Aine O’Boyle
A LOCAL environmental group staged a colourful protest in Crumlin last week against the Poddle Flood Alleviation Scheme.
The protest was organised by the Crumlin Community Clean-up group in response to the scheme and included a number of events such as a river clean-up, marches and art-performances by local artists.
According to South Dublin County Council, there have been several serious incidents associated with the Poddle including major flooding in Kimmage, Harold's Cross, Mount Argus, Mount Jerome and Gandon Close that affected 50 properties and cost one life after heavy rainfall in October 2011.
The Poddle river rises in Cookstown, North of Tallaght, and flows directly into the River Liffey and is particularly prone to flooding. The Flood Alleviation Scheme was originally proposed for the river back in 2011 following the particularly devastating flood that year.
While the locals involved in the Crumlin Community Clean-up group are in favour of flood measures being put in place, they believe that South Dublin County Council and the Office of Public Works should consider nature-based solutions to the flooding issue.
Roisin McAleer of the Crumlin Community Clean-up group said: “If you look internationally and at a European level, walls are not being built. They don’t give people, or insurance companies, any fool proof guarantee that their lives and livelihoods and futures will be safeguarded in the event of a flood.”
However, the council’s project engineer said that nature-based solutions have been a focus of their design to greatly reduce the use of both earthen and hard defences. However, due to the heavily urbanised nature of the route of the river, this has proved somewhat difficult in certain areas. Some solutions proposed by the scheme include the building of walls and embankments along the river and the establishment of integrated wetlands to soak up excess water in the event of a flood.
Protesters claim this will mean that several trees around the affected areas will be cut down.
According to Laura Duez of Crumlin Community Clean-up, this includes “the chopping down of at least 29 trees in the Ravensdale and St Martin’s Park areas alone”.
The plans for the Poddle Flood Alleviation Scheme were in preliminary design since March 2018 with a proposed scheme finalised since September 2019. The scheme is currently still in the pre-planning stage.
At a meeting of Dublin City Council’s South East Area Committee last September, the project’s engineer said that the scheme is predicted to cost around €7 million and will protect up to 800 homes from the risk of flooding.
The Crumlin Community Clean-up group has set up an online petition on the matter that has currently accumulated over 600 signatures.
They have set out a number of demands that they hope to be met, including access for all to genuine involvement in river management, access for all to properly and maintained rivers by local authorities.