Carolyn Roache - Rod McDonagh - Chris Osborne - Bryony Sadler Major Al Robinson - Royal Engineers David Hall - Somerset County Council C4 News weatherman Liam Dutton Somerset floods: this is a man-made disaster Somerset apple farmer Julian Temperley is one of the thousands whose homes and livelihoods have been damaged by the deluge Daily Telegraph - Anna Tyzack - 30 Jan 2014 The Environment Agency has been widely reported as saying it's a freak occurrence. Not a chance. This is a man-made ecological disaster. The River Parrett, which runs through the Levels, is blocked and badly needs dredging. I'm not sure people realise that this is not just a theory being discussed in the papers, it's a fact. It's what is actually happening. The river at Bridgwater is 10ft below its banks, while five miles upstream it is overflowing. If I don't dig out the ditches on my land all hell breaks loose. I lose my single farm payment and receive a fine. But the Environment Agency won't dig out its blasted river and so my ditches have nowhere to drain. As a result we have 50 acres of land under six feet of water -- it would take more than 30 years for it to evaporate naturally. Thankfully I've managed to salvage most of the cider and cider brandy in our barns but I've lost some of my orchards and in Thorney House, our family home where my 98-year-old father lives, the flood water comes half way up my wellies. A few weeks ago it was covering the furniture. My father, who is deeply upset about the situation, is staying with my aunt in Worcestershire while we rent him a house. It's a big upheaval for a man of his age. Of course it's not just my family that has been affected. About 20,000 acres of farmland in Somerset have been underwater for a month now. I'm sure you've seen the pictures. The ancient village of Muchelney is totally cut off; you can only get there by boat, and Thorney, where my father lives, has been evacuated. The reality is horrific: tractors and cars have been submerged; animals drowned, and the locals are in despair. An oak furniture maker near Bridgwater has lost more than £1million of furniture, while the potter John Leach, 75, whose grandfather Bernard Leach established Muchelney Pottery, a family dynasty, has had to lay off his five employees; unless they were prepared to swim, there was no way they could get to their workshops. He's in a deep depression and I think we'd lose him from the area altogether if he could sell his house. But of course it's filled with water, so that's not going to happen. So why hasn't the Environment Agency dredged the river? It used to be done every five years; even more than that in the areas where silt builds up more quickly. But for the past 20 years the Environment Agency has refused to dredge -- a process that would have cost them about £4million -- arguing that it is anti-environmental and causes as many problems as it solves (which defies common sense). Instead, £31million has been spent on creating a spurious wildlife reserve to protect the beetles in the river banks which, by the way, are very close relations of cockroaches. To think national treasures such as Leach are considered of less importance than some dubious beetles! This reluctance to dredge is about as ridiculous as me telling MPs in London to take down the Thames Barrier, pull down the Embankment, and let the Thames flood Soho as it pleases. The Somerset Levels, just like London, are a man-made environment; the River Parrett was not put where it is by God but by man. Taunton and Yeovil are two of the fastest-growing towns in England and they're putting more pressure than ever on the Parrett, a slow flowing, naturally silty river. My great-great-great-grandfather used to bring coal barges up it from Wales; you couldn't do that trip in a canoe, now -- the bottom of the river is so high with silt. We need to dredge 15 miles from the mouth of the river up to Thorney, as has been done in some shape or form for the past 500 years to safeguard communities from this kind of flooding. Not even the Second World War got in the way of it -- we put Italian POWs on the job. When the Somerset Levels flooded last year -- and water poured in to my father's house for the first time since 1926 -- the Government declared it a once-in-a-lifetime event. Now it's happened again, they've conceded that "some dredging might be done" but only after they've carried out studies. This week the chair of the Environment Agency Lord Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Dredging would probably make a small difference, but it's not the comprehensive answer that some people claim." The fact they think they need to research the situation shows how stupid they are. River dredging happens all over the world all the time. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10607011/Somerset-floods-this-is-a-man-made-disaster.html

• published: 30 Jan 2014
• views: 87