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.
Much like "England" is the term we use for the entire United Kingdom. Doesn't make it correct.
"and 'dyke' is the British spelling. Surely you know that English spelling is often different from American spelling?"
I'll give you that one. I just checked the Oxford dictionary and "dyke" is an accepted alternative spelling in The United Kingdom England.
Exactly!
They also spell "gasoline" as "p-e-t-r-o-l".
Or the trunk of a car as "B-O-O-T."
What madness! I grew up among Dutch and Belgian descended kids. Must have heard it said a jillion times:
"God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland!"
This must be a first in the history of the Netherlands. When people are less important than lower forms of life.
EU - ewww!
Remind me, again, why Europe has had its butt saved so many times.
The Terrorists have, for the most part ... to date ... won.
We are afraid to react to our fear.
My understanding of the Second Ammendment is that, when a government gets so powerful and close ... the kind of close that you feel it's cold breath on your skin .. Your life is in danger and you have the right to shoot.
We've lost, or at least put on a shelf .. the will to kill another human being when that human being is threatening our life.
The terrorists have learned that .. if they "group up" .. form a group, a coallition, a beureau, a union .. whatever ... they are individually protected from retaliation. And should we perchance have contact with one person, we are quickly allayed with .. "It's my job", or some such simular dreck.
I seem to re-call that the citizens of Boston imprisoned the British Governor in 1775 or 6 because they were finally moved to act against the Stamp act (or something like that).
We allow ex-presidents to sell our nation out and they don't get shot ... we allow thieves steal our money and they don't get shot, we allow legalists to destroy our rule of law from within (ACLU) and they don't get shot, we allow our land to be taken, our water diverted, our guns confiscated ... in fact .. we are allowing our entire world view to be altered with (fill-in-the-blank) engineering ... and no one gets shot ... but America is bleeding, and dieing.
Politicians defy logic and sanity and they are allowed to remain .. and not get shot.
It's not pleasant thinking these thoughts and downright scarey ... I wonder if the occasional war a nation will engage in is a method by which young men are fed the ultimate lie that the enemy is without and we've done our part, ... let's go home and enjoy the fruits of our labor .. and never really able to come to grips with the reality that there is a war here and we think it's sort of the same thing ... but ... naaahhhh ... couldn't be ... I'm home now ...
If you never see me again on FR ... be very afraid (I hope that was written somewhat facetiously)
I have a better idea. Don't widen the channel. That will protect both "the environment" and the de Feijter's environment. But the big money interests will win out over the little farmer every time.
That, too.
It really has less to do with being correct or incorrect than being official or unofficial. The official name is the Netherlands. Colloquial [informal] usage is Holland, even by the Dutch.
The Official Holland Site-Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC).
"Farmland has less value, ecologically." Somehow these people get away without specifying what ecology they have chosen and why. But that seems to be because they have changed the definition of government to Of the people, by the people, and for the birds.
The left is insane.
The left complains how there are too many people and won't be enough food to feed everyone.
And then they complain that there is too much farm land.
Utterly insane.
"Breaching dykes is behaviour associated with invading armies"
The authority of the EU over sovereign nations is an invading army. This is appalling, but I fear there is more to come.
I like crocodiles. I'd hate to see them all wiped out. You just have to be careful around them. But then, you also have to be careful walking through some parts of most American cities - but I wouldn't advocate killing all the inhabitants because some are dangerous predators.
What's the rush, global warming will do the job for free if they just wait a few more years.
That's silly; using your logic, only some crocs are non-discriminating predators.
Crocodiles are ALL dangerous predators. I can't think of anything much more fun than the idea of tying that a$$hole ecologist to a tree and letting him watch while those villagers killed every one of those crocodiles with AKs. Or maybe have them kill every one of the crocs except for one, and ask the ecologist how much it'd be worth to him to have them kill that last one before it ate him.
I often wonder what the world would be like today if we'd stayed home during WWI.
Our participation in the European wars I and II did indeed defeat the Kaiser and later, Hitler, but the USSR was enriched beyond the Kremlin's wildest dreams.
The value of the war materiels and the looted scientists and manufacturing machinery moved out of Germany and shipped to Russia was astronomical.
It appears as though the winner of WWII was the USSR. Their empire was to crumble of course when they attempted to outspend the US on defense.
Hitler would have never come to power if Germany won in Europe.
We saved France both times.
During WWII the French happily collaborated with the Nazis so it's no small wonder that they have no warm feelings towards their liberators.
In handing Eastern Europe over to Stalin, the American socialist leaders turned their backs on important countries, slouched back to Washington and guaranteed the Korean and Viet Nam wars. Russia could fight us with defacto regimes and never have to confront American troops in the field.
Well, back to reminiscing over WWI, we can thank that ex-president of Princeton and his socialist ideals for jumping into France. Of course all this meandering excuse for legitimate thought makes one wonder if WWII, et al would have followed WWI had we stayed home.
The EUcrats probably figure they can import all they need from the USA, as soon as they decide how heavily to tax it.
The ultimate definition of liberalism, the elites (the state) can run your life better than you can.
Forgive the language, but WTF? That's insane.
But 'Holland' is as correct as 'Netherlands'. The Dutch Board of Tourism and Conventions has an official website at www.Holland.com, and their 'Map of Holland' there shows all of the country.
No, I wasn't being clear. Obviously, all predators are just that. Crocs, wolves, lions, sharks - all are dangerous. I just don't think they should all be wiped out. Do you? I'd rather carry a firearm when hiking in lion country than have every lion exterminated.
I wonder if Germany "winning" the Great War would have precluded the Bolshevik victory in Russia. Of course, had the Treaty of Versailles been not the travesty it turned out to be, would Hitler have been nothing more than another lunatic the German people would have rejected.
If we hadn't jumped in in WW1, they would have negotiated a more even-handed settlement, but sides would have grimbled, but there would have been a longer-lasting peace
An early settlement might have prevented that. Germany allowed Lenin passage between Switzerland and Russia in 1917 in hopes that he would create instability in Russia.
If the war had been settled before the Czar was assassinated, the returning soldiers might have kept the Russian Revolution from succeeding
You must be more explicit. What do you mean?
But 'Holland' is as correct as 'Netherlands'.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.