Good grief! That is a massive amount of water. Good thing it happened now and not next month during the Olympics.. yikes! I don't even want to imagine what would have happened.
We're in drought because we've had 2 or 3 very dry winters consecutively and so the groundwater is severely depleted - a lot of rain in April and May will not fix this.
What annoys me is the newspapers, especially the Daily Mail where I read the original article, complaining that it's drought despite the water companies making millions of pounds in profit last year. I'm sorry but since when were water companies able to simply create water out of thin air with money?
(Before someone mentions, there is currently no mechanism for transferring water from the North to the South. Speaking form personal conversations with the Environment Agency, they don't consider it their duty either to provide such a service (which I agree is correct), but rather to manage the catchments that we already have).
Any opinions expressed are purely mine and not that of any employer, past or present.
JamieLei wrote:What annoys me is the newspapers, especially the Daily Mail where I read the original article, complaining that it's drought despite the water companies making millions of pounds in profit last year. I'm sorry but since when were water companies able to simply create water out of thin air with money?
Simple answer Jamie - majority of writers/journalists for newspapers are brain-dead morons with about as much common sense than a roast potato. Less in fact. At least a potato is good for you.
JamieLei wrote:What annoys me is the newspapers, especially the Daily Mail where I read the original article, complaining that it's drought despite the water companies making millions of pounds in profit last year. I'm sorry but since when were water companies able to simply create water out of thin air with money?
Simple answer Jamie - majority of writers/journalists for newspapers are brain-dead morons with about as much common sense than a roast potato. Less in fact. At least a potato is good for you.
The truth doesn't sell very well. People don't buy the Daily Mail to be told why things are happening, they buy it so they can get outraged and blame some, preferably the EU, Labour and/or Nick Clegg. In descending order.
Its funny because you can do that with any UK paper.
The Daily Express is usually immigrants, muslims and people they believe are responsible for the death of Princess Diana (obviously not the media!). No wonder they hate the Al Fayeds so much...
Class 165 wrote:We're in drought because we've had 2 or 3 very dry winters consecutively and so the groundwater is severely depleted - a lot of rain in April and May will not fix this.
Thames Water say they may lift the ban because of the heavy rain in April and May. Do your research.
Blaming immigrants is not the thing to do also, it could be a fair-minded Brit that could have been working on the pipe!!
Very much a retired regular poster..... If you can say that
Class 165 wrote:We're in drought because we've had 2 or 3 very dry winters consecutively and so the groundwater is severely depleted - a lot of rain in April and May will not fix this.
And also because the population has grown since privatisation without any significant investment in infrastructure as private companies are not prepared to make such significant capital investments.
Jamei, its not a great idea transferring water from one end of the country to the other, because you'll poison the ground. Water has different mineral content and pH levels in different regions. Its possible for households, but agricultural use might be bad.
Haha - I do know A LOT about this. Oddly enough not in the UK context but in New York and San Fransisco, the latter especially where water supply has been driven not by a desire to water people, but to nourish real estate prices.
Regardless of what we we might regard nature as (social nature discourse talk about a urban ecology etc), effectively blocking development on the city's catchment is exerting power over those who live there. Even President Roosevelt said in the early 20th century in response to Los Angeles' plan to effectively 'steal' water from the farmers of the Owens Valley, 'the water is far more valuable to the state and to the nation, if the water is used by the people of Los Angeles than by the farmers of of the Owens Valley'.
If we've effectively hit a natural limiting factor (water) for growth in the South East, should we be looking to increase population and development further?
Any opinions expressed are purely mine and not that of any employer, past or present.
The development of the SE is not going to stop. The question of whether it should is mooted because even if we shouldn't, businesses want to be located close to London, where import/export links are best. If employers are continuing to set up or expand in this geographical area, then the people employed by that employer will also have to be (for the most part) within the same area. As can be seen via house prices in the south east, much higher prices for goods do not dissuade people from moving into the SE of England, hence any increase on water prices to reflect increased demand against low supply would not improve the water supply issues.
Decentralisation of government departments or the BBC is a good example of why people do not particularly want to move away from this area. If people want to live in or around London, moving them to Salford or Swansea is a "step down" in terms of access to goods and services which can only be found in London.
47407 wrote:Thames Water say they may lift the ban because of the heavy rain in April and May. Do your research.
That is only because Thames Water is supplied mostly by rivers and reservoirs, not aquifers, and so if there is a lot of heavy rain then the reservoirs will be topped up and there won't be a need to conserve water. However, most other areas are quite reliant on aquifers, therefore it is unlikely that some heavy rain now will allow them to lift the hosepipe ban - heavy rain is less efficient at re-charging the groundwater stores as less of it will infiltrate through the ground and more will run off resulting in flooding.
"Hosepipe bans remain in place for customers of Anglian Water, South East Water, parts of Southern Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Thames Water, Veolia Central and Veolia South East.
Companies which take most of their water from underground are likely to have to keep bans in place for longer as groundwater levels remain low.
South East Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Veolia Water Central and Veolia Water Southeast have confirmed their hosepipe bans remain in place.
The companies said their supplies were heavily dependent on ground water resources, which remain significantly or even severely depleted."
Oh wait, I've already said words to that effect. Just because Thames Water is considering removing the hosepipe ban doesn't mean that all the other areas will. All it means is that Thames Water is far less reliant on aquifers and so a bout of heavy rain will vastly increase their water stores in reservoirs. This is not the case for most water companies.
Class 165 wrote:We're in drought because we've had 2 or 3 very dry winters consecutively and so the groundwater is severely depleted - a lot of rain in April and May will not fix this.
If I remember correctly the One Show featured this a couple of weeks ago where they were interviewing people from Water companies and showed you one of the reservoirs in SE England and it showed just how badly depleted the reservoirs were due to the last few years. It seemed they were a good few feet lower than they should have been for this time of year.
Luckily I come from a land that will never see a hosepipe ban or a drought, good ol' rainy Scotland!
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There was a local news report showing a reservoir with a bloke stood on a bank. If it was even three quarters full he would have been under 20ft of water. Bizarre.
