I hope the moderators don’t mind, but I am asking for help and suggestions of where we can get help with regard to this very serious issue that will blight a huge part of the UK. Those of you who are familiar with the strategies employed by the Save Tresles campaign, your input and guidance would be really appreciated!
The politicians in there infinite wisdom seem to be hell bent on building a huge 18km concrete wall across the Bristol Channel in order to harness the tidal energy of the Severn Estuary, an area with the second highest tidal range in the world, only the Bay of Fundy in Canada has a biger range. Claims are being made that this huge dam would generate 5% of the UK’s energy requirements, with an anticipated life span of 120 years. It would also create 40,000 jobs over an 8 years timespan of build. It would also turn a pristine wetland environment for migratory birds into a fowl stinking swamp, increase the severe risk of flooding from high rainfall for the city of Gloucester and surrounding low lying areas in the estuary. It would also destroy one of the natural wonders of the world, the Severn Bore, which until recently held all the guinness records for distance surfed on a wave.
I and a lot of other people who surf the bore aren’t against renewable energy, we aren’t against using tidal energy to generate electricity, we just think it can be done more efficiently and cheaper than by building a huge concrete wall! Indeed, Bristol, the largest city in the estuary, leads the world technology wise in tidal stream electricity generation, something the politicians aren’t even wanting to consider, even though other governments, notably the Canadians have moved away from barrage type genertaion to tidal stream technology, using these Bristol companies, the reason being that very large esturaies generate vast amounts of silt that over a short period of time make them shallower and they therefore hold less water for genertaion and consequently make the whole thing less efficient, whilst vastly increasing the flood risk for all areas upstream of the barrage. Last year alone, we had very heavy rains in June that flooded the estuary and left 300,000 people without clean water for 3 weeks.
I am posting a few links here for those of you who may know people who can help with ideas, or are interested maybe in what is happening. Make no mistake, if this barage is built here, against all the environmental legislation that is supposed to protect against it, then the chances are that the same reasoning may be used to build barrages in your backyard, there are 26 other sites globally that the planners are looking at, some in the US too.
It is interesting to discover that the American-owned consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff have been appointed to manage the environmental assessment of the proposed Severn Barrage project and has previously been investigated for fraud.
http://news.findlaw.com/andrews/bf/gov/20080131/20080131_bechtel.html
This does not seem to be a one off. A google search of Parsons Brinckerhoff with words like fraud and corruption gleans some interesting results.
http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_12/issue_17/opinion_01.html
Their bedfellow Bechtel doesn’t fair much better.
http://mhweather.co.uk/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1173028420 This thread has all the chatter form the bore riders, along with the evidence and plans for where its is planned to go etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dva-J8VNOio This is a video made by Duncan Scott, a pro surfer with O’Neil who is a regular surfer on the river and Tony Plant, pro photographer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vze1vhK_1Jk Another fantastic clip. There are about 80 now on youtube.
So anyone with any expertise in mounting a campaign against what could the biggest environmental disaster of the century, please contact me, or Stuart Ballard ( Hoot) on the boreriders thread link posted above.
Thank you.