"Tim Streater" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Tim W" wrote:

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
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"Tim W" wrote:
"Steve Firth" wrote in message
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[...]....., but hydro is cheaper and it's well
past time the Thames and Severn Barrages were built.

[...]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I'm sure that if you try you can come up with a reason. Try not to make
emotive appeals about ****ehawks when you do.

Watchet harbour - once a natural indentation in the Bristol Channel
coastline with the tide washing in and out twice a day, a little river
running out through it and semi protected by 19th century moles. 10 yrs
ago it was decided to put a barrage across the mouth of the harbour to
hold enough water in the harbour for boats to stay afloat even at low
tide when the sea has gone out half a mile. So while previously the
harbour water was in constant motion and emptied completely every tide
now the water is held in on every tide and fresh silt precipitates out
onto the harbour floor where it sits as mud. Consequently within weeks of
the marina opening it had filled with mud and the boats in it were even
more stranded than they had been before. Nobody had predicted this,
although it seems obvious in retrospect.

The moral is that if you mess with the flow of the currents and the level
of the tide in the massive silty estuary which is the Bristol Channel the
results will be totally unpredictable, but most likely a lot of mud
accumulating, possibly total irreversible ruination of the seascape,
landscape and intertidal environment and conceivably desastrous effects
on the low lying land on both sides which is below sea level for part of
each day.

Anyone who tells you they know what the effect of a barrage will be is a
liar or a fool.

Agree with this. And, en plus, you've got to build the *whole* *thing*
before you get any payback.


Actually worse than that. You build the barrage right the way across, then
you realise that above the barrage it is filling with mud, so you are never
going to get any payback and you have to pay to demolish the thing as well.

Tim W