"The shocking truth, as I have been reporting here since early January, is that
those unprecedented floods were not just a freak of nature, brought on by
what turned out to be only England’s 16th wettest winter in 250 years. They
were deliberately brought about by a fundamental shift in management policy,
shaped by EU directives and enforced by the Environment Agency, which in
certain areas of the country, notably the Levels in my own county of
Somerset, put the interests of wildlife and “biodiversity” above those of
people and property.
Someone who grasped this when, at my instigation, he came down to Somerset in
January to talk to practical local experts was the Environment Secretary
Owen Paterson. After private meetings with those experts, whose pleas had
long been ignored, he returned to London with a clear idea of what needed to
be done.
The Environment Agency should be directed to dredge the rivers which had been
horribly silting up ever since it took control of them in 1996. Management
of the Levels should then be handed over to a “Somerset rivers authority”,
including those local boards which previously kept the Levels effectively
pumped and drained for generations. There should be a new sluice at the
mouth of the River Parrett, to prevent silt being pushed back into it by the
second highest tidal range in the world. And within six weeks the relevant
local organisations should present him with an agreed plan to ensure that
this winter’s disaster is not repeated.
On Thursday this was just what happened, when Mr Paterson was able to announce
that these bodies had come up with just the proposals he had asked them for.
But all through these recent weeks, a rival lobby has been desperately
trying to divert attention from all this. “Environmentalists” have been
battling to preserve their dream by hiding everything which made disaster
inevitable. Their “useful idiots”, such as the BBC and the journalist George
Monbiot, have repeatedly tried to blame the disaster on “climate change”,
and on greedy farmers increasing the run-off of water from the hills by
planting maize: two theories which no proper scientific evidence supports."
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