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Flood water


snow white
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10 minutes ago, snow white said:

Hi just seen on the news a counsellor in Wales was talking to a reporter about the floods how much rain we have he was on about how to stop it flooding the he said got to find some way of stopping it getting in the Rivers.
 

 

hello, you cannot make it up what these baffoons say, like the EA lady said about dredging, they did in Somerset after serious floods a few years back and theres no mention of flooding there now or very little, 

Edited by oldypigeonpopper
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I used to work with a bloke who’s Mrs worked for the EA some years back. We were at a formal function and over polite pre lunch drinks/conversation one of the group asked her if she knew why the river 7 had not been dredged as it was flooding every year and his home was effected. The response, people should move away from rivers as dredging damages the river bed and harms animals that live in it. That put his mind at rest. Couldn’t make it up!

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The lower Severn in my area, (Tewkesbury - Gloucester), used to have mid channel depth of approximately 13 -15 feet at normal levels, this I know from floatfishing the  river in this catchment.

Since dredging stopped it now runs at about 8 - 9 feet mid channel.............therefore the flood capacity is down nearly 6 feet across the width (60-70 yards)...........but the EA know best.

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Well we can’t stop rain falling, so the answer has to be, moving the water off the land, into and down the rivers as quickly and efficiently as possible before it can flood the land?.........Surely that can only be done by widening/dredging/deepening the ditches, side streams and rivers?

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It really isn't that difficult,  I have a few ditches on my croft,  when i wanted to flood a bit, i filled in one of the ditches, when i wanted to drain an area i cleared the ditches to increase the flow. Agricultural land would be more absorbent if it was allowed to dry out more between storms, dryer land would hold and release the water more slowly, not flash flood like we seem to be seeing..

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1 minute ago, islandgun said:

It really isn't that difficult,  I have a few ditches on my croft,  when i wanted to flood a bit, i filled in one of the ditches, when i wanted to drain an area i cleared the ditches to increase the flow. Agricultural land would be more absorbent if it was allowed to dry out more between storms, dryer land would hold and release the water more slowly, not flash flood like we seem to be seeing..

It's been so wet this winter that nothing has had a chance to dry out. My garden is so wet that I have thought of getting a water buffalo and taking up rice farming.

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2 hours ago, snow white said:

Hi just seen on the news a counsellor in Wales was talking to a reporter about the floods how much rain we have he was on about how to stop it flooding the he said got to find some way of stopping it getting in the Rivers.
 

 

It really does boil my P ,the absolute carp these people come out with and how much they are being paid for it 😡

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The councilor wasn't wrong, we do need to stop as much rain water as we can getting into the rivers. He didn't explain how it happens. Peat bogs and miss. Poor land management means nearly all rain water washes off the top instead of soaking into the ground and bogs being held and released slowly. Rivers still need dredging, homes shouldn't be built on flood plains. They need to flood for a reason.

The amount of streams and Beck's I played in as a child that were built over by putting a 3' pipe culverts in yet the beck will have been able to take four times that amount of water.

All the gardens and driveways paved over, playing fields and green spaces covered. All that water used to soak into the ground, now it's down the drains and direct into the rivers.

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People have very short memories.  I remember having to make a huge detour around Crickhowell back in 1983 to get to a wedding when the river Usk broke it's banks and the water that time was lapping on the bedroom windowsills of the pub by the bridge.  Polesworth in Warwickshire was flooded regularly and where the firestation is now would have been under water. That was back in the 50s.  This is not pleasant at all and I feel for those with flooded homes and businesses but it is the Hype the news media put on it as if the world is coming to an end.

Certainly the rivers have become spate rivers and this is due to the paving over of huge areas with concrete for distribution centres and factories plus the housing. My small local trout stream the Sense in Leicestershire used to be a meandering lowland river and the water was absorbed through the fields, Then they built a huge distribution and factory estate up near Coleville plus all the additional housing and now the river has become a spate river and rises at an alarming rate. The river was also straightened back in the sixties which also allows a free flow down into the Anchor.  Gawd knows what it will be like when all these beavers these experts are releasing get to build their dams. 

Edited by Walker570
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3 hours ago, islandgun said:

Agricultural land would be more absorbent if it was allowed to dry out more between storms, dryer land would hold and release the water more slowly, not flash flood like we seem to be seeing..

/\ This.

I live quite near Tewkesbury ....... a well known flood spot being on the junction of two rivers, one (the Severn) a large one.  Currently there are planning applications in for several thousand new build houses.  These are on or near (depending on how you draw the line) the flood plain.  The developers plans include improving ditches and slightly raising the built on area "which will prevent flooding".  This may work for an occasional wet day - but the deepened ditches have no decent fall to the river; the river is currently 4.5m above average level, so the ditches will have no fall at all; the new build has fast run off - making the peak water capacity needed greater.

Sadly - it is a recipe for people having their lives spoiled, their property ruined - and VERY expensive insurance - if it is even available.  It happened in 2007, and is going to happen again, but I would lay good money they will approve the new planning applications.  The water falls (and if we believe what we are being told, may do so more in the future) and has to have somewhere to go - known as the flood plain.  If you remove that - the water will have to go somewhere else ......... it is so simple - you would think a councillor could grasp the principle .......

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A38 between Branston and Barton Under Needwood Soutbound has both large industrial/distribution units/and a fairly large housing estate, The housing Estate being built on Fly ash tipped from Drakelow Power station.. All this being built in the  valley of the River Trent, just under 100 acres of concrete bases. 

Its going to be OK though they are building flood defenses around the estate. So basically just pushing on the problem to the next village. 

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We used to live right on the Severn. Next door to haimwood shooting ground. Just above the confluence of the vyrnwy and the Severn at Melverley. I once went to a meeting with Lembit Oprick about flood prevention after the EA had said they would no longer upkeep the argaes and essentially if they got a hole in them then good. Lembit had some incredible ideas like buying the quarry at criggion and pumping the flood water into it. He really was a buffoon. The drainage committee was the most corrupt bunch of local morons going who would dig your ditches if they liked you but after I had a stand up row with the chairman one day they gave up even mowing the verge down to ours. Too many houses on flood plains means they have to erect flood defenses which just pushes the flooding elsewhere, where they haven't got the defenses. If you know haimwood there's a tumble down old house across the fields from the shooting ground, that's the driest house in haimwood and even when the argae over tops it doesn't get wet, the old boys knew what they were doing! 

Edited by Benthejockey
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A few (about 50 actually) years ago I went to the first steaming after restoration of two big Boulton and Watt steam beam engine pumps (to supply the Kennet and Avon canal).  I seem to remember that these pumped 1 ton per stroke on each engine - and did about 10-12 strokes a minute, so two pumps say 20 - 25 tonnes a minute - and they were BIG.

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hello, why do they not build flood relief channels around the major towns that are prone to flooding, Chichester did this after 2 floods costing millions then put in underground pipes and have not heard of any more flooding, i believe the cost was far less than the first flood insurance claims

Edited by oldypigeonpopper
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11 hours ago, islandgun said:

It really isn't that difficult,  I have a few ditches on my croft,  when i wanted to flood a bit, i filled in one of the ditches, when i wanted to drain an area i cleared the ditches to increase the flow. Agricultural land would be more absorbent if it was allowed to dry out more between storms, dryer land would hold and release the water more slowly, not flash flood like we seem to be seeing..


Ive seen some great setups in America where they make small concrete blocks along ditches where they can place boards into a slot to raise and lower the water level. 
 

They will grow a big field of corn or wheat and then add boards and flood the field and then have hundreds of ducks coming in for the season. 
 

 

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4 hours ago, figgy said:

Houseboats anyone.

Figgy, there is a window/ double glazing company behind Tesco Hartlepool (can't remember the name) and when I called in there a few years ago, they had a canal boat actually in the shop.  The owner explained that they were 'restoring' it.  I always wondered how they would eventually get it out of the shop and transport it to a canal!  Maybe they knew something that we didn't, with the present conditions / storms!     

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I read an article a few years ago that suggested one of the issues with the flooding was all the rivers being straightened out rather than leaving them as the meandering natural rivers they once were. This lead to the speed of the water increasing which let the river gather up the silt on the steeper sections, then when it slowed down in the lower levels it would deposit the silt and bog up the river which is why people resorted to dredging. The other issue was the fact that people built on the flood plains...what the heck do they think is going to happen if you build on the flood plains? Back in years gone by the flood plains were left as is because when the river flooded in winter it deposited fertile silt on the land which encouraged the summer growing. Half of this boils down to corporate greed in the property market giving people backhanders to build and subsequently  sell property on flood plains when anyone with half a brain knows that when they have that "once in a lifetime" flood the best of drainage is not going to cut it and will be overwhelmed 

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17 hours ago, Walker570 said:

People have very short memories.  I remember having to make a huge detour around Crickhowell back in 1983 to get to a wedding when the river Usk broke it's banks and the water that time was lapping on the bedroom windowsills of the pub by the bridge.  Polesworth in Warwickshire was flooded regularly and where the firestation is now would have been under water. That was back in the 50s.  This is not pleasant at all and I feel for those with flooded homes and businesses but it is the Hype the news media put on it as if the world is coming to an end.

Certainly the rivers have become spate rivers and this is due to the paving over of huge areas with concrete for distribution centres and factories plus the housing. My small local trout stream the Sense in Leicestershire used to be a meandering lowland river and the water was absorbed through the fields, Then they built a huge distribution and factory estate up near Coleville plus all the additional housing and now the river has become a spate river and rises at an alarming rate. The river was also straightened back in the sixties which also allows a free flow down into the Anchor.  Gawd knows what it will be like when all these beavers these experts are releasing get to build their dams. 

image.jpg

Crickhowell storm Dennis

 

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This is what is happening by us at the moment - Google maps is quite up to date. Top left is a new housing estate (bit of a hill). The blue circles running down it are some levies that were put in about 20 years ago (but are never maintained) after flooding happened in the estate at the top right corner and the blue line is the flow of water/stream. The red circle has just been decimated as Smurfit Kappa are building a massive extension to the plant (and funny enough - there has been no wildlife surveys carried out prior to this happening) and some natural springs surface there - the land is quite boggy in parts all year round.. The blue circle at the top is a pond - this is higher than the estate to the right but lower than where the new houses are being build. I have appealed about the drainage issue but it has fell on deaf ears as the eyes of the council are full of ££££

My wife wonders why I am keen to move saying "they must know what they are doing" - er - no they don't

 

image.png.bc6cfc174baec8c893a26f72081a05d8.png

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