The floods have arrived

Yes, it was the EA wishing to return the dredged ditches to marshland, for the sake of the wildlife. I think that's why their boss has finally gone down today to have a look.

I hope you stay ok, flicketyb. One of my friends thought she had a leak from her new roof last night and was furious - then this morning realised it was rising up from below her house and coming through the floorboards!

The same thing happened at the mouth of the river Exe. This meant the navigable channel silted up and was only navigable for very short periods.
This resulted in owners of boats moving to other more access able locations with consequent loss to the local economy.

That must be truly dreadful, janerowena, because it is presumably coming up from the drains.

On the Somerset Levels dredging would have helped because the rivers are short and go straight into the sea. Further inland it can be problematic because clearing one area of water fast can mean depositing water fast further down stream and causing floods.

The last head of the Environment Agency, before Chris Smith was Lady Young, who came to it, so I understand, from the RSPB and was in support of land reclaimed from the sea going back to being saltmarsh. She is said to have said that she wanted a limpet mine on every pump and the agencies aim was to facilitate biodiversity.

I think the time has come for a better balance between people and wildlife, with people getting a higher priority. The Somerset Levels were drained by Dutch engineers in the 18th century and provided the rich pasture that has made Somerset a major dairy producer. What right has one quangocrat to decide unilaterally that he/she wants all this land to go back to saltmarsh, putting many farmers and other workers on the dole and reducing our ability to feed ourselves?

Of course there are places where managed retreat is the only solution, because soft mud and shale cliffs and dunes cannot be protected. Norfolk is a classic example. There are villages under the sea that disappeared in the 12 and 13 centuries. But productive man-made drained land should not be destroyed by deliberate purposeful neglect, particularly without a public mandate to do so.

Well said, FlicketyB

Hear hear.

Thinking of you FlicketyB and everyone suffering at the moment

Flickety

How right you are. I hope all is OK for you.

The root cause does go back to the 90,s when the responsibility of the Somerset Levels/Moors was handed over to the newly formed government agency The Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency 1st decision was to STOP DREDGING THE 4 MAIN RIVERS which carry the flow of water that inevitably goes onto the Moors. this meant the rivers silted up and obviously had less capacity to hold the water. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand that if a river is 15/20 foot deep and it silts up and is 3/4 deep it will eventually burst it's banks.

In 2000 Labour peer, Baroness Young of Old Scone and her cohorts at the Environment Agency became the scourge of locals . They decided, not because of funding, that in their ignorance of how the Moors and rhynes work, they wanted to allow large areas to flood and return to a natural habitat for birds and wildlife. Sod the farming industry or the people that live and work there and who had told them year in year out what the outcome would be.

You are correct Baroness Scone did say 'I would like to put a limpet mine on every pumping station'. The outcome of her ineptitude for the job and plenty after her has meant that the birds and wildlife have now been anhialated. Well done misses, OWN GOAL!!!!!

The flooding would have happened given this foul weather but it would have been more contained had dredging NEVER been stopped. There is a massive cost to the country because of the sizeable loss to the economy and the produce that cannot be produced for a long time to come. Milk and meat etc. may rise in cost? They are a hardy bunch not given to moaning but I fear this time it has possibly ripped the heart out of the community.

At the same time as they were targetting Somerset for their 'cause,' they also had the Norfolk Broads and that area in their sight. They faught their case harder and better
and they managed to get the better of the Environmental Agency. That has proven to be a good thing for the east of England.

I am sorry for anybody suffering in which ever part of the UK you are in, it is just awful.

There was someone from the RSPB on the radio this morning, still advocating that a large part of the Somerset levels should be allowed to regress to its pre-drained set. Fortunately there was a government minister there who was quite unequivocal in his insistent that the land should remain agricultural and our need for all the productive agricultural land we have.

Haven't heard a government minister be so the point and clear on a subject in years.

Too dark to see how the floods are here yet, but I can still see the street lights reflecting in the water so they certainly haven't gone.

I found this animated map on FB. It shows what's just about to hit us. Here the wind has started roaring in the trees again.

Flickety

Looking at the time of your post and given the problems we have had picking up threads and posting, are you OK.

Sympathy to anyone having trouble.

We had rain last night so the floods returned to yesterday's high level, but have actually started going down quite rapidly this morning, but we still have a rapidly running stream using the road as a water course and part of one road is impassable to traffic. Our road and several others are still closed. We are well clear of flood waters but 5 houses in the village have been flooded Today is mainly bright and dry with occasional showers but the forecast is not good.

However not everything is good. We drove out again this morning using the same route as yesterday and there was far more water in the fields than there was yesterday. The problems in Oxfordshire are far more intractable than Somerset. The floods there are so bad mainly because of poor maintenance and bureaucratic obstructiveness. Dredging rivers, making stream and ditch maintenance easier to do bureaucratically will solve a lot of their problems.

In Oxfordshire it is different, Thames apart, we do not have big rivers, so river defences will not solve our problems, nor improved drainage, or earth bunds around housing in danger. Most of the flooding is ground water flooding, water coming up, or rather failing to be absorbed by saturated land and standing on the land or running off where there are changes of slope. If this wet weather is a pattern for the future we will have to adapt to living in a flood zone.

I am glad you seem to be okay so far FlicketyB and hope this continues. I heard one lady on the news - I believe from your area - saying 'What's the point in pumping us out, the water will just come straight back in'. I have to say I admired her strength.

Flickety

Glad you are OK

Wasn't there talk years ago of building a new reservoir in the Thames Valley? If they did this surely it would control water flow, be beneficial in periods of extreme weather, wet and dry?

They need to spend the money. Where are our green taxes going? And why are we sending billions to aid other countries with their flood defences but not spending it at home.
I think there are a lot of very angry MPs whose constituents have been affected, let's hope
they keep pressurising until action is taken.

In the meantime it is very very windy here and pouring again.

Where are all our taxes going, let alone green ones!

Some MPs in flood-affected southern constituencies must have extremely cold (not to say wet) feet, thinking about their prospects in 2015.

I live not far from FlicketyB so know what she is talking about, our area is always a concern for flooding.I drove into Abingdon today for supplies and found the large Tesco shut! Flooded car park, deep in places.
Residents in this area didn't want a reservoir [placards about it everywhere] in the last few years so the idea was dropped.Maybe people should think about it, if it would help? Not sure it would enough.It's near the Thames and the river Ock which sometimes flood, but the real problem is the saturated fields, it's like the Lake District in places.

Sounds like the spokes people for the RSPB need their beaks taping shut!

They're against the Severn barrage as well. That would provide jobs and green electricity to say nothing of another road so that the welsh could escape to a civilised country.

I do hope that everyone stays dry.

We have an enormous storm drain that runs under our house, and, as long as we can stand in our hallway and hear the water rumbling under our feet, we know we are OK. But the water rushing out of the end of the storm drain tends to wash the road away!

I shouldn't laugh, Galen ( but I did!)

Hope you stay safe. Up here in N Yorks the land is already saturated, new ponds and lakes evident off the train, the level of the water table is above the land in many places already and the torrential rain has just started, already the drains are overflowing....there is nowhere for the water to go.

Luckily we live on top of a small hill but it is just off thee village green called Water End which has been flooding regularly, if that happens we are stranded..just hope, for everyone, that the rain stops.

I know that Tesco at Abingdon, I used to fill up with petrol there on the way home from Didcot. My DiL said yesterday that three routes into Didcot were flooded. West Harborne had been in the news. She has to drive to Twyford to work. That could be very dodgy. I expect I'll get my usual Sunday phone call from DS2 with all the news tomorrow. Meanwhile, even here in Cheshire, it has been a very stormy afternoon.

The reservoir was due to be built a couple of hundred yards from our village and was going to have a surface area of about 2 1/2 square miles. Its purpose was to fill from the river during the winter and let out water into the river in the summer to boost the flow so that water could be abstracted in London.

Thames Water's calculations for the need for this reservoir were creative and they refused to look at any alternatives ways of supplying water that were cheaper and less damaging to the environment. It formed part of Thames Water's Strategic planning document, which was challenged on many grounds and when it went before an enquiry the reservoir and much else was rejected.

But, despite taking water from the river in winter, the reservoir would have had very little effect on flooding in the area because, while the Thames is overflowing its banks, much of the flooding has nothing to do with the Thames or any other river, it is ground water flooding. The stream/small river that runs through our village is not overflowing in the village, it is in fact a foot or so below its banks. The problem is that the ground is sodden and can no longer absorb any of the water reaching it so it stays on the surface and runs off where it can.

The reservoir would have exacerbated the flooding in my village because if you dig a large hole in the flood plain and fill it with water from a river several miles away that is a large area of flood plain that cannot absorb water anymore. Our village is marginally up hill from the planned site so if the flood plain our excess water drained onto disappeared and the only flood alleviation ponds they planned were on the far side of the reservoir the water would be unable to drain away and we would have more floods.