THORNEY, England (AP) — As children climb into boats to get to school and scores of hoses pump floodwaters from fields day and night, one corner of southwest England is trying to reclaim its land. Here on the Somerset Levels — a marshy, low-lying region dotted with farmland and villages and crisscrossed by rivers — thousands of acres have been under water for weeks. Some villages have been cut off for a month, leaving residents who have been forced to make long detours or take boats to school, work or grocery shops frustrated and angry. The disaster has put the Levels at the center of a debate about the effects of climate change and the cost of preserving an agricultural landscape created over the centuries since medieval monks began draining the wetlands around nearby Glastonbury Abbey. Floods have already inundated an area covering some 25 square miles (16,000 acres or 65 square kilometers). The River Parrett and other waterways have burst their banks and fields that normally sustain crops, dairy herds and beef cattle are under several feet (more than 1 meter) of water. [...] many locals blame this year's devastation on the Environment Agency's decision, in the 1990s, to abandon a policy of routinely dredging local rivers, which are now clogged with silt and running at between a third and two-thirds of capacity. The Environment Agency says budget cuts have not weakened its flood protection efforts. [...] agency chief Chris Smith, in an article for Monday's Daily Telegraph, conceded that the relentless demand on resources means "difficult decisions" about what to save: "Town or country, front rooms or farmland?"
Reported by SeattlePI.com 3 hours ago.
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