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Why ?

Idiots. Has no one even considered why the river has silted up so much and maybe addressed that issue?
 
Complete waste of our(public) money. They'd be better off following the Dutch example - move everyone out and let the flood plain do what it's supposed to!
 
Why? Did you not see the misery to both humans and animals caused by the recent floods? Are you seriously wanting people to put the perceived threat of dredging to a few fish above that level of human suffering?

The Somerset Levels are NOT flood plains, they are reclaimed land the same as in Holland. You either dredge or you let nature take its course and give the land back to the sea.

Steve
 
what a load of tosh!
Of course the recent flooding has got absolutely nothing to do with us having the wettest winter for 150 years....
 
Steve Stringer said:
the perceived threat of dredging to a few fish
Click to expand...

When was there any mention made of this in any comment on this thread?

The economics of attempting to do a 'Canute' in this region do not make long-term sense given the current climate trends. It would make more sense to relocate people and use the land as it was in the past before the drains, i.e. a summer settlement.
 
i worked in langport directly in front of the parret,my mate lived just a couple of miles down the road, flooded roads were a regular thing there and it was nothing to do with unusual weather ect, its marsh land and loads of small drains and streams, of course the rivers need dredging, i doubt much if the fish dont thrive because of it and the waters running cleaner
 
steve, look at the towns name Langport, my favourite pub was the Custom house, think about it as it was a busy port at one time
 
Steve Roffey said:
They'd be better off following the Dutch example - move everyone out and let the flood plain do what it's supposed to!
Click to expand...

Steve,

That is the very opposite of what the Dutch do; if they did they would lose half of their land.

Do you seriously think they are going to let the Somerset Levels return to how they were centuries ago? Dredge the rivers and turn on the pumps, its the only way.

Steve S
 
Steve Stringer said:
Why? Did you not see the misery to both humans and animals caused by the recent floods? Are you seriously wanting people to put the perceived threat of dredging to a few fish above that level of human suffering?

The Somerset Levels are NOT flood plains, they are reclaimed land the same as in Holland. You either dredge or you let nature take its course and give the land back to the sea.

Steve
Click to expand...

Steve, I wish there was a like/agree button, if it comes to the choice between good peoples homes and lives , and a few anglers who would selfishly put their wants first,well, I know who I would side with .
In fact, I think it appaling that anybody should think otherwise.

Dave
 
Steve Stringer said:
Why? Did you not see the misery to both humans and animals caused by the recent floods? Are you seriously wanting people to put the perceived threat of dredging to a few fish above that level of human suffering?

The Somerset Levels are NOT flood plains, they are reclaimed land the same as in Holland. You either dredge or you let nature take its course and give the land back to the sea.

Steve
Click to expand...

Steve,

You are right to flag up the human misery that the flooding caused, not to mention the displacement/destruction it has caused much of the local wildlife. For these reasons it is critical that the correct solutions are employed and it appears that amongst a great many expert hydrologists, the jury is well and truly out on the effectiveness of dredging. In fact some have suggested that it could make things much worse for the areas downstream. It concerns me that Govt. seems to be ignoring expert advice and is instead being led by the demands of a powerful group of non-experts.

Some of the most vociferous proponents of dredging are farmers, the NFU in particular. They reckon that there is approximately 4-500,000 tonnes of silt that needs to be removed by dredging. But nobody seems to be asking where all this silt has come from, it can't all be from vegetation detritus, a large proportion of it must be topsoil from farmland in the catchments of the Parrett, Axe and Brue.

A recent survey (Natural England - Soils for Profit project shows extent of soil compaction on South West farmland) found that 59% of fields surveyed in Somerset were suffering from soil compaction. When soils are compacted they have a much higher risk of soil erosion or run-off and because they are less able to absorb excess rainfall they also contribute to increased flooding.

So what is being done to prevent this ? Not a great deal. Surely it makes sense to deal with this before even considering dredging ?

Good article by George Monbiot on the insanity and hypocrisy of it all:

How we ended up paying farmers to flood our homes | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Cheers,

Joe
 
Joe,

A good post and in most circumstances a valid viewpoint. However the topography of the Somerset levels is very different to most other parts of the country. On the levels the water does not flow off the land into the rivers because in many cases the rivers are higher than the land. The water has to be pumped into the rivers just like it does in Holland.

If you stand by the main pumping station at Gold Corner on the Huntspill Drain you will see a brass plaque on the wall about 15 feet above your head which marks the mean sea level. Water is pumped into the Huntspill and then allowed to run out to sea when the tide is out by opening gates.

Dredging would be carried out almost entirely on the tidal parts of the Parrett and the Rhynes (channels) that drain the water into the larger drains prior to pumping.

Steve
 
This was what I was alluding to when I said follow the Dutch example http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/a...s-now-allows-sea-water-in.html?pagewanted=all

My mistake was to refer to the Levels as flood plain, the area isn't, it's reclaimed land and has huge ongoing costs to maintain it. Joe makes a very good point about the "benefits" of dredging, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that will have only limited and very short-term effects.
 
Steve Stringer said:
Joe,

A good post and in most circumstances a valid viewpoint. However the topography of the Somerset levels is very different to most other parts of the country. On the levels the water does not flow off the land into the rivers because in many cases the rivers are higher than the land. The water has to be pumped into the rivers just like it does in Holland.

If you stand by the main pumping station at Gold Corner on the Huntspill Drain you will see a brass plaque on the wall about 15 feet above your head which marks the mean sea level. Water is pumped into the Huntspill and then allowed to run out to sea when the tide is out by opening gates.

Dredging would be carried out almost entirely on the tidal parts of the Parrett and the Rhynes (channels) that drain the water into the larger drains prior to pumping.

Steve
Click to expand...

Thanks Steve,

"On the levels the water does not flow off the land into the rivers because in many cases the rivers are higher than the land"

You right of course with regard to the land actually on the Levels, but a significant part of the levels surface water catchment lies outside of the Levels area. The Parrett catchment includes a large chunk of land in the Quantocks, Mendips and Blackdown Hills. Both the Brue and Axe take a lot of water from the Mendips as well.

I'm not actually anti-dredging per se, in the right places I suspect it may be part of a wider solution, but on it's own it's certainly not the panacea that some would have us believe.

Cheers,

Joe
 
There was some footage of the EA already at work 'dredging' one of the Somerset rivers on the news last night...tuned in too late to get the name of the river. The thing is, they were NOT just removing accumulated silt from the river bed, they were using a huge digger to widen the river by scouring the banks, turning them into ugly drains with steeply sloping, uniform sides, much as they used to do in the bad old days before they became enlightened. Removing silt to restore the river to its former depth is one thing...but what I saw was something else again.

Another case of political expediency by government forcing people who know better to do something they don't want to do :rolleyes:

I might add that if you try to open a new stillwater fishery, you need to comply with strict HSE regulations regarding the slope angle of the bank etc. for safety reasons. Wouldn't be much point trying to scramble back up the bank that these guys were producing, if you slipped in....because you wouldn't make it!

Cheers, Dave.
 
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