By Paul Homewood
According to the Express:
EU directives on “habitats”, “birds”, “water” and “floods” have dominated the UK’s river management strategy for nearly 20 years. The Government’s hands have been tied by a vast list of European Union directives, critics say. The Environment Agency must obey strict rules set in the EU Water Framework Directive to protect wildlife and plants when implementing its dredging strategy.
While the Government has the final decision on whether to clear water channels of silt build-ups, sources have told the Express.that the process is severely hindered by EU rules protecting the “ecological health of rivers”.
The EU insists flood risk management “should work with nature, rather than against it”, according to a note released by the bloc’s environment department in 2011.
Work dredging the country’s waterways has been significantly scaled back because of the huge costs of disposing of silt under the EU Waste Framework directive.
The European Commission categorises dredged material as waste rather than a natural resource, making its disposal costly and time-consuming.
Britain has been blighted by flooding in recent days, with 34 more warnings still in place across England, from Somerset and East Sussex to the Lower River Nidd near Harrogate in Yorkshire, and seven across Wales.
Farmers argue that the recent floods in the East Midlands and Yorkshire could have been avoided if more preventative measures were rolled out.
Stuart Roberts, the vice-president of the National Farmers’ Union, has warned the Government it needs to be more proactive with its dredging strategy.
He said: “As has become abundantly clear over the past few days, it is essential that flooding and water management in river and coastal areas is properly funded and properly prioritised to protect urban and rural businesses, infrastructure and communities.
“With more extreme weather becoming ever more common, the Environment Agency must prioritise essential maintenance of flood defence assets and watercourses which have been neglected for decades.
Of course, this is not the first time this issue has reared its head, Christopher Booker revealed that EU environmental directives lay behind the Somerset floods four years ago.
While it is easy for the Environment Agency to blame the floods on “climate change”, we already know that last week’s rainfall was a long way from being “unprecedented” or “biblical”.
Fishlake, the village near Doncaster, which is at the centre of the worst of the floods, lies in a very flat and low lying area next to the River Don. As such it is extremely vulnerable to flooding, as the village archived photos from 1922, 1928, 1932 and 1933 below illustrate, along with newspaper accounts from earlier centuries:
http://www.fishlakehistorysociety.uk/index.php/photographs/old
http://www.fishlakehistorysociety.uk/index.php/newspaper-cuttings
Going further back in time, Fishlake was actually a sea port in the Middle Ages. It then moved inland, but was still a very marshy area until it was drained in the 17thC:
FLEEING the pagan Vikings monks from Lindisfarne or Holy Island travelled with their relics and other valuables down the east coast of Northern England, along the Humber and up the river Don to spend a night en route at Fishlake. They disembarked with the body of Saint Cuthbert at what we still call the Landing and spent the night on the site of the present parish church of Saint Cuthbert…..
Towards the end of the mediaeval period the village became an inland, and even a ship-building, port. Names of some of the buildings along the river still bear witness to that era ( such as the Old Anchor Inn and the Custom House)…..
In 1626 Cornelius Vermuyden received a charter from Charles I to drain the Isle of Axholme and Fishlake to create fertile farmland. The locals did not take kindly to this threat to their livelihood–they lived on the eels and fish from the ponds which Cornelius and his Dutchmen were draining– and the result was fisticuffs. It is said that in those days there were twelve pubs in Fishlake to ‘slake the thirst of the Dutch workers’…..
http://fishlakevillage.co.uk/history.htm
As with the Somerset Levels, if drainage systems are not properly maintained, nature will reassert itself.
UPDATE
According to the Telegraph, the Environment Agency is also under fire for not giving adequate warning of the floods at Fishlake.
I fail to understand why they did not.
The major factor last week was that the dams upstream of Sheffield were already full, and have been so for much of the summer. This made it inevitable that the heavy rainfall last week would cause problems downstream. The River Don was also at a high level beforehand.
Furthermore, the low lying countryside around Fishlake was saturated prior to the rain. By coincidence, I went cycling there just two weeks ago, and the main road into Barnby Dun, just a couple of miles from Fishlake, was closed because of flooding, which had spilled over from adjacent fields.
In that particular area, the fields appear to be lower than the adjacent canal, making the water hard to drain away.
Given these conditions and the rainfall at Sheffield the day before, surely the EA should have been forewarned?
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November 14, 2019 at 01:18PM
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