OK, so I may be jumping the gun slightly – but experience is beginning to tell me that massive concrete walls built across estuaries are a seriously bad idea. Here's what we've said so far.
As a nation, we’ve come to that conclusion twice on the Severn and two decades ago on the Mersey. So why are we putting ourselves through this again?
Well – partly it’s because we need to tackle the threat of climate change by moving speedily to renewable energy and the search is on for the technologies that can move us beyond carbon.
But not at any price.
As the state moves away from impoundment barrage technology, private interests are moving in, clearly there’s money to be made in cashing in our natural environment.
On the Mersey Peel Energy Ltd are opening up their options for the public from 11 Dec until 24 January 2011 – you can read more here.
We’re desperately disappointed that the consultation (the final stage of a feasibility study) has failed to include technologies that could harness tidal energy without utterly wrecking the estuary in the process. Harking back to discredited technologies of the past, such as a barrage that will impound the tide, undermines the chances of the UK taking a leading role in developing innovative solutions and consigns the natural environment of the Mersey to inevitable damage.
I’ll come back to the wildlife later – but even if we weren’t dealing with one of Europe’s most important wildlife sites the risks (and additional costs) of a barrage in terms of flooding are considerable. We’ve spent quiet a lot of time this year highlighting the case study of the Eastern Scheldt in Holland where the impacts of a storm surge barrier built in the 80s are now becoming clear (you can find out more here – the download is at the top on the right). The history of the second Severn Barrage proposal and the first Mersey Barrage proposal was that studies deepened concerns about the impact on the dynamics of estuaries and the tides and, once revealed, brought a quick halt to proceedings.
Back in the day, the first Mersey barrage proposal went that way as predictions of cost and environmental impacts escalated, including impacts along the Welsh and NW coasts. The Severn experience has been a re-run on an even wider scale with impacts caused by reflected tidal energy predicted for the Irish coast.
But it is impossible to ignore the impact on the natural world – not least in these pages.
The Mersey estuary is recognised as internationally important for bird conservation and is designated as a Special Protection Area – for example one little bird, the dunlin, piles into the estuary in their tens of thousands to wait out the Arctic winter before returning north in the spring (they are there now). The Mersey is a vital link in their chain of migration.
It’s a story that resonates more widely than Merseyside – conservationists the world over are battling to protect coastal wetlands; in recent years the destruction of Saemangeum on South Korea’s Yellow Sea coast stands as a testament to utter foolishness. The building of a barrier to cut off the wetland had predictable and disastrous consequences and yet went ahead against a howl of protest from local people, local conservationists and from around the world.
One casualty of the wrecking of Saemangeum was a relative of the dunlin (the picture of the flock) – the spoon-billed sandpiper (the impossibly cute chick pic). It is much, much rarer than the dunlin and may now be down to 400 individuals. The Disney Corporation is offering $75,000 for site conservation in China, for sites on the migratory flyway of spoon-billed sandpipers – you can find out more here, it would be great if you could cast a vote for spoonie (but you do have to register on the Disney site). The spoonie story will be definately one we follow next year on these posts as efforts intensify to rescue this wader from extinction.
Back here, the Mersey doesn’t have to rely on an X-factor style vote, our coastal wetlands are protected from destruction, the Mersey shouldn’t follow Saemangeum into the lists of sites lost around the world – but the pressure is on.
If you live in the Merseyside area – do go to the public meetings. State your concerns, ask questions. Here are some:
I’m sure you can think of other ones!
Saemangeum stands as a failure to protect the worlds precious coastal wetlands – it’s in all our interests to keep the Mersey flowing and not sacrifice it’s natural environment while harnessing the power of its tides.
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