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Institutional, organisational and financial arrangements
Published in Willem F. Vlotman, Lambert K. Smedema, David W. Rycroft, Modern Land Drainage, 2020
Willem F. Vlotman, Lambert K. Smedema, David W. Rycroft
More commonly, however, the organisation is established by a quorum-decision of the interested parties (simple or two-thirds majority, whatever the law requires) or be set up by special act or government decree. The first applies, for example, to the drainage district organ-isations in the USA (established by simple majority of the interested parties), the latter to the Water Board organisations in the Netherlands (established by degree of the provincial government) and the Water Companies and the Environment Agencies in the UK (established by Act of Parliament). These more formally established organisations usually have wider tasks than simply drainage disposal and their service areas generally extend beyond the rural areas. The Water Boards in the Netherlands are, for example, also responsible for water quality control although they were originally formed for flood control and drainage disposal purposes only. In the UK, rivers are the responsibility of the “Environment Agency” (EA). The EA works very closely with and is partly funded by the Government (Department of Food and Rural Affairs). The Water Companies are responsible for the Water Supply and the Wastewater Disposal. They are private companies regulated by an independent body. Drainage at the farm level is either the responsibility of the farmers or of the appointed Internal Drainage Board. Discharge to a receiving watercourse has to have the permission of the EA.
River basin management and community: the Great Ouse Basin, 1850–present
Published in International Journal of River Basin Management, 2018
The Government adopted most of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, which ultimately resulted in the Land Drainage Act of 1930 (Dobson and Hull 1931). Under this act, 49 catchment boards were established, including one for the Great Ouse Basin, which replaced the Great Ouse Drainage Board. The 84 local drainage boards were reconstituted as internal drainage boards supervised by the catchment board. With respect to the ‘main rivers’, indicated as such on a map of the basin, the new catchment board got the exclusive power ‒ not the obligation ‒ to maintain or improve existing works and construct new ones. The costs were covered from precepts on the local authorities in the catchment area; from contributions by the internal drainage boards in the basin; and from government grants. Agriculture outside of the internal drainage boards did not contribute anything because in 1929 the productive industry, which included agriculture, had been exempted from paying local authority (council) tax.