Limerick Northern Distributor Road Plan

kilburn

kilburn wrote: »

I always thought your home had been flooded you have no clue what that is like your basing your opinion on money being wasted and engineers not being able to build a road over a flood plain really

With unlimited money we could drain the river, but what would be the point? This road isn't the right solution for Limerick's traffic issues, imo. We need to stop the city spreading and spreading.

On the rare occasions I come through Limerick these days I am genuinely appalled by the march of houses towards the motorway by Ballysimon. We need to build apartments closer to the city centre, imo, and stop the creeping spread of the city.

Summerrose75

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Roads can be built on floodplains (and regularly are worldwide) in a way that doesn't affect the flooding or the road. The engineering is nothing new. I don't know how many times you need to be told this.

Houses on the other hand should never have been built on flood plains. However that ship has sailed and unfortunately the people who own those homes have no choice now but to live with it.

When my house was built 25 years ago and it wasn't a flood plain then,nor was it a flood plain in the 110 years my family had lived there,it simply did not flood,so please don't assume we built on flood plains,for many reasons it is now,so what do you do? The house can't be moved

damowill

Aerial footage of the flooding taken around O'Briensbridge/Clonlara. Ive seen a few pics of the flooding around Springfield which is similar.

https://twitter.com/ArcImaging/status/1231632297729970176?s=20

Reputable Rog

Looks like the river is flooding in areas where flooding is expected.
The Old River Shannon trust on FB is a good source of information for the lower Shannon.

Poxyshamrock

Waterways Ireland needs to pull their finger out and do something about the canal.

It's such a short stretch and could be improved significantly.

kilburn

Canal overflowed this morning hopefully it doesn't get worse over the next few days

damowill

i read this road has a budget of €140m and if thats all it would cost then im sure it would get built, with the Coonagh-Knockalisheen rd out to tender already with an approx cost of €42.

but i read somewhere before that building over a floodplain could cost approx €500-600m. While the 600m figure may be way off its still hard to see any Government providing that type of funding for a road thats only 15km long, that on top of the other road projects like Foynes-Limerick (M21) road which is estimated at €450m and the Cork-Limerick M20 which will most likely exceed €1bn. And these are just a few roads projects around Limerick. Other roads in Ireland will get priority, Galway ring road, M17, Castlebar-Westport road, the Ringaskiddy road and many others will get built and funding long before the LNDR id imagine, especially if the €500-600m is accurate.

The Foynes-Limerick planning has gone to ABP so with a bit of luck this will be completed by 2024. Adare badly needs to be bypassed and the sooner the better. I'd imagine the M20 will eventually get built in the next 10 years but the LNDR will be lucky to get built by 2040 if at all.

Cookiemunster

2026 is the current scheduled date for the M21 Adare bypass to open.

mart 23

What length of the proposed LNDR will be built on land normally affected by flooding.?

damowill

mart 23 wrote: »

What length of the proposed LNDR will be built on land normally affected by flooding.?

I'm not actually sure what specific areas are deemed a flood risk. But here is a satellite image of South East Clare and Limerick which shows the current flooding. also bear in mind that the Parteen side has not yet flooded, so by the end of the week the flooding could be much worse and more widespread. The Blackwater river is probably also high risk



https://twitter.com/CarlowWeather/status/1232234892269846528/photo/1

Glenomra

mart 23 wrote: »

What length of the proposed LNDR will be built on land normally affected by flooding.?

approximately two miles in length. it varies depending on the extent of the flood. this year's flood has not approached previous levels. seems to depend on how they manage the flow at Parteen Weir upriver on the Shannon.

Glenomra

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/clonlara-case-study-who-the-hell-gave-planning-down-here-day-one-1.4187216
And this is the same floodplain on which the Clare council want to build the road. Who the Hell will give them permission for that!!

geotrig

building a house and building a road are two totally separate things entirely, Houses should never have been given the green light to build on any of these floodplains or near them unless other extensive works where carried out.
Building roads over these areas won't & shouldn't encounter the same issues as the flood lands can stay intact with a road that is designed to cross them.
I think some people will the use "floods" ins certain areas as a reason to not build the roads when they just don't want roads running near their houses/area's and that's an reasonable and ok reason for the most part but its not always a valid reason that no progress or compromises are ever agreed.

even at that no one want to see any home owners suffer, I dont know what works are in place to asses the shannon and the flooding and floodplains and trying to controll these events but that should be the next step of something that should have been ongoing for years ! but like everything in this country its something that has had little to no investment or work done over the years , some other countries*~(not all to be fair) would carry out big engineering project to combat these events

kilburn

Glenomra wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/clonlara-case-study-who-the-hell-gave-planning-down-here-day-one-1.4187216
And this is the same floodplain on which the Clare council want to build the road. Who the Hell will give them permission for that!!

Again you have no clue about modern engineering and road building practices.

If the ESB got their act together re the discharge levels things would be a lot better

Glenomra

kilburn wrote: »

Again you have no clue about modern engineering and road building practices.

If the ESB got their act together re the discharge levels things would be a lot better

the engineers in Clare county council who gave these homeowners permission to build on a floodplain, some in recent years, had some clue!!!!! I hope that the engineers designing the dual carriageway have more!!

apc

How many local councillors over the years got backhanders for pushing through planning permission

Cookiemunster

apc wrote: »

How many local councillors over the years got backhanders for pushing through planning permission

Local councillors have no part in approving planning permission. All they can do is enter a submission the same as anyone else. The planning dept who are all civil servants make those decisions.

Glenomra

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Local councillors have no part in approving planning permission. All they can do is enter a submission the same as anyone else. The planning dept who are all civil servants make those decisions.

Local councillors certainly have a huge part in the process. It was they who voted to change their county plans to preserve a designate a protected route to allow for the construction of the road.

Cookiemunster

Glenomra wrote: »

Local councillors certainly have a huge part in the process. It was they who voted to change their county plans to preserve a designate a protected route to allow for the construction of the road.

There's a huge difference between a county plan and zoning and actually giving planning permission to individual projects that have to meet national well as local regulations.

Reputable Rog

Glenomra wrote: »

the engineers in Clare county council who gave these homeowners permission to build on a floodplain, some in recent years, had some clue!!!!! I hope that the engineers designing the dual carriageway have more!!

First of all the engineers don’t give or refuse permission, they make recommendations with regard to applications.
Secondly if it’s up to the CE or their delegate to accept the recommendation.
Thirdly considerable lobbying by elected members allowed for these houses to be built despite evidence from percolation tests etc which showed that the sites were not suitable for septic tanks and therefore not suitable for an unserviceable dwelling.
Fourthly when these dwellings were built Ardnacrusha was generating significantly more electricity therefore there was a much higher regulated flow of water, there was also a large absence of consensus of flood risk management and mitigation.
Lastly any local building in this location would have known that they were building on the old course of the river.
Unfortunately the river is merely reclaiming what it’s own area.

Glenomra

Reputable Rog wrote: »

First of all the engineers don’t give or refuse permission, they make recommendations with regard to applications.
Secondly if it’s up to the CE or their delegate to accept the recommendation.
Thirdly considerable lobbying by elected members allowed for these houses to be built despite evidence from percolation tests etc which showed that the sites were not suitable for septic tanks and therefore not suitable for an unserviceable dwelling.
Fourthly when these dwellings were built Ardnacrusha was generating significantly more electricity therefore there was a much higher regulated flow of water, there was also a large absence of consensus of flood risk management and mitigation.
Lastly any local building in this location would have known that they were building on the old course of the river.
Unfortunately the river is merely reclaiming what it’s own area.

Agree with that summary re flooding.

geotrig

geotrig wrote: »

building a house and building a road are two totally separate things entirely, Houses should never have been given the green light to build on any of these floodplains or near them unless other extensive works where carried out.
Building roads over these areas won't & shouldn't encounter the same issues as the flood lands can stay intact with a road that is designed to cross them.
I think some people will the use "floods" ins certain areas as a reason to not build the roads when they just don't want roads running near their houses/area's and that's an reasonable and ok reason for the most part but its not always a valid reason that no progress or compromises are ever agreed.

even at that no one want to see any home owners suffer, I dont know what works are in place to asses the shannon and the flooding and floodplains and trying to controll these events but that should be the next step of something that should have been ongoing for years ! but like everything in this country its something that has had little to no investment or work done over the years , some other countries*~(not all to be fair) would carry out big engineering project to combat these events

True, but why bother? What's the fascination in Ireland with building on floodplains? We aren't short of land, we don't need to convert our floodplains into housing. Limerick is full of low density development for no real reason.

If we were Singapore, Monaco or Holland I could see the desperate need for it, but here it's frankly inexplicable.

geotrig

[Deleted User] wrote: »

True, but why bother? What's the fascination in Ireland with building on floodplains? We aren't short of land, we don't need to convert our floodplains into housing. Limerick is full of low density development for no real reason.

If we were Singapore, Monaco or Holland I could see the desperate need for it, but here it's frankly inexplicable.

why? because cities and towns worldwide have been built near rivers !! ?? And will continue to do so as there are a fabulous thing. We need to invest to help control our river flood plains and maintain our lands and cities so people and communitys arent affected anymore or to limit the disturbances these events cause, Also I'm not saying and didn't say at any point to build housing!!! Our "low density" housing is another threads discussion and is a cost and people issue, I can tell you the people who have issue with this road have no interest living in an apartment in the city.
I've said it many times on this thread the north side of the city stretching across these areas is lacking in infastructure investment and has been for a long time, this is a problem nationwide also for the most part also!! Projects have been put on the long finger for far too long here and the longer we leave these things the more they cost us.
I fully agree we need to invest in trains(another issue), cycle lanes and all that but all these should go hand in hand.

marno21

Main construction contract for Coonagh-Knocklisheen has been put to tender

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/163113/0/0?returnUrl=ctm/Supplier/publictenders&b=ETENDERS_SIMPLE

geotrig

geotrig wrote: »

why? because cities and towns worldwide have been built near rivers !! ?? And will continue to do so as there are a fabulous thing. We need to invest to help control our river flood plains and maintain our lands and cities so people and communitys arent affected anymore or to limit the disturbances these events cause, Also I'm not saying and didn't say at any point to build housing!!! Our "low density" housing is another threads discussion and is a cost and people issue, I can tell you the people who have issue with this road have no interest living in an apartment in the city.
I've said it many times on this thread the north side of the city stretching across these areas is lacking in infastructure investment and has been for a long time, this is a problem nationwide also for the most part also!! Projects have been put on the long finger for far too long here and the longer we leave these things the more they cost us.
I fully agree we need to invest in trains(another issue), cycle lanes and all that but all these should go hand in hand.

Are you an engineer by any chance? The best (and cheapest) solution is to buy out the houses on the floodplain and let the river flood as it is meant to.

The north side of the city shouldn't spread that far north imo. There's no reason to let it sprawl. Albeit, my experience is limited by being away a long time. I am genuinely appalled to see houses swallowing Annacotty and beyond.

geotrig

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Are you an engineer by any chance? The best (and cheapest) solution is to buy out the houses on the floodplain and let the river flood as it is meant to.

The north side of the city shouldn't spread that far north imo. There's no reason to let it sprawl. Albeit, my experience is limited by being away a long time. I am genuinely appalled to see houses swallowing Annacotty and beyond.

I agree here ,I do think the houses should be bought out. I also agree on us building in and up in the city but we are a long way away from convincing many people to adopt apartment living, I'd do it myself but I personally think fees and std of apartments for the most are lacking, if we do start building more we need more open designed spaces and others need to be improved to encourage families. The houses and road are two separate issues to me though, and whether the road makes it all the way across to annacotty /castletroy to me doesn't impact on flooding issues for the houses.

Popoutman

kilburn wrote: »

If the ESB got their act together re the discharge levels things would be a lot better

Completely disagree.

There's a matter of the river pouring 10 gallons into a 5 gallon container. It will not work without spillage.

The absolute facts of the matter are these:

• There's about >700 tonnes of water per second coming out of Lough Derg.
• The Ardnacrusha Canal can carry 400 tonnes of water per second at maximum.
• There's little to no storage capacity (more than a few hours at max) between Lough Derg and Parteen Weir
• The rest of the river flow that is not going to Ardnacrusha *has* to be let out at Parteen weir to follow the old course of the river.
• The "normal" flow of the Shannon on the old course is only 10 tonnes per second.
• Fields start to flood at ~200 tonnes of water per second on the old course.

So, the ESB have absolutely no choice when it comes to releasing water.

The best they can do, and what they have been doing over the past 10 years, is to reduce the outflow at Ardnacrusha at the high tide times to minimise the water levels for the thousands that would otherwise be flooded further downstream. That has the effect of either raising the water levels above Parteen weir temporarily, or increasing the flows down the old course of the river. A Sophie's Choice situation. Correctly, the ESB tries not to have the river overflow the banks around Parteen Weir as that would mean no further controls possible for anywhere downstream of Killaloe.

It's well worth remembering that the current level of water between Parteen and Plassey is about the normal winter level of the Shannon before Ardnacrusha was built. That's very easy to see with the levels compared to the infrastructure of the weirs and towpaths that were built in the centuries before Ardnacrusha
We should be *very* thankful that 400 tonnes per second of water has already been diverted, and is not additionally flowing down the old channel, otherwise the damp feet in houses would be drownings in the beds.

There are too many houses built in places along the flood plains and callows of the lower Shannon, due to short sightedness of the builders/owners and poor planning decisions, and poor due diligence by the legals and engineers who might have forgotten that places that regularly flooded in the 1800s might flood again.

There's no solution in any dredging or flood defences along the callows, the river is already rock on the riverbed by Castletroy and no dredging is possible anyway.

With the above knowledge, how would one propose that the ESB do anything differently? In short there is nothing better than what is already being done.

kilburn

Completely disagree with you also as a resident who is impacted by the water levels as far down as the city. I track tides and water flows from the weir and strangely enough there is a pattern.

You are talking rubbish when the ESB increase the water flow in the week of heavy rainfall Corbally, Westbury and other areas flood.

If they managed the levels better in the weeks leading up to flooding the risk would be much less.

Refer to the Court case where ESB were found partially responsible for flooding at UCC.

By the way your "wet feet" and "drowning in beds" comments are totally insensitive and show a complete lack of empathy and sympathy for things that happened in the city during the flooding.

One families dog drowned in their sitting room, countless people had their lives destroyed, have you ever had the pleasure of claiming on your insurance for flood damage? Two words "consequential loss"

Elderly people whose homes were flooded developed pneumonia, others went on to die from cancer caused by stress not long after the flooding events.

Popoutman

Popoutman wrote: »

There are too many houses built in places along the flood plains and callows of the lower Shannon, due to short sightedness of the builders/owners and poor planning decisions, and poor due diligence by the legals and engineers who might have forgotten that places that regularly flooded in the 1800s might flood again.

There's no solution in any dredging or flood defences along the callows, the river is already rock on the riverbed by Castletroy and no dredging is possible anyway.

With the above knowledge, how would one propose that the ESB do anything differently? In short there is nothing better than what is already being done.

We urgently need the various bodies to wake up and ban building along the Shannon, and then to establish a fund to buy out houses already built on the flood plain.

That being said, I don't think the ESB care one way or the other for the river's long term health.

Popoutman

kilburn wrote: »

Completely disagree with you also as a resident who is impacted by the water levels as far down as the city. I track tides and water flows from the weir and strangely enough there is a pattern.

You are talking rubbish when the ESB increase the water flow in the week of heavy rainfall Corbally, Westbury and other areas flood.

If they managed the levels better in the weeks leading up to flooding the risk would be much less.

No. I'm afraid you are either working from inadequate information or you have a misunderstanding of things as they actually work hydrologically in the Shannon basin. I think that you are missing the very important point that the ESB *must* release from Parteen into the old course when Ardnacrusha is *already* releasing 400 cumec, otherwise we have a proper disaster situation.

Instead of saying "if they managed the levels better " please make a positive suggestion on what exactly you think they could have done. I'd like to hear exactly how you would have "managed levels better" now that you have the information on the volumes and capabilities of the system better known to yourself, through this post.

Though, my original point still stands, and is backed up by both the research and my personal experiences of watching the river for ~30 years.

Based on studies done on the midland Shannon catchment, there's less than a few hours worth of spare capacity of storage in the system, and it's already been shown that opening gates sooner would have less than a few hours of effect on water levels that are weeks high - i.e. not a lot to be done there, and considered negligible on the overall effect.

The spare capacity in the lower Shannon basin exists only in the actual Ardnacrusha canal itself, which can hold less than a day's worth of water, and the water section between the rock sill in Killaloe (at the bridge) and Parteen Weir which is limited by the height of the weir and the depth of that rock sill.

There's less than a day's worth of floodwater storage capacity in the second of those, and what in all honesty do you expect to happen when there's over 60 million tonnes of water per day exiting Lough Derg, into a system that at maximum can store less than 200 million tonnes of water, when the river has been pushing that rate of water for a month or more?

To be more clear - the ESB would have to have about a month's worth of prior knowledge of the extended period of rainfall (and we all know that this would require magic or voodoo), in order to have drained off all of the reservoirs along the river. Had that been done, then there might have been at most 4 days of buffer available and likely much less, that would have been overwhelmed by the many weeks of high water coming down the river without having *any* effect on the current water levels and the current flooding levels. In other words, the flooding levels are guaranteed when the rain falls as much as it has and there's nothing that can be done about it other than get on with life.

The ESB have zero culpability in the current flooding situation, and have done a spectacular and obviously thankless job in minimising the current flooding situation. I challenge anyone to show any different.

The choices available (and again I challenge anyone to show any other realistic choices) were i) to flood Corbally, the Island, Mill Road, City Centre to save fewer houses and some farmland already on known flood plains upstream; ii) to flood a small number of houses and farmland on floodplains to save a significant amount of houses in Corbally, the Island, Mill Road, City Centre; iii) ignore both choices and have the Shannon overtop and destroy the Parteen Weir bunds and ensure flooding of everything downstream and lose all possible control of flooding levels after Parteen Weir would be destroyed. Note - there's no possibility of an option iv) flood nowhere

It's unfortunate that you do feel that way about the situation, it's perfectly understandable - but you appear to have been ignoring basic facts about the capabilities of the water system and the possible controls available to the ESB.

Please feel free to offer any constructive alternatives.