Sir, - Rosita Boland's article "Drowned in the Wet Stuff" (Weekend, November 11th), on the subject of recent flooding, mentions Clonmel and asks: "What have we done to invite the devastation that drew the State to a halt this week?"
While ordinary people in Clonmel, victims of repeated flooding, have done nothing to invite this devastation, it seems to me that Clonmel Corporation and Waterford County Council, as planning authorities, have done much to allow the destruction of the natural drainage of a town which, historically, always experienced some degree of flooding.
Over the past 25 years, Clonmel Corporation has granted planning permission for the development of the old watermeadows of the town. These fields, on the banks of the Suir and its four tributary streams, always helped to accommodate the worst levels of flooding by offering large areas for the spread of relatively shallow water. This flood-plain, the natural drainage, the sponge of the town, has now been filled in, its levels raised. It has been tarmacadamed and built upon. There is now no place for over-swollen streams and the river to go except into the streets and homes of the town.
Incongruously, even as the town experienced recent flooding, the Corporation reduced the width of the Suir upstream at Irishtown, and mill-races were filled in at Old Bridge.
The neighbouring planning authority, Waterford County Council, recently granted permission for housing development on the natural overflow of the Auk, a tributary stream of the Suir, which has been notorious for infrequent but dangerous flashflooding. That local authority continues to grant permission for development in sensitive areas of the Comeragh foothills, where some foundations have been excavated to bedrock, thereby again destroying natural soakage. At some gradients, and in extreme weather conditions, there may even be the potential for mudslides.
Both these planning authorities, at the present time, preside over the infilling of large wetland areas at Moanacallee and Greenane, thus again reducing the natural drainage.
In the hinterland, the Comeragh and Moanavullagh mountains have been seriously over-grazed. Within the past 10 years, heather has largely disappeared, erosion is widespread, again contributing to flooding.
Coillte continues to favour vertical ploughing in hill woodlands, facilitating a quick run-off of water, especially in heavy rain.
Much of this development has been done with Government grants, tax concessions and EU funding. It would appear that none of the authorities involved have ever met to assess the results of their actions on the environment of the town.
Meanwhile, Clonmel people await the next inundation. - Yours, etc.,
Margaret Rossiter, Powerstown Road, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.