George Monbiot "how we ended up paying farmers to flood our homes"

[Ley253]

Silt in the rivers is not the problem. Failing to clean it out is! You will never stop rivers silting up, other than by cleaning them

 

[Cowabunga]

As in my post I don't wish to repeat what I've said on the other very similar thread - but in summary I have said the current floods are not down to slit more extreme weather plus mismanagement however other floods and future flood have and will be though in large parts down to slit (our soil) that we need to do more to keep out of water courses

Rivers have always silted. The Aeron used to flood very badly, submerging the Willis Bros depot in the 1970's on a regular basis. It was dredged and re-engineered during the 1980's and has been good all the way to the town, some five miles downriver, since. The harbour in town was also dredged at the time and the floods upstream on the outskirts of town and into the school playing fields, that used to be an annual event, have rarely if ever happened since.
There is NO arable land in the catchment area. Silting still happens gradually, as it always has, naturally.

 

[Cowabunga]

Silt in the rivers is not the problem. Failing to clean it out is! You will never stop rivers silting up, other than by cleaning them

That is precisely correct.

 

[Clive]

Rivers have always silted. The Aeron used to flood very badly, submerging the Willis Bros depot in the 1970's on a regular basis. It was dredged and re-engineered during the 1980's and has been good all the way to the town, some five miles downriver, since. The harbour in town was also dredged at the time and the floods upstream on the outskirts of town and into the school playing fields, that used to be an annual event, have rarely if ever happened since.
There is NO arable land in the catchment area. Silting still happens gradually, as it always has, naturally.

Of course rivers have always slited, soil had always left our fields

However it doesn't mean we can't do things to reduce that in the future

I'm not sure agriculture a past is a lot to be proud of in this respect !!

Again - slit isn't the problem in THIS case but lack of dredging was blamed for other recent floods - WE put the soil in the water and we have to take some responsibility for that and either we should pay for the dredging or better still let's not put it there in the first place !

Polluter pays and slit is pollution so expect to pay in the future

 

[Muck Spreader]

Whilst I can't stand the man, I think you do have to question the growing of Maize purely for AD plants. I stopped growing it as a feed a few years back mainly due to the cost but partly due to the damage is was causing to the fields. It is certainly the devils own crop in some years.

 

[Goweresque]

Whilst I can't stand the man, I think you do have to question the growing of Maize purely for AD plants. I stopped growing it as a feed a few years back mainly due to the cost but partly due to the damage is was causing to the fields. It is certainly the devils own crop in some years.

It was environmentalists like GM who were demanding renewable energy plants such as AD in the first place. Just like they were demanding bio-fuels, then suddenly changed their tunes when they discovered that actions have consequences, and removing X% of farm land from food production to grow bio-fuels has an impact on food prices, and on the environment. The typical Leftist inability to think anything more than one step ahead - they just never consider second and third order effects.

 

[Cowabunga]

Of course rivers have always slited, soil had always left our fields

However it doesn't mean we can't do things to reduce that in the future

I'm not sure agriculture a past is a lot to be proud of in this respect !!

Again - slit isn't the problem in THIS case but lack of dredging was blamed for other recent floods - WE put the soil in the water and we have to take some responsibility for that and either we should pay for the dredging or better still let's not put it there in the first place !

Polluter pays and slit is pollution so expect to pay in the future

YOU may do where YOU ARE, but that does not mean that any grass farmer in Cumbria does, any more than any farmer in the Aeron Valley does.
So don't speak for all farmers in this respect. Confine your comments to your own practice and specific arable areas that are prone to solid erosion due to farm practice, which is certainly not an universal issue. In fact it is confined to very few examples and areas indeed in my long experience.

Your example of AD plants is illuminating. Very few indeed have a history of longer than five years, yet even you point the finger of blame at them for silting rivers and, by implication, the recent floods in northern England. Come off it!

 

[Muck Spreader]

It was environmentalists like GM who were demanding renewable energy plants such as AD in the first place. Just like they were demanding bio-fuels, then suddenly changed their tunes when they discovered that actions have consequences, and removing X% of farm land from food production to grow bio-fuels has an impact on food prices, and on the environment. The typical Leftist inability to think anything more than one step ahead - they just never consider second and third order effects.

Dead right. Much of the flooding on the Somerset levels could also be attributed to their narrow minded views on wetland management, which they quickly distanced themselves from when the sh1t it the fan

 

[Ley253]

Please take your hair shirt off Clive, and stop giving Geneticly Moribund ammunition. Farmers dont put soil( their fields) into rivers, rain does! In the same way that you cant stop rain, you cant stop, but perhaps slow silting. You can however remove the silt, that is the bog police( EA) would allow it!

 

[turbo]

What is the silt made up of then Clive,is it all soil or like the rivers round here rotting vegetation?

 

[Old Boar]

I was shown this article which I think is excellent, and maybe a few people will read it given where it was published:-
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-cause-flooding-government-7078739

 

[czechmate]

Please take your hair shirt off Clive, and stop giving Geneticly Moribund ammunition. Farmers dont put soil( their fields) into rivers, rain does! In the same way that you cant stop rain, you cant stop, but perhaps slow silting. You can however remove the silt, that is the bog police( EA) would allow it!

But depending on how it is farmed makes a big difference to the amount of erosion. Did you ever hear of Oklahoma ?

 

[joe soapy]

Surely flooding as a whole is actually a good thing. Moes of the best growing land is the result of erosion and flooding leaving the silt.. The world would be a very different place without it.
The fact that naive people have built in low lying places does not alter the facts.
99% of the time houses, towns and cities benifit from the easy living that flat land gives with little thought to the consequences

 

[Clive]

YOU may do where YOU ARE, but that does not mean that any grass farmer in Cumbria does, any more than any farmer in the Aeron Valley does.
So don't speak for all farmers in this respect. Confine your comments to your own practice and specific arable areas that are prone to solid erosion due to farm practice, which is certainly not an universal issue. In fact it is confined to very few examples and areas indeed in my long experience.

Your example of AD plants is illuminating. Very few indeed have a history of longer than five years, yet even you point the finger of blame at them for silting rivers and, by implication, the recent floods in northern England. Come off it!

If you actually read my post you would see I have repeatedly said silt IS NOT the problem in CURRENT floods - I've lost count of how many times I've said that in the last 24hrs !

My comments are very much confined to arable areas. Tillage farming, late roots and increasingly AD. Plus some intensive outdoor livestock systems like pigs are not exactly helping I think it's reasonably fair to say !

Ad isn't going to make things better is it - so if we have yet to see consequence of that then things are only going to get worse

Something to look forward to !

 

[czechmate]

YOU may do where YOU ARE, but that does not mean that any grass farmer in Cumbria does, any more than any farmer in the Aeron Valley does.
So don't speak for all farmers in this respect. Confine your comments to your own practice and specific arable areas that are prone to solid erosion due to farm practice, which is certainly not an universal issue. In fact it is confined to very few examples and areas indeed in my long experience.

Your example of AD plants is illuminating. Very few indeed have a history of longer than five years, yet even you point the finger of blame at them for silting rivers and, by implication, the recent floods in northern England. Come off it!

Maize has never been used to fuel diary cows then?

 

[Cowabunga]

Maize has never been used to fuel diary cows then?

Only very recently [last ten years outside of certain favourable 'dry' areas]. Not much around here.

Much in Cumbria and those flood-hit areas? That is the current question. Much AD plants in those areas growing maize? For how long and how significant has been the soil erosion and resultant river silting?

Fact is, its not a factor in those areas and some of you lot are getting to be as bad at misinformation as Monbiot.

 

[SilliamWhale]

It was environmentalists like GM who were demanding renewable energy plants such as AD in the first place. Just like they were demanding bio-fuels, then suddenly changed their tunes when they discovered that actions have consequences, and removing X% of farm land from food production to grow bio-fuels has an impact on food prices, and on the environment. The typical Leftist inability to think anything more than one step ahead - they just never consider second and third order effects.

I don't think he ever liked AD.

 

[Kevtherev]

 

[cudota]

Only very recently [last ten years outside of certain favourable 'dry' areas]. Not much around here.

Much in Cumbria and those flood-hit areas? That is the current question. Much AD plants in those areas growing maize? For how long and how significant has been the soil erosion and resultant river silting?

Fact is, its not a factor in those areas and some of you lot are getting to be as bad at misinformation as Monbiot.

No. No maize in Lancashire there is an AD plant but that's even fired with grass not much silt in the rivers there is lots of gravel

 

[caveman]

No. No maize in Lancashire there is an AD plant but that's even fired with grass not much silt in the rivers there is lots of gravel

Remember seeing pictures on the telly of the huge boulders being moved down stream by the horrendous amount of water "oop north" a year or two back.
No surprise the waterways up there are full of gravel.
Don't think those boulders being moved could of been the result of talcum powdered, power harrowed maize ground.