Another rising tide - Are we to blame?

SO, the mighty Blackwater and many other rivers across the country have broken their banks and flooded farms, homes and businesses leaving bills amounting to millions in their devastating wake.

This is not the first time people living along the river have suffered and it is unlikely to be the last.

Aidan Weir, a senior engineer with Cork County Council, issued a stark warning: “There’s very little can be done once the Blackwater floods.” This offers cold comfort to those who are forced, again, to watch as their homes and businesses are subsumed by the flood.

Meteorologists have predicted that we will have to get used to more dramatic floods as a consequence of global warming. Indeed, the tremendous floods seen across England last year reached record levels and the possibility that they might recur is a cause for grave concern.

If we are to be honest we have played a far greater part in setting up the conditions that lead to such violent floods than we care to admit.

We still drain bogs — nature’s great sponges and flood regulators — with abandon; we recklessly build on flood plains, drain farmlands and plant uplands. We are amazed when the consequences of those actions are as dramatic as they have been over the past days. It is inequitable that those profiting from the developments that lead to flood conditions should not have to contribute significantly towards flood-prevention measures.

Though we cannot blame poor planning and inappropriate development entirely for the floods, they make the contribution that turns a normal winter occurrence into a minor disaster.