To the editor:

Residents of Lawrence and Douglas County might take note of the costly, devastating floods in Europe. Could it happen here? Should we protect our floodplains?

A recent British Broadcasting Corp. news item asked: “Could this flooding have been prevented?” The BBC reports that some people in Austria place the “blame at the mayors of towns and villages in mountain valleys who have allowed major deforestation for holiday homes, industrial zones and business parks to be built on what were, until recently, the forested shores of mountain rivers.”

The report goes on to cite Austrian newspaper accounts:

“Die Presse carries a photograph of a stream near Innsbruck in 1993 completely overgrown with forest. At the same spot five years later, a new road runs beside it and there is not a tree in sight.

Another Austrian newspaper takes up the same theme, blaming “greedy mayors” for throwing local knowledge, based on centuries of experience, to the wind to woo businessmen and property developers in their hurry to be re-elected.

A lead article on the front page of Der Standard, a leading daily newspaper dealing with economic issues, makes the same point.

“Planning permission is given against (people’s) better judgment,” reads the article. “But whether the lessons will be learned is open to question.”

Here in Douglas County our elected officials and planning bodies should remember the European flooding when they make decisions about our own floodplains.

Frank Janzen,

Lawrence