Floods and blame shifting

The pictures from Dawlish show what the lack of defence against the waves do. The flooding in Somerset, made worse by the lack of dredging and ditch clearance is down to the Environment agency. Our farming neighbours are prevented from ditch clearing in case they harm some wildlife.

The weather here today is just dreadful, the wind and rain is amazing I am surprised that we still have electricity!

Hope everyone along the south coast from Cornwall to Kent stay safe and away from sea walls.

The West pier in Brighton has been split in two.

I've just heard on the World at One that spending has not been cut, according to the Government. That's reassuring, I always did like fairy stories!
We have been lucky so far(Bideford area) and still have power even though the weather is as bad as I can remember.I can't imagine how the people really affected are coping.It's heartbreaking.

Presumably the environment agency have just made hundreds of staff redundant to keep themselves entertained. Nothing to do with cuts.
Trouble with a lot of "sea defences" is that they are old Victorian promenades that are not designed to absorb wave energy. If you want to do that you need piles of huge boulders. specially designed pseudo-boulders, or gabions - cages full of rocks, not a flat wall.

Don't forget that some of the wildlife is protected by law, which the EA has a duty to protect and dredging ditches is not going to prevent flooding. Mind you it didn't help the badgers, still why not waste yet more money on bonkers ideas.
I am not clear how the government can tell such porkies and think that they can get away with it.
Perhaps spending on things like the new stealth weapon should cease and mony redirected.

I've read several times in the past few days that the positive side to all this is how good it is for the wildlife...that's not much comfort to people who have been up to the knees or worse in cold, muddy water for weeks on end! I've heard of spin that doesn't help does it!

No I agree but people say such silly things don't they?

What we need are steady heads and intelligent conversation, not these silly uniformed statements.

Dredging ditches does most truly ease the risk of flooding. I used to live in a low-lying area reclaimed from the sea and with a rich soil for farming. Every year the farmer dredged and maintained the deep, deep ditches that criss-crossed this area. They knew that if they silted up, there would be less room for the water draining off the land and eventually the silt could build up to a degree that the ditches would overflow.

Another useful side effect was that the rich silt was mixed with farm waste and spread over the fields as a natural manure. Not a pleasant smell if there was an onshore wind on 'muck-spreading' day.

Our village has just been given £1.2m for flood defences. We'd better spend it before it gets taken back and given to some other village down south.

The point is that dredging may alleviate to a degree,and undoubtedly has been succesful in the past - always supposing that the EA has the resources to do so, but the type of weather systems we are seeing now and likely to see in the future need a much more comprehensive plan in place than simple dredging.

Yes but deepening the channel that water has to flow in will help. Dredging is a skilled enterprise and not simple at all.

Ditches, called drains, on the Fens, are regularly dredged. As Aka says, the silt is then spread wherever it is needed. The sides are sheer and tree roots are not allowed to impede the flow of water. The downside is that they are straight and featureless and not as easy on the eye as a stream with wild vegetation, lined by weeping trees with cows wading in for a drink.

Can't have it all ways unfortunately.

A letter in my newspaper the other day also stated that the sluices on the Somerset Levels hadn't been properly maintained. These should be regulated at certain times and if the environment agency don't do this you would think that maybe the farmers would step in to ensure that they are operated properly - especially if they are on or near their land.

Farmers pay an annual drainage rate to the local drainage authority and can't interfere with the maintenance of sluice gates or they might end up flooding another farmer's land.

According to an older chap on the radio they had some doughty machines that used to do the dredging, that were sold for scrap by the EA.
But I guess there is a valid debate - if we should have a series of these winters (and we have just had 3 very cold ones in a row, so we could have several of these in a row) how much money is it justifiable to spend to keep this lowland area from going back to its original swamp land for the benefit of just a few people ? Might be cheaper just to pay off the farmers and let water do its thing.

What would they do with the M5, JessM?

I often think some people won't be happy until we abandon our farming heritage.altogether and import all our food from the other side of the world.

Seem to remember the M5 is somewhat elevated above the plain? Or am I wrong. But that is not the point really is it - with Cameron saying grandiosely he'll do "whatever it takes" - how many billion is he talking about? Are flood defences a higher priority than all the other hard pressed claims on the exchequer?

East Anglia have generally has a great deal less rain than south west England and this year it has been exceptionally wet and with more to come.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge

"Located in the driest region of Britain,[43][44] Cambridge's rainfall averages around 570 mm (22.44 in) per year, around half the national average."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_Levels
Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in), and about 8–15 days of snowfall is typical.

The rainfall figures above is an "average year." The last three years have brought exceptionally severe rain and storm conditions not seen for decades. They have beaten most previous records.
I doubt if these floods in the Somerset levels could really have been prevented.
Given these repeated storms with the heavy rain and the very high tides and the fact the the Bristol channel/Severn estuary has the second highest tidal range in the world, flooding is a disaster waiting to happen.

Storm surges push water up into the Bristol channel. The surrounding land in the Somerset "levels" is already below sea level and excess water really has "nowhere to go". When the spring tides are very high which is twice a day I would suggest that the hours when the Bristol channel is low enough to pump water out is quite limited.
It's the horrendous weather that is causing these problems and the way these floodplains have been built upon over the centuries.

The current news is saying that the water is now pouring into the Somerset levels faster than it can be pumped out.

I thought it was extremely insensitive of, I think, Chris Smith, to suggest that it may no longer be justifiable or possible to try and prevent flooding in certain areas and that nature should, in effect, be left to take its course.

There may well be a need to re-think these matters, but I would think this is hardly the time to make such comments when people's homes are knee deep in filthy water and their lives in complete chaos.

Well we can all relax now . Pickles in in charge. It will all be fine. Presumably charged by his boss Dave to "make it stop raining" and if possible come up with another news story that will distract people. Visions of Eric commissioning a teeny tiny pretend kidnapping of an athlete at a certain sporting event. Just a little one, with nobody hurt.

Areas like the fens and the reclaimed marshland where I used to live do not have pretty natural streams and ditches, ugly and featureless as they are, are a necessity.

I was watching a programme last night which was very interesting. It was Northumberland I think. They were tackling the problem of flooding at source. Firstly by partially blocking tiny streams with fallen tress, etc, and slowing down the rate of flow. Then there were wooden barriers that contained mini floods, but allowed the water to leak slowly down hill. Both these methods allowed the rivers into which this water was to flow time to deal with increased rain water, by slowing down the rate at which it entered the bigger rivers.

The authority had been told flood defences would cost £2 million but these flood prevention methods (using natural materials such as wood) cost £250,000.

Like dredging, this sounds like one approach that could partially alleviate the problem.

They need a few beavers

On the Foss in York, they have a barrier which stops the water from the tidal Ouse going upstream into the Foss and flooding the villages to the North. However they also have a dredging boat so that the water from the hills flows down faster when the Ouse is not flooding. It sometimes works.

Pickles better that Smith, eh? Well, he must be, he's a Tory. At least they could see him coming.