The OPW is liaising with Cork County Council to examine interim measures that can be put in place pending the completion of the €50 million Midleton Flood Relief Scheme to prevent any repeat of the damage caused to the town last month by floods during Storm Babet.
The decision to look at interim measures follows a meeting last week between Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Patrick O’Donovan and Cork County Council Chief Executive, Valerie O’Sullivan, in the wake of the damage caused in Midleton.
Cork County Council said river level monitoring gauges will be installed at key locations in both the Owenacurra and Dungourney river catchments, north of Midleton, to supplement the existing tidal gauges installed by the OPW on the Midleton Estuary, south of the town.
The OPW said the Midleton Flood Relief Scheme (FRS), launched after flooding in the town in December 2015 and January 2016, is one of the most complex in the country because the town is at the confluence of the Owenacurra and Dungourney rivers and near the Midleton estuary, making it vulnerable to flooding from several sources.
“Midleton has flood risks from four sources – fluvial, tidal, groundwater and pluvial,” said the OPW.
It said Cork County Council is leading the design of the Midleton FRS and in 2017, the council appointed engineering and environmental consultants to advise on the process from feasibility through design, planning and detailed design to construction.
[ Almost 40 flood-hit businesses apply for emergency funding in wake of Storm BabetOpens in new window ]
[ Storm Babet: A slow-moving train of rain hit Ireland. The results were disastrousOpens in new window ]
“Extensive and detailed technical analysis is required to establish the most appropriate solution, technically and environmentally from a range of possible mitigation measures and the solution has also to be adaptable to the increased risk from climate change,” said the OPW.
According to the state agency, data did not exist in 2017 on all four sources of flood risk for the town and monitoring was required over a number of years to obtain a proper understanding of the flooding mechanism in the town which is built on the floor of a limestone valley.
“The preferred scheme has now been identified with a total budget of €50 million, three times the estimated budget in 2017 which is due to the project’s scope and scale,” the OPW said in response to questions.
It said the completed scheme will provide a “robust solution” for Midleton and will be supported by strong evidence and will be “future-proofed and adaptable to climate change scenarios and will provide protection to 580 properties”.
At last month’s meeting of Cork County Council, several councillors from the East Cork Municipal District urged Cork County Council and the OPW to progress the Midleton FRS as quickly as possible with some arguing it was the only solution to preventing a repeat of last month’s flood damage.
Fine Gael Cllr Susan McCarthy, whose family’s newsagent business on Main Street was flooded, suggested sheet piling be put on certain stretches of the Owenacurra to ensure that water from the river doesn’t spill on to Mill Road as happened during Storm Babet.
Independent Cllr Liam Quaide said that the grim reality for people in Midleton was that they are living in fear of being hit by similar floods in a month or six months and the Midleton FRS being several years away offered little by way of comfort or reassurance.
“An essential part of our flood defences needs to involve working with nature – strategic planting of vegetation and trees that soak up water, the construction of wetlands, paying farmers to develop practices that reduce the amount of excess rainfall flowing off agricultural land.”
Cllr Alan O’Connor of the Green Party said flood mitigation measures and the need to move water through built-up areas should be considered in the context of climate change.
“Water passing through a town or village, via our river systems, has gathered from that whole catchment and represents perhaps thousands and millions of tonnes of water which has fallen on tens or hundreds of square kilometres of land,” he said.
“The capacity of rivers is generally less than 1 per cent of the capacity of the catchment. For maximum protection, we need to slow the flow of water reaching river systems throughout their catchments, so that the risk to settlements is reduced.
“We need to work with nature, to implement nature-based solutions, all over, as part of our response to all these issues. Climate action and flood relief go hand in hand – we’re never going to get on top of this whole problem if we don’t become ecological in our thinking – it’s all connected.”
