“There is no viable scheme to alleviate flooding” in Boho, a letter to Fermanagh and Omagh District Council (FODC) has stated.

Boho has historically suffered from flooding, most recently in 2009, 2015 and 2016 when residents were cut off from their farms, jobs and from medical treatment.

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The issue of flooding in Boho was discussed at a March meeting of the Northern Ireland Drainage Council, a non-departmental public body which scrutinises the Department for Infrastructure’s (DfI) drainage functions.

Three months later, the Secretary of the Drainage Council Shaun Donnelly has written to FODC to highlight that, at the meeting, the DfI’s Rivers Head of Operations Owen McGivern carried out a presentation which outlined the possible engineering solutions that had been investigated. He “provided assurance that routine maintenance was being carried out and enhanced maintenance would have little or no impact.”

Mr. Donnelly’s letter explained that “computerised hydraulic models were used to show that, given the flat nature of the land, the watercourse is slow moving and so increasing the frequency of scheduled maintenance would have no significant impact on flood prevention.”

He added: “The historical flooding in the area and the impact on the local community was discussed at some length between members of the Drainage Council. It was however concluded that as the costs for any possible engineering solution, both in monetary and environmental terms, would far outweigh any benefits there is no viable scheme to alleviate flooding in the area.”

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The Drainage Council was told by the department that although homes in Boho have been cut off, they have not flooded internally, therefore “DfI Rivers could not write a business case to demonstrate that the works are cost beneficial.”
Mr. Donnelly concluded: “I regret that the Drainage Council cannot be more positive to your request but we must ensure that the limited resources of the department are targeted towards those areas of the greatest drainage disability and the scheme to alleviate this area is not cost beneficial.”
In December 2016, a flooding report was carried out after four consecutive storms in winter 2015 resulted in a clean-up cost of £12.6 million. It was written by Chairman of the Drainage Council Alan Strong, who concluded “there is no affordable or justifiable reason to carry out works in Boho” and “there is very limited long-term possibility of funding for major enlarging and/or re-aligning projects at the Belleek channel and the inter-lough channel – the two areas where water is restricted from leaving the Erne system during periods of flooding.”
The Strong report recommended that River’s Agency “continue to consider small scale actions in the Erne System such as minor changes in gates’ operation to provide greater pre-winter floods protection, ongoing regular maintenance of rivers and tributaries.”