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Fighting the flood factors
29 November 2009 By Nicola Cooke
With up to 1,500 families displaced b y flooding that has caused damage running to hundreds of millions of euro, attention is turning to the causes of the flooding - and how it can be prevented in the future.
While unusually high levels of rainfall in recent weeks played a major part, the focus is also falling on other, man-made factors that contributed to the situation.
What started as a problem last weekend in the west of the country, particularly in Cork and Clare, had become a national issue by the middle of the week as the River Shannon rose to record levels.
Across the midlands, homeowners, businesses and farmers suffered the same fate, with cars, houses and other properties abandoned as the river swelled steadily and burst its banks. The land and waterways simply reached a point where rainfall could no longer be absorbed, and floodwaters spread to the surrounding areas, with devastating consequences for businesses and households.
‘‘This flood has brought the highest levels ever on the Shannon, so it is a record event," said Dr Kieran Hickey, a geography lecturer at NUI Galway. However, he has no doubts the flooding was exacerbated by property development on flood plains, while drainage schemes on one particular part of a river simply push the problem further downstream.
Hickey is a specialist on flooding and has written a thesis on the history of floods in Cork city. He has also published a book on rainfall patterns. He said there had been a pattern of serious flooding in Cork, with the city flooding badly in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries. In one 19th century flood, 20 people died when a section of a bridge was torn away.
‘‘Ireland is like a basin, and the Shannon - the longest river in Britain and Ireland - drains almost one third of water in the country. But it has only one outlet, to the sea in Limerick. It is a large, slow-moving, shallow, long river and, as a result, has the capability to flood thousands of acres. I believe proper flood assessments were not carried out on all property developments granted planning permission in recent years, especially those near river banks.
‘‘We have had major developments since the last big floods with Hurricane Charlie in 1986, but these developments have never been tested. I think we need to look now at flooded housing and new estates to see where that planning was granted - and just where that failure was avoidable," said Hickey.
The flooding has also shone a spotlight on the dredging and drainage of rivers, ditches and man-made drains, which is the remit of local authorities and the Office of Public Works (OPW).
This year-round maintenance work can have a major effect on whether floodwaters are contained, but some observers say the work has been scaled back in recent years.
Michael Fitzgerald, a Tipperary councillor who chairs the Association of City and County Councils, said that significant cuts in funding to local authorities since the start of the economic downturn had diminished these services considerably.
‘‘There is no doubt the dwindling budgets have taken their toll in the case of the flooding," Fitzgerald said.
‘‘The maintenance budgets in some councils have literally halved in recent years. General operatives, who cut inlets in ditches and open and dredge drains, are retiring and not being replaced. When these are blocked, floodwaters rise instantly.
‘‘There is a panel of workers in every local authority who were interviewed and didn’t receive posts - but these are not being drawn on. In my own electoral area in Tipperary, 13 road workers, overseers and officers have left or retired in the last year, and not one has been replaced.
‘‘So much money was wasted on the hiring of consultants in the good times, instead of keeping budgets for basic maintenance. What we need now are schemes similar to community employment schemes, where the unemployed and low-income earners can help rebuild towns and villages damaged by these catastrophic floods," Fitzgerald said.
There have also been calls for an examination of the role played by the ESB, which controls the flow of water through a series of dams on the rivers Lee, Shannon and Erne.
The semi-state has been accused of failing to give proper notice before releasing water from the Inniscarra Dam on the Lee in Cork, which some believe may have contributed to the flooding.
It has been reported that water at the Inniscarra Dam came close to spilling over its crest ten days ago, after double the amount of forecast rain fell in the catchment area.
Other dams at the Shannon and the Erne were also in the eye of the storm last week.
ESB senior manager Paul Naughton said that the electricity company constantly monitored the water levels and flows on the rivers where it had hydroelectric power stations.
On ‘‘999 days out of 1,000’’ the company does this work without affecting the public, according to Naughton, but ‘‘unprecedented rainfall’’ had led to record levels in all hydro rivers.
According to Naughton, the throughput of water at the Parteen Dam on the Shannon was twice its normal rate last Thursday. He said there was currently more water going through Parteen than can flow through the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric power station in Clare.
‘‘That dam has been in operation since 1925," said Naughton. ‘‘In the 84 years since, it has not seen this level of water. The last record water level reached in Lough Ree was in 1954, and the level there last week was a halfmetre higher than that."
However, he said there was no risk of the dams being breached by high water levels. ‘‘Our dams are designed for a one-in-10,000-year flood event, and can cope with much worse situations than the current one," said Naughton.
He said that the ESB’s focus was on trying to minimise the impact of the record river levels on neighbouring lands.
‘‘We want to get back to a situation where spillages do not affect the public. There were probably a lot of contributory factors to this situation.
‘‘After previous floods, there have been instances where we sat down with stakeholders and made improvements. If an agency is set up to provide long-term solutions to flooding, the ESB will be fully involved and committed to working with this agency," Naughton said.
Floods put spotlight on local authority funding
The extensive flooding around the country has led to renewed calls for a review of how local authorities are funded, writes Nicola Cooke.
Cuts to local authority budgets have resulted in reduced maintenance of drains and dredging of rivers, which can dramatically increase the risk of flooding. Green Party leader John Gormley, climatologists and local observers have also pointed out that locally-sanctioned development on flood plains seemed to played a part in the flooding.
While local authorities have ring-fenced funds for emergencies and disasters, these are unlikely to cover the cost of dealing with the situation in the worst-affected areas.
Michael Coyle, chief executive of Galway Chamber of Commerce, said that the base from which local authorities collected their income should be significantly widened to avert funding problems in the future.
‘‘Development levies had accounted for about 10 per cent of [council] budgets up until recently, but nothing now," said Coyle.
‘‘In Galway city, the council has a budget of about €90 million – and €33 million of this is raised from about 3,500 businesses in the city, most of them small or medium-sized.
‘‘I don’t think this small number of people should have to continue to shoulder this. The government abolished domestic rates in 1977 – there may have to be a rethinking around this now."
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