Flooding- To dredge or not to dredge.

Tout Seul

Tout Seul

Senior Jockey
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May 2, 2003
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I get a strong sense that the case against dredging in some areas is not being fully articulated because the truth is that it is better for the properties and lands of a few hundred farmers and flood plain dwellers to be flooded than major population areas.
I am not an engineer but surely if you deepen the water channel you increase speed and volume of water which when it hits tidal water coming the other way causes far more damage for far more people.. To mitigate that one would have to spend huge amounts improving downstream defences.
This is not a message that politicians want to give out for obvious reasons. Meanwhile the politicians in the flooded areas want local control and call the authorities incompetent when their own solution is ' I'm alright, Jack'.

I repeat that I don't know a lot about water flow so may well be wrong.
 
I appreciate some of the landowners may have inherited land which has been in their family for years but for others I cannot understand why they choose to live there. Unfortunately they are not likely to sell their properties now.One of the first things I have always done when moving is have a flood and mining survey carried out to see what chances of the property being flooded are and whether the ground anywhere near is likely to collapse.
 
I've never understood why people choose to live in areas that are so obviously prone to flooding.

Unscrupulous builders will throw houses up anywhere they can make a fast buck but if people didn't buy them they'd soon stop.

I also think either local or national government should have measures in place to oppose any proposed housing development in flood plains.

It looks like insurance companies are more and more doing the obvious thing and refusing to insure such properties.

In the place where I grew up we were halfway up a hill overlooking a field in which was an expanse of water known locally as "the big puddle". We used to play on it in winter when it iced over. In the 1970s they did some engineering work in the field to drain it for housing. We all laughed at the idea but within a few years there was a fair sized development on it. Within a few more years they had to pull down some of the houses because the foundations were sinking.

You only have to drive through the country to see which areas are likely to flood. Why on earth allow people to build or live there?

I'm alright Jack. I live about 800ft above sea level!
 
I get hooked on numbers and when I heard that the standing water on the Somerset levels amounted to 125,000 olympic swimming pools and the pumps are removing one such swimming pool every hour - its going to take a long time.

But assuming the River Parrett is about 50 miles long, if you stacked up these 125,000 swimming pools, I make it a stack 50 miles long and two miles high - Don't think dredging will carve out a ravine that deep!

Massive sympathy for those affected but a reality check is needed.

MR2
 
Monty,
Your last sentence reflects my own feelings. What I am afraid of is reaction that prompts the building, at massive cost, of the type of infrastructure around New Orleans, ie levees and dams etc.. You cannot beat nature in the long term and what is apparently a once in 250 years event should not form the platform for unrealistic measures.
 
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Government hasn't done enough to help. Every resource should be given to assist the victims of this. I dislike the sneering tone we've heard in some areas of the media and general tone of "your fault for living there"

Plenty of recipients of government aid and salaries/benefits that are far less deserving IMO.
 
They were saying on the news (tho I was only half listening) that the shadow environment minister (I think - someone from the shadow cabinet anyway) says that we shouldn't divert foreign aid to help in Somerset, not sure that's going to make them terribly popular anywhere over here....
Same as lots of things, successive governments and the environment agency should have let farmers look after themselves (with all that spare time they've got ;) )and it wouldn't have been anywhere near so bad. Still would have flooded there's no doubt in my mind - but I bet it wouldn't have been anywhere near so bad.
 
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Looks so flat on the Somerset Levels could we not build our much needed airport there with a superfast rail link to London.

Solve so many problems in one fowl swoop.


MR2
 
Geoff Banks on Twitter

"Awful lot of people from Somerset complaining about a tiny wet patch on their lawns. Really people get over it.."


What a twat
 
It`s so distressing seeing people`s lives destroyed by these floods. Just don`t see the humour in those remarks. Typical comments of a coward. Would he make such comments face to face with those people? I don`t think so.
 
Arsehole

A lot of the ruined homes are just a coule of miles from me and its pretty heavy down n twickenham itself. I can't imagine how disastrous it would be to experience
 
I read a stat somewhere that only a very small percentage of the homes affected nationwide were actually in Somerset and that other areas were much worse off? There seems to be some concern from other areas that because Somerset(ians?) are making the most noise they will benefit most from whatever the government response is to this.
 
trudij said:
They were saying on the news (tho I was only half listening) that the shadow environment minister (I think - someone from the shadow cabinet anyway) says that we shouldn't divert foreign aid to help in Somerset, not sure that's going to make them terribly popular anywhere over here....
Same as lots of things, successive governments and the environment agency should have let farmers look after themselves (with all that spare time they've got ;) )and it wouldn't have been anywhere near so bad. Still would have flooded there's no doubt in my mind - but I bet it wouldn't have been anywhere near so bad.
Click to expand...
Wrong way round it's a Government man saying that. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10626939/Eric-Pickles-Spend-aid-abroad-to-stop-flooding-in-the-UK.html
 
Daft question I know but if what I hear is true that 'parts of the Somerset Levels are below sea-level' how will dredging help.

Will dredging just make the river more tidal?

MR2
 
The Somerset floods seem to be entering a blame game, I prefer to place guilt at the supernatural portal for instance ‘The Great Thunderstorm’ of 1638 when the church of St Pancras was set alight by lightning.

My interest was drawn by the mix of extreme weather, gambling, horses and strangers with cloven feet downing a quick pint – would not be out of place in a meeting of talking horse minds!

Courtesy of google:

According to local legend, the thunderstorm was the result of a visit by the devil who had made a pact with a local card player and gambler called Jan Reynolds[2] (or Bobby Read, according to the tale recorded at the Tavistock Inn, Poundsgate). The deal was that if the devil ever found him asleep in church, he could have his soul. Jan was said to have nodded off during the service that day, with his pack of cards in his hand. Another version of the legend states that the Devil arrived to collect the souls of four people playing cards during the church service.

The devil headed for Widecombe via the Tavistock Inn, in nearby Poundsgate, where he stopped for directions and refreshment. The landlady reported a visit by a man in black with cloven feetriding a jet black horse. The stranger ordered a mug of ale, and it hissed as it went down his throat. He finished his drink, put the mug down on the bar where it left a scorch mark, and left some money. After the stranger had ridden away, the landlady found that the coins had turned to dried leaves.

The devil tethered his horse to one of the pinnacles at Widecombe Church, captured the sleeping Jan Reynolds, and rode away into the storm. As they flew over nearby Birch Tor, the four aces from Jan's pack of cards fell to the ground, and today, if you stand at Warren House Inn, you can still see four ancient field enclosures, each shaped like the symbols from a pack of cards.[2]

Now that's the kind of pub landlady I would have liked to meet.

MR2
 
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