{"id":1529,"date":"2025-05-26T08:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/news\/voss-municipality-opts-for-flood-protection-without-hydropower-development\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T07:13:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T07:13:16","slug":"voss-municipality-opts-for-flood-protection-without-hydropower-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/news\/voss-municipality-opts-for-flood-protection-without-hydropower-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Voss Municipality opts for flood protection without hydropower development."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A good direction for nature and flood prevention in Voss<\/h2>\n\n

After thorough investigations, the municipal council of Voss has decided on the direction for flood protection in the Voss watershed. Flood tunnels and hydropower development are not<\/strong> part of the plan going forward.<\/p>\n\n

The local newspaper has written an article about the meeting here: https:\/\/www.avisa-hordaland.no\/urealistisk-med-flaumtunellar-no-gar-voss-alternativ-veg-for-a-sikra-mot-flaumrisiko\/s\/5-132-918939<\/a><\/p>\n\n

The national watershed protection plan is weakened<\/h3>\n\n

The Parliamentary Report that was adopted on February 11th left a big hole in the National Watershed Protection Plan. This was actually a long-awaited report on how to prevent flood and landslide hazards, but in just a week the Norwegian Parliament\u2019s Standing Committee on Energy and Environment got in a sentence stating that if the social benefit is significant and the environmental consequences are acceptable, then hydropower can be built in protected watershed. In practice, the same assessment is made in all rivers, including those that are not protected. The change met with massive opposition both nationally and internationally, and in just a week, organizations with a total of over a million members were mobilized for demonstrations all over the country. Ahead of the decision, we made this post here: https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/news\/norwegian-parliament-committee-proposes-to-weaken-environmental-protections-and-enable-damaging-hydropower-developments-on-protected-rivers\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n

The Raundalselva is more vulnerable in the future, but safe for now<\/h3>\n\n

The change in the Parliamentary report made the Raundalselva stand even weaker in the flood debate. But in May 2025, after many years of strong commitment and debate about how to deal with climate change, Voss Herad has thus landed on the most sustainable solution for both nature and our society. It really looks like the local politicians in Voss have more knowledge about climate and nature than the politicians in the Parliament.<\/p>\n\n

There will always be some people shouting that it is time to build hydropower of the Raundalselva. But it is good to know that the river has science on its side, together with an army of nature loving people ready to protect it. If you want to receive information about the next time it is in danger, you can enter your email address here: https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/let-the-river-live<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Note: Other beautiful river gems that have had their protection weakened include Vefsna, Sjoa and Driva, worth keeping an eye on.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

\"Raundalselva,<\/a>
Snorkeling in the Raundal River. Photo: Halvor Heggem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After thorough investigations, the municipal council of Voss Herad has decided on the direction for flood protection in the Voss watershed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[104,96],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-conservation-values","tag-flood-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raundalselva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}