04/02/2014
With Prinzgauer
Charles poncing around the Levels, telling everyone that there is "nothing like a jolly good disaster" to make things happen, few people might imagine that it is precisely the policies espoused by the heir to the throne that have brought about the very floods he has come to visit.
This is the man who
famously praised the European Commission's proposals to reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, declaring, "Surely, this is just the moment in history for which the European Union was created?"
But it is that self-same European Union which
has contributed to that "jolly good disaster" â a designer disaster, so to speak â intended to keep Charlie boy and his greenie friends happy.
The trouble all along has been that the local Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) have been
far too busy massaging their Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs), while the Critical Ordinary Watercourses (COWs), managed by the Environment Agency (EA) have been insufficiently cleared. Perhaps the IDBs should have fed their BAPs to the COWs, and let the EA go hungry.
Testing the thesis we introduced
yesterday, we see the most recent
EA report casually telling us that the Somerset Levels and Moors are to be used "to store water or manage runoff in locations that provide overall flood risk reduction or environmental benefits".
The crucial phrasing here is the Levels being used "to store water", and that is precisely what Charles was looking at today â stored water ⦠another name for flooded fields.
Following the timeline through, it is now very clear, from
this statement dated 12 January 2004 (see page 22) that the flooding policy had yet to be determined.
What needs further exploration though, is an apparent conflict. First, we have
this document, which has the Somerset Drainage Consortium doing much of the maintenance work, but saying that across Somerset the drainage boards and the Environment Agency only maintain about 2 percent of the watercourses in the Somerset Levels and Moors, leaving the rest to riparian owners.
Then, by way of comparison, we have
this from last year, in which we hear tell of, a "government plan to allow landowners on the Somerset Levels to dredge rivers in a bid to avoid long-term flooding".
It would be wrong, however, to say that there is no maintenance. There is a
substantial programme, but it is difficult to compare this with what went on before.
The
integration of wildlife and flood risk management, though, has undoubtedly had its effect, especially in the context of resources being withdrawn from flood prevention, in the context of the
Institute of Chartered Engineers and
Defra (in 2001), making it clear that capital investment in flood defence infrastructure should increase by at least 100 percent.
Merely by not doubling expenditure, therefore, was going to create problems. Diverting money to promote eco-floods was bound to make things worse, especially as
by 2009 the government was still committed to "Making Space for Water" and delivering "the greatest environmental, social and economic benefit, consistent with the Government's sustainable development principles".
Then, to cap it all, government flood defence grants, standing at £275 million in 2010-11, were
to be reduced to £226 million in 2014-15. That leaves the loss-making
Guardian to crow that Owen Paterson is not doing "everything possible" to help flood victims. At least, though, unlike Prinzgauer Charles's mates, he is not doing "everything possible" to make the floods worse.
COMMENT: "EU FLOODS" THREAD
