Posted on 05/27/2006 7:27:16 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy
(The de Feijters on the dyke protecting their farm)
A photograph of a grinning boy, riding a toy tractor, has pride of place in the kitchen of Aarnout and Magda de Feijter, the owners of a 148-acre farm in the Dutch province of Zeeland.
The picture is of their first grandson, Louis, and the de Feijters have always dreamed that he will one day take over the expanse of wind-rippled flax fields that has been in their family since 1835.
But there are other plans. In the name of European Union environmental directives, their farm is earmarked for flooding - the first time in Holland's centuries-long battle against water that a substantial piece of land is to be deliberately returned to the sea.
Some 230 years after its flat pastures were wrested from the waters, the de Feijters' farm - their home for 33 years - is to be re-flooded to reverse the disappearance of Zeeland's mudflats and salt marshes.
For the family - raised in a province that owes its very existence to dyke systems dating from the Middle Ages - the plan is "un-Dutch". Breaching dykes is behaviour associated with invading armies, noted Mr de Feijter. Flooding a "polder", as land enclosed by a dyke is known, "has always been an act of war", he said.
The couple have planted chestnut trees and apple orchards and resent hearing that it is ecologically less important than salt marshes.
"Isn't this landscape beautiful?" said Mrs de Feijter. "There are birds, there are flowers. It's green."
The final decision must be ratified by parliament next year, but chances of a reprieve look slim. Dutch officials support the project, part of a scheme to re-flood 1,500 acres of land on the banks of the Western Schelde estuary. The re-flooding has been imposed by the EU Habitats directive, and the EU Birds directive.
The end will be quick. Engineers will build a new dyke behind the de Feijters' land and demolish their 150-year-old farmhouse. Then they will breach the high, grass-sided dyke at the bottom of their drive and the sea will rush in.
Mrs de Feijter was eight during the flood of February 1953, when almost 2,000 people died across Holland. Now, their farm is serene. There is no feel of the coast about their polder. You could imagine yourself a hundred miles inland - until you notice the top decks of a container ship slowly slide past.
Anton van Haperen, a wetlands expert with the Dutch national forestry service, is blunt. Since 1960, Zeeland has lost two thirds of its wetlands, he said. "Farmland has less value, ecologically." Yet he has no doubt that, without EU laws, politicians would not dare to flood farmers' fields.
The de Feijters will be given compensation, worth £2 million. They talk of buying a new farm and starting again, though they are in their 60s.
They do not rail against the EU, instead blaming "environmental extremists". Arguably, their foes are the shoppers of Holland and Belgium, with their appetite for cheap goods from the Far East.
In order to allow ever bigger container ships into Antwerp harbour, a deeper channel is to be dredged that will speed up erosion of the banks.
It is that loss of habitat that must be compensated for.
Gerard van Overloop, the government official who will oversee the flooding, said: "For hundreds of years, Zeeland was built by taking land from the sea. Now we are doing the opposite and it goes against our nature."
EU member nations had better sit up and take notice rather than lying down and taking it!
New Orleans maybe?
When liberal whacko's run things people's lives are destroyed. This is liberalism run amok!
But, but all those improvements on the land would pollute the ocean! Surely, the envirowackos wouldn't want that?!?
2 errors of that newspaper: Holland is only a province of The Netherlands. It would be the equivelent of calling the USA "Texas" or Canada "Ontario". And the word "dike" in reference to a water holding wall, is spelled with an I. But it would be kinda funny to see a bunch of butch lesbians being used as a water wall.
somehow one just has to set back on their heels in amazement at the the idiotic strivings of these liberal environ'mentalists': global warming.....helping out the sea to reclaim it's domain.....etc etc.....then we have the judas goats right over here trying to give the southwestern us of a back to the mexicans....if anything, maybe they should give it back to the indians, a much better moral reason there to do so....
ooops!
Should just about take the 2 million the de Feijeters will be paid to "restore" the damage they have done. Dontcha think.
As always, the function of government is to govern. They will take what we surrender.
You see it everywhere, from the programs to release wolves into the south 48, **** the consequences, to the idea of destroying an entire farming community for a "snail darter", to Mark Warner dynamiting the Rappahannock river dam at Fredericksburg for the benefit of one stupid fricking fish which couldn't cope. Always the same stupid bullshit.
The one thing we could do which would most nearly totally shut down terrorism in the world would be to stop importing oil. To do that we'd have to start using the oil reserves off of Flori-duh and California and from all accounts, more pollution is caused from seepage from those fields than would be caused by exploration and pumping, but again the envirowhacks won't allow us to do it.
Can you imagine having to have fought Hitler with such a handicap?
Again the thing is international. Worst example I ever saw was on a PBS documentary on crocodiles on the Naya river in Africa. The PBS ****heads were interviewing some black African yuppie ecologist and they were showing a narrow section of the river where zebra had to cross and there were all kinds of crocs waiting at that point and you knew some of the zebras weren't going to make it. The ecologist was boasting about bringing the crocs back from the edge of extinction 30 years prior and then the camera panned to a village a few hundred yards downstream and it showed women washing clothing and casting furtive glances at the water.
One of the PBS (WDNC) types asked if the village was fairly new there (like maybe the people just started living in such a place due to population pressure or something) and the ecologist replied that it had been there pretty much since Adam and Eve. "Aren't you worried about people being killed?" one of the PBSers asked and the ecologist replied something entirely like:
"Sure, we lose a dozen or so of those silly negroes every year, but that's just the price you pay for good wildlife conservation!"
I mean, you know perfectly well that a$$hole would not tolerate crocodiles within a hundred miles of his own family. What I tell people is that the assholes doing this kind of shit are basically bullies, and you have to deal with them as such. The only thing they really comprehend is force, and they will stop their bullshit when you convince them that there are going to be PERSONAL consequences for their shit. Hopefully somebody from Russia or China will eventually get around to selling those villagers a couple of dozen AK47s.
Unlike New Orleans the Dutch Know how to build dams that can stand up to that type of weather.
And Chesapeake Bay, SF Bay, Delta areas of California..... The possibilites are endless in the US.
To which, with a shrug of the shoulders, an EU offical replied, "So what?"
Your pedantry is wrong -- the usage is quite correct for a British newspaper. 'Holland' is the common name the Brits use for all of the Netherlands, and 'dyke' is the British spelling. Surely you know that English spelling is often different from American spelling?
This story sounds like the way eminent domain is used in The United States by the socialists, envirowackos and liberals.
Now that's an idea. Except the plains south of NOLA provide nice tasty shrimp - and I'm a big fan.
Ayn Rand would say "Farm land has less value for whom?"
The purpose of the EU is to provide politicians with cover, so they may do what they want to satisfy the Elites, while being immune to the wrath of the people
Time for another European revolution
From a Dutch tourist site
Holland or The Netherlands?
The Netherlands is often called Holland, because of the role the two western provinces North and South Holland played in its history. This region encompasses Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and other well-known Dutch cities such as Delft, Leiden and Haarlem. However, officially, it is the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of three parts: the Netherlands itself in Western Europe and the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in the Caribbean.
And the word "dike" in reference to a water holding wall, is spelled with an I. But it would be kinda funny to see a bunch of butch lesbians being used as a water wall.
Dyke is a variant of dike. It is perfectly acceptable usage. It also can be used as an offensive term to describe a lesbian. The English also spell color, colour.
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