Sir, – Some aspects of the recent flooding in the Dodder system have escaped scrutiny.
Why did the flood come down with a velocity we have not seen before? It dug holes in the lower Orwell linear park and deposited our wild trout around a wide area. There was a smell of decaying fish in the park for days afterwards. Also there was lasting damage done to holding pools, many of which are now filled with large mounds of gravel.
But could this damage not have been avoided if the bottom reservoir at Bohernabreena had been been kept at a lower level in order to catch the flood and blunt the first surge of the water?
Another aspect which has hardly received a mention is the disastrous practice of culverting or "burying alive" of our tributary streams. Look at the areas that were flooded and then look at Claire Sweeney's book The Rivers of Dublin. A culverted stream will never be far away. It surely beggars belief that designers and planning authorities persist with the practice. It is simply not intelligent to expect a swollen stream to fit into a box culvert or pipe and somebody should be held responsible for the consequences.
The Dodder Anglers Association is implacably opposed to the culverting of our spawning tributaries. We seek to have all streams left open and landscaped and bridged.
The last notable and painful defeat of our policy on this issue was in Dundrum where the Slang river was culverted under two developments. The evidence speaks for itself. – Yours, etc,