Thursday, May 28, 2009

EPA chief praises Netherlands' water policy on fact-finding trip

The Tech Herald: In a sneak preview of the way future US water planning may be headed, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Lisa Jackson and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu both praised the Dutch methods of water management during a week-long fact-finding trip. Jackson said her agency could learn a great deal from the Dutch way of learning how to mitigate flooding instead of attempting to prevent increased rain due to climate change.

"As climate changes and we start seeing more and more rain we have to stop fighting it," news agency Associated Press reported Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson as saying. "There's not enough energy in the world to fight it."

Senator Landrieu said prior to going on the trip that she intended to get some answers to how the US can deal with flood emergencies such as that which inundated New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. She said a number of "...very powerful and influential federal officials [were] going along, so that when we return we can really incorporate hopefully a lot of these ideas."

The mission was impressed by a number of Dutch innovative tactics to repel flooding including mixing water with sand dunes, building up minor waterways and the doing away with pavements to allow water to soak through to the earth….

Outer right wing of an altarpiece with the St Elizabeth’s Day flood, 18-19 November 1421, with the broken dike at Wieldrecht. Painted between 1490 and 1495

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