Maybe not where you'd go this minute, but...

[MrGongGong]

Leaving aside the relative 'value' of a Somerset farmer's livelihood cf one from Lincs, the drainage of The Levels is completely different from Lincs and East Anglia.

I know it's different
But we live in an age where the economic value of things trumps everything else
Best thing the folks of Somerset could do would be to find oil?

[ardcarp]

Best thing the folks of Somerset could do would be to find oil?

It conjures up a picture of being inundated by gloopy crude. Rain/sea-water generally to be preferred!

There is coal in Somerset though. In and around Radstock there were mines, and a now defunct railway system to transport the stuff.

[Serial_Apologist]

I know it's different
But we live in an age where the economic value of things trumps everything else
Best thing the folks of Somerset could do would be to find oil?

Wells Oil Be Fracked, as they might put it in Zummerzet doilect

[ardcarp]

[teamsaint]

this was the railway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_and_Dorset_Joint_Railway

attempts to reopen some or all of it.

http://www.somersetanddorsetrailway.co.uk/

[ardcarp]

Yes, I can remember Mrs A's family referring to it as the Slow and Dirty (aka Somerset and Dorset, aka S&D).

[teamsaint]

Yes, I can remember Mrs A's family referring to it as the Slow and Dirty (aka Somerset and Dorset, aka S&D).

there are some great old photographic books on the cheap books tables at garden centres and so on, about the S and D (and others), for the casual enthusiast.

[ardcarp]

Michael Leavis, of Glatonbury Festival fame, was on The Today Programme this a.m. bemoaning the fact that the Environment Agency had sold off all the draglines 30 years ago. These were indeed wonders of engineering, made by the firm Ruston Bucyrus (wonderful name) in Lincoln.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ruston+bucyrus+dragline&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=JF7rUquFDaiR7AbZ64GABg&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=819&bih=380

I also dimly remember the old stem-powered version, which I'm sure was being used (along with the old road-rollers...anyone remember them?) into the 1960s.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/4484322540/

Michael L. made the point again that deliberate upstream flooding is not applicable to the Somerset Levels. There isn't anywhere upstream to flood!

[MrGongGong]

I think you mean Michael Eavis

[Serial_Apologist]

There isn't anywhere upstream to flood!

The very point I was trying to make above.

[ardcarp]

Michael Eavis

Apologies. All a question of aurally perceived elision. Not having ever squelched or grooved at the GF, I'm not sure I've ever seen his name in print!

[Anna]

I had a brief conversation with a couple yesterday who used to live on The Levels (I guess they would be in their 70s) and they distinctly remember the regular dredging and they also said the silt from the Perrott was used to make shingles.
I see now in The Telegraph that there is a suggestion of Dutch Engineers being called to dredge and sort things out. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/we...-flooding.html

[ardcarp]

there is a suggestion of Dutch Engineers being called to dredge and sort things out.

The staff of The Somerset River Authority c.1960 would be turning in their graves.

Another anecdote...if anyone can bear it...about a certain engineer called Jack during the war. He designed and built with direct labour a new 'river' to bring cooling water to the Ordnance Factory at Puriton. If you are driving on the M5 between Bridgwater and Bristol you will cross over this straight watercourse. Jack wanted it to be called The Huntspill River, and this is the sign you will see as you cross it. Because of this vital war work, Jack was in a reserved occupation, but when his work was done he was called up and sent to fight the Japanese in Burma, whilst his boss, the Chief Engineer, got the O.B.E. (and we all know what that stands for.)

Years later, Jack designed the complicated drainage for the new M5 as it crossed that flat plain in the Highbridge area.

It's the same 'Jack' that kept The Levels from serious flooding during his reign.

[ahinton]

Might this put a question mark over the practicability and desirability of the tidal barrage idea, which has been mooted again recently?

Barrage? Well, whilst there can be little doubt that Cardiff airport could seriously do with a major expansion project and that undertaking it in a southerly direction would seem less problematic than in any other, it does seem like rather an expensive call to build over the Bristol Channel from there as far south as the M5 and A38 and it would almost certainly put the nose (if not also the tail) of Bristol airport out of joint, methinks; the total cost of the entire HS2 project up to Scotland would surely be well and truly dwarfed by it. The main plus point, apart from solving the Somerset Levels problem, would perhaps be that it would involve the total absorption of Weston-super-Mare by the expanded airport and surrounding buildings and some might argue that this could only be seen as positive measure. Oh - abnd it would have the additional advantage of removing from earshot all the arguments as to where in the vicinity of the capital to site Boris International Airport...