Somerset floods now "major incident"

[biffvernon]

The MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, Ian Liddell-Grainger (a great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria, but that's not his fault) has called the Chairman of the Environment Agency (who took a double first and a PhD at Cambridge) "a little git". That is Liddell-Grainger's fault. Here's why: http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

[RenewableCandy]

Apparently Henley is flooded, so at last some posh people are getting wet.

[Atman]

Nice to have a PhD and all but how exactly does possessing a PhD in English help with running the Environmental Agency? Is a PhD in English even close to the ideal preparation for such a job?

Reminds me of the lovable Mr Obsorne's credentials:

"He was given a demyship to Magdalen College, University of Oxford,where he received a 2:1 bachelor's degree in Modern History."

And omfg the more I read about George Osbourne's career the less suitable he appears to be for the job he's assigned. How are appointments decided? By lottery? Why not let graduates of computer science conduct brain surgery? Ugh conservatives.

[biffvernon]

Nice to have a PhD and all but how exactly does possessing a PhD in English help with running the Environmental Agency? Is a PhD in English even close to the ideal preparation for such a job?

Yes. His thesis was on the Romantic Poets. I can hardly think of a better qualification for a chair of the Environment Agency. An appreciation of what Wordsworth was telling us is pretty important. Of course the Board need to be packed with scientists. And before you rush to judgement, go read about 'The Point of Rash Judgement' from Wordsworth's Poetical Works, Volume 2: Poems on the Naming of Places: Poem: A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags...

Note that the EA's Chief Executive, Dr Paul Leinster, has a degree in Chemistry and a PhD in environmental engineering from Imperial College and an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management.

[UndercoverElephant]

Sent to me last night by a friend who lives in Somerset. I'm sure he will not mind me re-posting it here anonymously.

It’s become a very strange place around here in recent weeks, we have the media camping out in Tesco car park, the police and fire brigade from all corners of the country (doing a fantastic job) and the EA being complete incompetent twats. They have completely f****d up the moors and mismanaged the entire area, it’s totally out of their control. The locals are the only people who know what they’re doing and some of the stuff I have seen this week is completely heart breaking, farmers in tears because they can’t save their livestock and then this morning police marksman were out shooting anything they could get in their sights, a call went out to get as many boats out as possible to stop them. The water is contaminated with human sewage along with dead carcasses of the wildlife which has also created the most awful stench, and the EA who have put all their efforts in the past 20 years of spending millions in protecting wildlife have ended up killing 25 square miles of it! Basically there needs to be a balance, even the RSPB have admitted this along with Natural England. What you see on TV when some ‘important’ figure shows up is a farce and all for show. When Owen Patterson turned up the EA doubled the amount of pumps the night before he arrived only to take them away after he left. There is a massive community spirit around here and it’s the only way anything is getting done!

[kenneal - lagger]

Sue the b*****ds! There must be a case for negligence somewhere.

[peaceful_life]

http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/06/02/201 ... n-help.htm

'“We are trying to relocate and house these cattle on other farms, but the problem is these other farms haven’t necessarily got the feed.”


I read something online last night describing the chaos and lack of support, but I can't validate it, so I won't post it.

[biffvernon]

Sue the b*****ds! There must be a case for negligence somewhere.

Against everyone who has burnt some carbon since 1861 when Tyndall demonstrated infra-red absorption of gasses?

The police, of course, are famous for not being very bright and everyone can make mistakes but the Environment Agency's policies have been very sound in recent years. What all the brand new drainage experts are failing too admit is that this is a 5-sigma event and they would have been the first to complain if the government had allowed the EA enough money to protect against a wide range of such events across the land.

More on my blog: http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

[Tarrel]

I'd like to make a couple of points;

1. Our climate results in weather which has a natural variability. So surely talk of "3-sigma" or 5-sigma" events, or "1 in 100 year floods" is referring to this statistical variability around the norm that the climate system delivers. But when the very parameters of the climate system start to change, all bets are off. A 5-sigma event may have a likelyhood based on the normal distribution created by how the climate has been for the last X years, but that's not how the climate is now. So any judgement of the response to the recent weather based on what level of probability we should plan for is surely a nonsense. As the financial advisors say; "Past performance is no guarantee of future success"

2. We seem to be judging the Environment Agency against its ability to defend us against "The Environment". But we ARE the environment. Whether we are an aggrieved commuter, cut off from our ability to do our daily 150 mile each way train journey to London, or a farmer who has built their business plan around intensely or artificially managing their land, or just a consumer who likes getting their food cheap from Tescos, we're all in the game.

If we are going to judge the EA, I think we need to do it based on their record over a long period, and based on a holistic view of their activities, including what steps they have (or have not) taken to ensure sustainable use of the land during that period. Also, if we're pointing the finger of blame, we need to look at where the other three fingers are pointing.

As I saw written in a motorway service station once; "You're not IN traffic, you ARE traffic"!

Having said that, it's human nature for people at the sharp end to react the way they are, and I wish anyone affected the very best of outcomes, whatever that may look like.

[biffvernon]

Eric Pickles is not a hydrologist. These people are: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/exper ... -flooding/

[fuzzy]

Eric pickles eats hydrologists for breakfast [probably].

[UndercoverElephant]

I'd like to make a couple of points;

1. Our climate results in weather which has a natural variability. So surely talk of "3-sigma" or 5-sigma" events, or "1 in 100 year floods" is referring to this statistical variability around the norm that the climate system delivers. But when the very parameters of the climate system start to change, all bets are off. A 5-sigma event may have a likelyhood based on the normal distribution created by how the climate has been for the last X years, but that's not how the climate is now. So any judgement of the response to the recent weather based on what level of probability we should plan for is surely a nonsense. As the financial advisors say; "Past performance is no guarantee of future success"

2. We seem to be judging the Environment Agency against its ability to defend us against "The Environment". But we ARE the environment. Whether we are an aggrieved commuter, cut off from our ability to do our daily 150 mile each way train journey to London, or a farmer who has built their business plan around intensely or artificially managing their land, or just a consumer who likes getting their food cheap from Tescos, we're all in the game.

If we are going to judge the EA, I think we need to do it based on their record over a long period, and based on a holistic view of their activities, including what steps they have (or have not) taken to ensure sustainable use of the land during that period. Also, if we're pointing the finger of blame, we need to look at where the other three fingers are pointing.

As I saw written in a motorway service station once; "You're not IN traffic, you ARE traffic"!

Having said that, it's human nature for people at the sharp end to react the way they are, and I wish anyone affected the very best of outcomes, whatever that may look like.

I think the EA have made a serious error in this particular case. A decision was taken to stop dredging the man-made channels on the Somerset levels, and it was the wrong decision. Their intention was to strike a balance between the needs of people and the needs of wildlife, but they've ended up helping to create a situation where both are losers.

[biffvernon]

EA policy has worked just fine in Lincolnshire, but then we haven't had a 5-sigma event. (Yet)

[RenewableCandy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that Moonbat is correct about dredging being ineffective in most places but that the Levels are, because they were manmade in the first place, an exception?

Regardless, I'm absolutely certain he's spot-on about the trees (etc) upstream, whether or not the floodplain is man-made, and whether or not dredging actually happens.

[biffvernon]

“I feel extremely sorry for the people living in the region and I cannot imagine the difficulties which they are experiencing. It must be extremely frustrating for them to be encountering such stress and I can imagine their wish to conclude that a lack of dredging has considerably exacerbated their problems.

“However, I have lectured in hydraulic engineering (in civil engineering) at three universities for over 35 years and have been involved in many environmental impact assessment studies worldwide. Furthermore I am currently President of the International Association of Hydro-environment Engineering and Research. And regrettably I cannot see that dredging would make much impact in alleviating the problems in the Somerset Levels.

“To reduce significantly the peak water levels one needs to increase the hydraulic gradient, i.e. the water surface slope, and thereby increase the flow from the marshes to the sea. This will not be significantly achieved by dredging. What dredging will do is to increase the area of flow, which will marginally increase the flow over the short term. Furthermore, the dredged bed will rapidly readjust itself with time to the natural hydraulic conditions – over a relatively short time – and one is then back to square one, i.e. more flooding and more dredging. Added to this one has climate change and rising sea levels, thereby reducing the hydraulic gradient even further and making the problem worse.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/exper ... -flooding/