Dilemma

La falaise a Penarth, le soir, marée basse - Alfred Sisley.

I linked to this painting in a previous post. The coastal scene is not that different today, over a century later. The promontory in the distance is Lavernock Point, a few miles out of Cardiff, one end of the proposed Severn Barrage, linking South Wales to Somerset. According to a front-page article in today's Independent, this will harness the powerful tide of the Severn Estuary to provide 5 per cent of the UK's energy needs.

That's a lot. You can see why the Government are very interested indeed, and why at first glance it makes sense. A wonderfully green scheme. But. But. It will mean the destruction of natural habitats, marshes and mudflats, for thousands of migrating birds, fish and eels. Vague promises are being made that alternative wildlife sanctuaries will be found but the loss will be immense. There are other less damaging options under consideration for harnessing parts of the Estuary - such as the ones put forward by Friends of the Earth, who have come out strongly against the Barrage - but none that deliver this kind of mighty renewable punch. As the Indie says:

There is little doubt that a barrage would destroy more wildlife habitat than any other British construction project in modern times. The Severn Estuary, where the celebrated naturalist Sir Peter Scott founded Slimbridge, the wildfowl refuge which became one of the world's most famous nature reserves, provides an 86,000-acre feeding ground for wild swans, geese and many thousands of wading birds, such as dunlin, turnstone, oystercatcher and ringed plover, from all over Europe.

Under EU wildlife habitat laws, if the Government were to go ahead, it would have to find alternative compensatory habitat – mudflats and marshes – which might be as much as 40,000 acres, and which might cost anything up to £3bn.

But that is unlikely to hold the Government back, such will be the temptation to grab that massive 5 per cent renewable energy boost from a barrage – for in December ministers took on the enormous obligation, in an EU-wide deal, of sourcing 20 per cent of total UK energy demand from renewables by 2020. Twenty per cent of total energy (which includes heating and transport) means finding about 40 per cent of electricity from renewables – nearly 10 times the current figure of about 4.5 per cent.

The Herculean size of that task means the Government is very likely to go for the barrage, especially as the onshore wind industry is suffering strongly from the rise in the euro against the pound, meaning turbines made in Germany and Denmark are now about a third dearer than they were a year ago.

Dilemma. I know the area well and would grieve at its destruction. I am in favour of renewables and clean energy (who isn't?). I distrust the forthcoming Government consultation process and the hidden agendas behind it that quite probably mean that it will be a rubber-stamping of a decision already made. I am a supporter of Friends of the Earth. There is a long way to go and we are currently living through the mother of all recessions and the country may go bankrupt and there will be an election soon. But I suspect the Barrage will be built, eventually.

Deluge

Compared to the flood-induced misery in other parts of the world, or even just down the road or across the border, this is nothing. Mere inconvenience. But the rain certainly has been tipping down these past two days. Wave after wave of it, sweeping in off the Atlantic.

This morning, a quick bicycle ride to the supermarket.



The usual route was impassable.



His owner and I compared notes on floods and rumours of floods.

After lunch, between downpours, a dash to the fields at the back to check on the river where I meet up with two neighbours doing the same thing. We riparian dwellers (a new adjective to me, h/t the Environment Agency website) keep a close eye on the water levels in our locality. Our little development hasn't flooded yet but ....



... cattle grazed here a few days ago, now it belongs to the ducks. (Apologies for the smudge on the camera lens. A raindrop.) A sudden roll of thunder provided an apocalyptic soundtrack.

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You can always rely on the BBC to be prepared. An outside broadcast unit was in town yesterday. They had obviously taken note of their own weather forecast.

Five

1. Seriously large leaves. Magnolia macrophyllia, or Big Leaf Magnolia,a native of the south-eastern United States and one of the hundreds of trees from around the world at the local arboretum. Sunshine. Walking in the woods. Feeling heard. Listening in return. Good advice. More pictures on Flickr.

2. Friday 13th lived up to its reputation. A catalyst of a day that ended in tears. My colleagues are as hard working and caring as any I have come across but good management is vital. An organisation simply can't function without it. That's all I'm saying.

3. I meant to blog about this extraordinary photograph and article when it first appeared last month. The subject is a Premiership footballer who had just scored a decisive penalty goal and who had lost his mother earlier that same week. The author is The Times's art critic. On the quiet I'm a follower of soccer, but even if you aren't, do read it. The commenters debate whether the piece is celebrity-fawning or superb artistic analysis. My inclination is towards the latter.

4. The shoulder pain has lessened. Oddly enough, apart from the deep tissue work, what seems to have turned it around was tackling a full body massage myself and not listening to the internal voices that told me I shouldn't because of the injury. I went ahead. The friend was effusive. I loved it and am almost pain-free. We're doing it again.

5. I need to register as self-employed.

River

I'm lucky. I knew I wanted to live near the river and now it is just a five minute walk away, bordered by fields where cattle graze.

Sometimes we regard it with apprehension. If enough rain falls in Wales, then sure enough a day or two later we are flooded. The reason these fields have survived being snapped up for housing is that they do double duty as a flood plain. No insurer would look at anything built on them.

I remember the first time I saw it in spate. It is terrifying. Angry. What shook me was the volume of the noise made by the rushing water. Stained reddish-brown by the topsoil gathered from flooded fields, the river boils and it roars. Whole tree trunks and branches are caught up, swept through the town and onwards downstream as swans, ducks and humans retreat to higher ground to wait out the torrent. Mostly though the Wye wears a tranquil face, a fisherman's and a canoeist's delight. At one time it was used for navigation - the path in the photos below was once a towpath - but no longer. Dog walkers and hikers now keep the grass short.

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The internal combusion engine holds sway. The powers that be have recently decided that a major bypass should be built to cross the river just beyond where the cows are grazing in the bottom picture, near a rookery and the nesting site of a pair of buzzards. It will take years; the plans will be protested for many reasons, not all of them scenic and aesthetic. I'll do my part with local environmental groups, but I suspect the outcome may be inevitable.

Now I walk these fields with a sense of foreboding and try to to imprint on my memory the solitude, the sound of running water, the exact detail of a leaf, a bird. All of them ephemeral.

Love of place. Not dissimilar to love of a person.








The usual advice: it really is worth clicking to enlarge the photographs.

Links:

River Wye, Wikipedia
Wye Valley, Wikipedia
Wye Valley, AONB
CPRE transport page