Whitchurch, England ¨C On a misty winter¡¯s day in the English midlands, engineers struggled to drag stranded narrowboats from a waterless, mud-filled canal that collapsed weeks earlier, in a delicate, multimillion-pound rescue operation.
The sight starkly illustrated an ongoing battle to maintain the U.K.¡¯s historic, yet deteriorating, waterways.
Britain¡¯s canal network ¡°is facing pressure it has never faced before,¡± said Charlie Norman, director of campaigns at the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), an independent charity advocating for the upkeep of the U.K.¡¯s canals and rivers.
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