Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi all, I'm on a roll tonight.

Think I'll try the poll functionality on this one below but am interested in your comments and insights on the role of the watercompanies in this crisis.

Are they to blame, what could they do better, is it global warming, bad luck or did I step on too many cracks on the way to school?

If I may go first I'll say I was incensed to see a Thames Water ad. on the tube where they showed one of those beautiful scottish castles that sits in its own lake, from the air. The text said that because of the work they had done on leaks they had saved this much water in the last 3 months.

What they didnt say was that for the last x years because of their lack of investment they had been LOSING that much water every 3 months - and to add insult to serious injury they were spending our money to tell us that instead of spending it on PIPES!

So I guess you have worked out where my sentiments lie - over to you. Please vote and comment.

Thank you

David

My experience tells me it has to be the companies. Pre-privatisation I can only remember one hosepipe ban and that was in 1976. When you hear of the shareholders' dividends it's clear where all the money's going.

we get a pretty consistant 30 inches of rain a year, generally there is no thought given to collection at an individual level. british syphon toilets use the full cistern every time they are flushed, we use cleaned drinking water to flush the toilet, which in most cases goes down the drain to rivers and hence the sea, at least our ceptic tank releases the mains water consumed in the house back into the garden soil. in general we as a country have abundant water the problem is management of use and distribution.

I'm with you on this one David.

2 years ago I had a mains water pipe burst round outside my gate,it flooded across my garden and down onto the main road...thousands and thousands of gallons. When I grabbed the phone to report it (7am) all i got was an answer phone,so I phoned the police as the water was becoming deep across the main road,the men from Southern water turned up eventually and it took 2 hours to turn it off.This was a big main supplying a reservoir and the water ended up about 2 ft deep across the road....shame it was November and my garden didn't need the water!
Having said that I think people do need to think carefully about how they use water,here on the Island we are all on meters as it was a test area but we still have a hosepipe ban and a lot of our water is piped over from the mainland,the tourist industry is a heavy user,who wants to stay in a hotel that says you can't have a bath! Anyway,I feel that water is taken for granted in this country and we have become careless with it's use,that includes the general public as well as the water companies.

I've voted "Partly" for the following reasons;
lack of rain,
the general public in taking for granted the fact that they use drinking water to flush the loo and clean the windows / cars / patios (and water golf courses, football pitches, race courses) and watering plants
the water companies for not acting sooner in considering a national grid, fixing pipes, responding quickly to leaks (even if they dont fix them they should be able to isolate the supply in many cases)
local authorities / water companies / housing associations for not installing water butts at residential and commercial premises (how much "grey" water can you collect off the average factory or office building ?)
Government for not advocating the use of "dual water systems" eg drinking water for kitchen use and rain water (topped up with drinking water) for toilet flushing - watering gardens - cleaning windows etc. Surely its not hard to insist ALL new builds (commercial and residential) MUST include water butts and compost bins - if its there more people will use them.

I can not just blame the water companies for the "shortage" its what we do with what we have thats important.

The water companies inherited a system of iron pipes with a big anno domini factor. The task of replacing that is colossal, especially in the high density of London's buildings. What do you want, sky-high bills and faster work OR a slower pace at moderate cost and put up with the extended work and water losses. Whoever thought of more housing in the driest part of the country was potty.
Maybe the compulsory metering will make some people wake up to their own extravagances.
Allan

Hi David,
I feel that Thames Water may be losing quite a lot by leakage they have a replacement plan that is going to take a very long time to complete.
The fault lies back in the days before privatization when the Water Industry was was allowed to fall into disrepair during 18 years of rule by a certain party
who then thought that they would flog it off to their mates who in turn flogged it on at enormous profits. Now it is with owners who are prepared to do something about it everybody expects that everything should be done yesterday and it simply is not possible.
When Water a Company finds a site suitable for a new resevoir it is The NIBYist coupled with Local Authorities that are preventing progress so they are never allowed to build something for the future.
In 1976 which was worse than this year for drought
for about the third time during my years they as a Water Industry tried very hard to get a national grid for water but was refused on the grounds of the enormous cost and now that privatization has taken place it simply will not happen ever.
In 1976 when the South of England was as dry a a buzzards crutch Scotland was exporting tankers of water to West Africa. Had we had a national grid there may well be no need for the new reservoirs that seem so badly needed in the South.
For this reason I have voted that it is not the fault of the Water copmpanies.

I reported two leaks to our local water authority a fewmonths ago, it took 2 weeks to repair one of these despite my telephone calls to say that the leak had got significantly worse. The second leak took 4 weeks to repair because despite detailed directions about where it was they said they could not find it, despite the road being wet and a huge great big hole and many phone calls.

This is why there is a water shortage.

Wasn't Thames Water recently fined for not spending the money on repairs that it had promised to? Money that went to shareholders instead. I was also listening to another case on the radio about a water company that had deliberately falsified its accounts. Public service may be lazy but private companies are more prone to corruption IMO. I'm sure we've had far more train crashes since they privatised the railways too.

Partly Water Companies for the various reasons listed above.

Mostly Planners and government for trying to shove more and more houses etc in the south east.

Kipling has a lovely bit on this in "Friendly Brook" March 1914.

"'I told him so, too,' said Jesse. 'I told him 'fore ever you did. I told him when the County Council tarred the roads up along.' He pointed up-hill, where unseen automobiles and road-engines droned past continually. 'A tarred road, she shoots every drop o' water into a valley same's a slate roof. 'Tisn't as 'twas in the old days, when waters soaked in and soaked out in the way o' nature. It rooshes off they tarred roads all of a lump, and naturally every drop is bound to descend into the valley.'"

Today we shoot rainfall from our roof and road into the sewer, through the treatment plant and out to sea.
Where once were fields where Kiplings labourers would lay a hedge are praires, devoid of hedge, ditch and pond, but plentifully drained and irrigated.
So when rain does fall, it does not soak gently into the landscape and create secret boggy places, it is channeled controled and disposed of as fast as possible.

Hi Peter,
You are correct in your final assessment but not quite so right along the way.
Water from your roof should run into a Surface Water Drain and have nothing whatsoever to do with the Foul Water Sewer System and surface water should join your street drainage system which in turn should find itself in the local brook. What is wrong is that that water generally escapes collection because nine times out of ten it bypasses any reservoirs.
To have a reservoir it must be strategically placed
to collect sufficient water to make it viable and it is LA's and the NIMBY's that are preventing these New Reservoirs from being built. Although there is an awful amount of water lost through leakage and the Media make good reading and viewing they are but a very small part of the problem.
The now owners of Thames Water inherited an awful amount of Victorian mains and the amount of planning that must be done in order to replace these mains is something most people think can be done by snapping their fingers but when it comes down to it it is exceedingly complex.
Strangely the Daily Mail last week showed photographs of the state of reservoirs in various parts with a comparison with 1976 and in 2006 the amount of water left in the reservoirs is far more than '76. What were the leaks like in 1976 well of course that is lost from memory.
As I said I am fed from the Elan Valley Aquifer that feeds Birmingham some 50 miles away but I have 4 water mains running through my property and there are two five foot and two four foot mains. When they blow a joint you really know it. One did a couple of years ago fortunately not at my place but it took half a hillside away and a house in the path of devastation had to be demolished never to be rebuilt. When Thames Water get leaks like that then you should complain but until then I feel too much is made of the situation and if any fingers are to be pointed they should be at the corrupt Tory administration for their mismanagement of the whole industry when they were in power. When the next election comes about you will have forgotten the water shortages as your attention will have been diverted to something totally trivial.

Hi Richard,
I defy you to try and buy a new Lavatory or a Replacement Cistern or a replacement Syphon that is not Dual Flush. Today single flush items are no longer manufactured of course you may still find one manufactured many years ago. There are of course many loos left using a single flush but in time they will all get updated. Again its not by snapping your fingers that you get change. I feel that it is quite possible that the reason for difference of the state of the reservoirs betwixt '76 and '06 could well be down to the introduction of dual flush systems.
I heard a water saving motto from an American Woman last week and she said she had been brought up to think this motto at any given time.
If it's yellow let it mellow but if its brown flush it down! Which raised a chuckle!!
Would you be amazed to hear that I had an E-Mail to complain that I had made a typo in my first posting
because having large fingers I sometimes hit two keys together and the word copmpanies appeared and that person didn't have the intellegence to work it out. I wonder if you can guess who that person is!!!

Thanks to everyone who is taking part.

Could I appeal to you to vote if you are reading this. We have had 164 views so far with 11 comments but only 19 votes. You dont have to comment to vote, just scroll to the top and press the button.

Thanks for your help,

David

Hi David -
I'm willing to vote, but the voting button is obscured by the graph bar line on my screen - is this happening to anyone else?
Cheers, Lyn