1st September 2008

 

An Taisce has sent the Minister of the Environment a submission that it made in 2003 on Flooding.  In a letter enclosing the submission, Charles Stanley-Smith, Chairman of An Taisce wrote

"With reference to the recent flooding and planning, we remembered that An Taisce had made a submission to the Department on this very matter in 2003.  I have attached a copy of that submission and trust that it will be helpful in your current deliberations."

 

 

 

 

The mean time between flood incidences is now as little as three years for many areas.  Intervals between floods will continue to reduce due to adverse climatic change, the replacement of nature’s water storage media (eg, bogs, spongy ground) with development, rising sea levels and the reduction in river flood plains.

 

Inland flooding will be increased by climatic changes, which are expected to add 15% to winter rainfall and an increased incidence of extreme events, such as all-day torrential rain.  

 

There is an increasing incidence of coastal flooding which will continue.  Most predictions expect the level of the sea to rise by 50cm (20 inches) in the next fifty years, as a result of the expansion of seawater caused by manmade activity.  When high Spring tides, high local rainfall and an onshore wind coincide, this is the worst-case scenario, which leads to tidal surges, which may add a metre (three feet) to the predicted Spring tide heights in Dublin.

 

Ireland has a number of very-low-gradient rivers, notably the Shannon, which can flood at any time of the year.  They are thus very susceptible to any man-made development, which would increase the chances of flooding. 

 

At present there is commercial pressure for unsustainable and inappropriate development, which creates flooding problems for others without cost to the parties causing it.  The pace of such development is growing and the cost of rolling it back is horrendous.  This pressure is offered negligible resistance: planning authorities are failing to prosecute unauthorised development, such as landfill in flood plains; where they do (less than 2% of planning application numbers), convictions are the result in only one in five cases (2001 data). 

 

Consequently, short-term measures need to be taken to abate the hardship the ‘flooded’ will suffer on the next occasion.

 

 

Current policies are exacerbating the incidence of flooding.  The removal of bogs in river catchment areas reduces natural storage, or buffering, of rainwater, as does machine-made drains in bogs, which storage can be especially beneficial in adverse, but transient, heavy-rain conditions.  A new peat fired power station will remove 15 million cubic metres of peat from the Barrow catchment over the next fifteen years.

 

The replacement of sponge-like fields with concreted development (motorways, factories, offices and housing estates) which drain directly to the nearest river without requiring on-site short-term storage of storm waters is making the polluted (flooded) rather than the polluter pay, contrary to proper planning and sustainable development.

 

One person’s flood solution is another person’s flood problem: both upstream, and downstream of rivers.  Many of the issues relating to flooding are in the public sector domain and remedies involve large amounts of public money.  Both from the point of view of sensible decision-making and from a value for money basis, the case for an integrated approach to addressing flooding is overwhelming.  The current practice of incremental, or piece-meal, ‘fire-fighting’ remedies creates adverse conditions up and down stream of the river courses involved.

 

Flood prevention, rather than flood relief ought to be the priority.  Populist hardship grant schemes paid for by the Exchequer are a waste of money and discourage the taking out of insurance by claimants; this is best left to voluntary endeavour.  As a rule of thumb, the amount spent on flood prevention in any year should be about the same as the cost of flood damage in that year, including the reduction in the value of property attributable to flooding.

 

The role of the OPW in draining land for farm purposes is now virtually redundant.  And these drainage schemes as they are now constituted (without storm water storage) exacerbate inland and river basin flooding.  The flood-relief engineering and administrative resources of the OPW ought now be diverted to flood prevention measures, in all its aspects.

 

In practice, coastal and inland flooding have different and generally independent causes, and require different remedies.  It is possible, and it may be preferable, to separate them operationally.

 

At the coast, integrated coastal management can incorporate flood management. 

 

Managed retreat from flooded coastal lands may be the most sustainable policy in many instances of coastal flooding.  The State should avoid taking on the liability of protecting large lengths of coast against frequent flooding and coastal erosion on behalf of individuals.

 

The ‘biggest bang for the Exchequer’s buck’ will be obtained by legislative and practical changes in direction in public policies which impact on flooding.  Because of the case for urgency, another priority must be to implement those remedial measures, which it is practical to implement now.  This is the context in which we make the following proposals:

 

Precautionary Principle The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government ought to issue a National Guideline for planning authorities, which states that local and planning authorities shall adopt the ‘precautionary principle’ or approach in respect of flooding when considering planning applications.

 

Flood Plains Directive The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government should issue, as a matter of urgency, a Directive requiring local authorities to have proper regard to a Flood Plains Avoidance Strategy (or, in the absence of that, simply to ensure that built-development is not in, or does not adversely affect, a flood plain.)

 

The Minister should also write to local authorities requiring them to pursue those developers who engage in riverside-storage, filling in, compacting, raising the levels of and development on flood plains in areas where flooding is an issue.

Independent appraisal of land re-zonings All land rezoning advocated by planning authorities should be subject to certification by a national land-use commission for compliance with The National Spatial Strategy and Regional Planning Guidelines and to ensure that they had given adequate consideration to proper planning and sustainable development and to a Flood Plains Avoidance Strategy (or, in the absence of that, to ensure that built-development is not in, or does not adversely affect, a flood plain.)

 

Criminal sanctions for malfeasance by regulator officials   The Minister for Justice ought to bring in a law to create specific criminal offences, together with personal as distinct from corporate sanctions, bearing on officials entrusted and charged with exercising a regulatory role for gross malfeasance; and reckless flouting and subversion of planning and other laws.

 

A new norm Local authorities, and not developers, should be responsible if flooding results from development approved by them.  Building developers should be entitled to expect that planning authorities will not permit development where it could cause or exacerbate flooding.

 

Polluter Pays Principle  The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government ought to issue a National Guideline for planning authorities which requires all developments in areas liable to flooding or in areas impacting on rivers or drains in the latter areas to have artificial storage of storm waters of, say, 20 hours in worst case conditions (at the rate of a month’s normal rainfall in one day); any incremental development of existing developments should be required to retrofit storage. (In the latter case, it would be fair and prudent to consider a scheme of State subvention of the measures taken.)  Development here includes roads and public infrastructure. 

 

Voluntary or assisted endeavour Private households should be encouraged to provide rainwater storage where their rainwater is discharged to a public drain; rainwater butts, for example, might be grant aided.

 

Flood forewarning systems where these are practicable ought to be put in place.  In many cases there is a time delay of several hours between an incident of heavy rainfall and the onset of flood waters, making forewarning systems possible and of practicable benefit.

 

Create awareness of ownership and control of who is responsible for the relevant elements of public infrastructure, local rivers, etc at local level.

 

Land and roadside drains Local authorities should revert to the former practice of cleaning out roadside drains.  Planning permission should be required for filling in existing land drains.

 

Overarching body to control of unsustainable, unauthorised development, which detrimentally affects flooding.  The existing planning law allows any party with the financial wherewithal to prosecute unauthorised development.  As already mentioned, local authorities are clearly not using them as they ought.  The most appropriate party would be an over-arching body charged with overseeing a national flood abatement service.

 

An over-arching body charged with overseeing national flood policy is required.  The existing OPW flood relief service should have a major operational role.  It is essential, however, that the ‘flooded’ or surrogates of theirs, such as the IIF, are represented in large measure on a governing body.  Otherwise, it will lead to decisions or recommendations typified by that which seeks to define a ‘flooded premises’ as one which is flooded to a depth of two feet or more.  [Source: OPW discussion paper].