Thames Water- Finished?

[CoolHands]

Was it Labour

[CoolHands]

I must say their website is great for reporting leaks, and they act on them quickly too. I’ve made a number in recent months.

[Oliver Hardy]

Rufus Stone said:

glazbagun said:

https://twitter.com/theboysmithy/status/1750492453...



Reservoir creation appears to have promptly stopped after privatisation.

Do they have the right to compulsory purchase land for reservoir purposes?

There is no need to build reservoirs, put in underground tanks when building for rain run offs.

[Oliver Hardy]

The failure is of government, the original privatization model and subsequent regulations.

Didn't the government right of £5 billion of debt before the industry was privatised?

[otolith]

hidetheelephants said:

otolith said:

hidetheelephants said:

WTF? Copper pollution maybe? Whatever it is, someone should grab a sample and test it because the EA obviously won't.

Synthetic dyes of some sort, it's been all sorts of colours, along with some foaming.

Dodgy sweatshop knocking out clothing?

God knows. Locals have pointed fingers, companies have issued denials. Needs to be properly investigated. The local anglers point out that the EA’s budget has been cut but their fishing licences have not got any cheaper.

[Condi]

glazbagun said:

https://twitter.com/theboysmithy/status/1750492453...



Reservoir creation appears to have promptly stopped after privatisation.

To be fair Thames Water wanted to build a large one in Oxfordshire but it was turned down by planners repeatedly, with them saying that fixing leaks and consumers reducing usage would be sufficient. Fixing leaks is a very expensive solution compared with building a new reservoir.

[DanL]

Oliver Hardy said:

Rufus Stone said:

glazbagun said:

https://twitter.com/theboysmithy/status/1750492453...



Reservoir creation appears to have promptly stopped after privatisation.

Do they have the right to compulsory purchase land for reservoir purposes?

There is no need to build reservoirs, put in underground tanks when building for rain run offs.

You’re talking about a LOT of tanks to get anywhere near the capacity of a reservoir… So many that I doubt it would add up.

[Evanivitch]

DanL said:

You’re talking about a LOT of tanks to get anywhere near the capacity of a reservoir… So many that I doubt it would add up.

The estimate is that 145 litres are used per person per day.

But when you start chipping off the little things like toilet flushes and washing machines and dishwashers, then add in car washing and garden usage, and suddenly a relatively modest 1000l storage has quite a big impact. In Australia 10,000l storage is quite common if you do a lot of gardening.

There's then also the added value of storm.water attenuation where they can trickle back into the combined sewers if needed.

For relatively little money you could put 250l tanks into many gardens and severely reduce the impacts of sewage discharge and drought.

[ukbabz]

Condi said:

To be fair Thames Water wanted to build a large one in Oxfordshire but it was turned down by planners repeatedly, with them saying that fixing leaks and consumers reducing usage would be sufficient. Fixing leaks is a very expensive solution compared with building a new reservoir.

The nimbyism with the Abingdon reservoir plans are crazy, with tons of signs around the area trying to drum up opposition and local councilors pushing 'take more water from elsewhere' whilst talking about climate change impacting current weather.

To me it's a no brainer, and the proposed one seems sensible enough albeit challenging engineering.

[President Merkin]

Nimbyism may well be a thing but doesn't touch the sides when you consider the screeching halt in investment post privatisation. That chart above is shameful.

[vaud]

Evanivitch said:

For relatively little money you could put 250l tanks into many gardens and severely reduce the impacts of sewage discharge and drought.

250l? That's nothing.

Now putting 10,000l tanks for all new builds with pumps to service toilets, garden watering, etc would not be a crazy idea.

[Evanivitch]

vaud said:

250l? That's nothing.

Now putting 10,000l tanks for all new builds with pumps to service toilets, garden watering, etc would not be a crazy idea.

10,000 would be when you consider thr average size of a UK new build garden and the likelihood someone would dig into it!

But yes, certainly a few thousand litres under a small patio is realistic, and even existing homes have room.for a few hundred litres above ground.

[Digga]

Condi said:

To be fair Thames Water wanted to build a large one in Oxfordshire but it was turned down by planners repeatedly, with them saying that fixing leaks and consumers reducing usage would be sufficient. Fixing leaks is a very expensive solution compared with building a new reservoir.

It is, but adding reservoir capacity is also ludicrous if the network gets progressively leakier.

As others say, there's been nowhere near commensurate investment.

[OutInTheShed]

It's bad regualtion as well as 'investment'.

I think there is a wider problem of planning and development as well.

Developers making loads of money adding hudreds of thousands of homes which the system can't cope with.

Around here in the South West, it seems to be actually cheaper to build and run a private sewerage system than to pay wastewater charges.

'Economy of scale' doesn't seem to be be working.

[Digga]

What regulation?

A farmer in Herefordshire does jail time for dredging a stretch of river that was causing flooding to local homes, but not single water company or executive has been in the dock, despite rivers, lakes and beaches repeatedly and illegally being deluged with raw sewage.

Utterly ridiculous.

[Evanivitch]

Digga said:

What regulation?

A farmer in Herefordshire does jail time for dredging a stretch of river that was causing flooding to local homes, but not single water company or executive has been in the dock, despite rivers, lakes and beaches repeatedly and illegally being deluged with raw sewage.

Utterly ridiculous.

You have to differentiate between the legal and expected (but long ignored) practice of CSO discharge, and the actual corporate incidents, like the recent one in West Wales.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-670...

[otolith]

Evanivitch said:

You have to differentiate between the legal and expected (but long ignored) practice of CSO discharge, and the actual corporate incidents, like the recent one in West Wales.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-670...

Water companies find it convenient to hide behind the principle of permitted discharges in high flow situations when the issue is that they've been routinely doing it when flows are normal. It's endemic.

[turbobloke]

Digga said:

What regulation?

A farmer in Herefordshire does jail time for dredging a stretch of river that was causing flooding to local homes, but not single water company or executive has been in the dock, despite rivers, lakes and beaches repeatedly and illegally being deluged with raw sewage.

Utterly ridiculous.

Ridiculous indeed. The EA lost the plot long ago. A former head of the EA, Baroness Young (i/c from 2000 to 2008 iirc while she was still vice-chair of the RSPB) infamously said that she’d like to put a limpet mine on every pumping station on the Somerset Levels and Moors. Stuff businesses ahd homes (and farms) just let the flooding happen and make the wading birds happy. Muppet. The EA published a document which confirmed they knew that not dredging the rivers would make flooding worse and last longer. The farmer mentioned should have been paid for his time from the EA pension fund and his cell occupied by the relevant EA desk jockey.

[Evanivitch]

otolith said:

Water companies find it convenient to hide behind the principle of permitted discharges in high flow situations when the issue is that they've been routinely doing it when flows are normal. It's endemic.

Yes, because of a combination of maintenance issues, and abuse of the system. Hard landscaping and people forcing rain water into Combined Sewers is a huge issue.

Since 2016 there's be widespread monitoring of CSO, we don't have data from before then.

[otolith]

Evanivitch said:

otolith said:

Water companies find it convenient to hide behind the principle of permitted discharges in high flow situations when the issue is that they've been routinely doing it when flows are normal. It's endemic.

Yes, because of a combination of maintenance issues, and abuse of the system. Hard landscaping and people forcing rain water into Combined Sewers is a huge issue.

Since 2016 there's be widespread monitoring of CSO, we don't have data from before then.

Excessive surface water runoff is an issue, but there has been widespread discharging under low flow and even drought conditions. It's inexcusable.