency rather than the Canal & River Trust?

 

[Pickman's model]

What's the responsibility of the Environment Agency rather than the Canal & River Trust?

the real question seems to me whether it isn't the treasury's fault

 

[gosub]

What's the responsibility of the Environment Agency rather than the Canal & River Trust?

Canal and River Trust is the rebrand of British Waterways, they have responsibility for most navigations i.e bits of water big enough to get more than a small boat down, they take care of the locks and the banks and keep them operational. The actual river river bits of these navigable rivers is down to the EA. Two exceptions or there were (been off the boat a few years now) Thames all EA and Wey Navigation National Trust instead of CRT

 

[gosub]

so you think you can sue chris smith personally? try it.

Remember years back when we had been very helpful to Customs, tipped off about several kilos of coke we'd found inside the wing of a aircraft rotating back from Nigeria for maintenance. All very happy. They came back 6 months later got new people, could we assist with training. Please take this aircraft apart it was a brand new state of the art Falcon worth then $26mil, is going back a while modern equivalent would $60mil. You can't tell customs no,they are in a league far above Lord Smith. So we told them we were unable to assist them with engineers so they would have to take it apart themselves, and that we would be suing the individual customs men personally for lose of earnings while it was out of action. Customs thought better of it. If you can do that to customs men, if Lord Smith has his signature on any document towards what looks increasing like a deliberate policy to flood the levels, I'd say go for it.

 

[Pickman's model]

Remember years back when we had been very helpful to Customs, tipped off about several kilos of coke we'd found inside the wing of a aircraft rotating back from Nigeria for maintenance. All very happy. They came back 6 months later got new people, could we assist with training. Please take this aircraft apart it was a brand new state of the art Falcon worth then $26mil, is going back a while modern equivalent would $60mil. You can't tell customs no,they are in a league far above Lord Smith. So we told them we were unable to assist them with engineers so they would have to take it apart themselves, and that we would be suing the individual customs men personally for lose of earnings while it was out of action. Customs thought better of it. If you can do that to customs men, if Lord Smith has his signature on any document towards what looks increasing like a deliberate policy to flood the levels, I'd say go for it.

so you think you can sue chris smith *prrsonally* for something to do with his *job*?

 

[gosub]

so you think you can sue chris smith *prrsonally* for something to do with his *job*?

If customs men seem to think they can be held personally responsible for losses incurred as a result of them them doing their job I don't see why the EA would be any different

 

[SpookyFrank]

Why is it called moorland when it's pretty much the exact opposite of moorland, that's what nobody seems to have an answer for.