Water Shortage and living on an Island
Discussion
Why is it that though we live on a large Island, seemingly blessed with being surrounded by water, lots and lots of it, we seem to rely solely on the heavens opening for our freshwater supply. Is desalination really a big deal to instigate?. It certainly never held the Israelis back from irrigating a large arid desert. Is Our country ran and managed by complete fools who fail to acknowledge that we are going to be here for a very long time, and water is something we are increasingly relying on. Or am I missing something? Why can't we have a 'proper' country?
police state said:
Why can't we have a 'proper' country?
We've got a proper country, but right now it's run by fuc4w1ts still living of the labours of our Victorian forefathers, and they're ruining it.
Oh, and geography is catching up. Sotland and the North of England have got loads of water, always have had, ran the mills, and the workers. At same time there was plenty down south for the modest needs of merchants.
If the need had been there then, we would have a huge victorian canal that was grossly over engineered, and we would be running at 20 times it's original capacity, bring water the length of the land.
Now that population has concentrated in the SE, the lack of a water grid becomes problematic. People pave their front gardens to park their cars so water runs into the drain rather than the ground. People sell their gardens for flat space. People put anything down the drain, which slows reprocessing.
.....Hey Yeah! An' we could charge you £7 a pint for it!.......
Lambochick said:
Based on how much our water companies manage to lose through leaky pipes, I say thank god they're not in charge of our gas supplies too!!
Far from me to defend them but in your judgement, where should they start to DIG then?.........some of these mains I believe are very large, old, and under great pressure......I feel that if it were that simple.....they would have done it...
Gas also....has a terrible record of leaks........more than you might think!
_dan_ said:
Heard in interesting fact.
Thames water (supply 13 million homes) lose through broken pipes and leaks, 915 million litres (214 million gallons) of water per day!!
And they have the bloody cheak to threaten a hosepipe ban!
Bast*rds!
I live in the North though.. so I'm ok for the moment...
Just gone through all of this in Sydney - about six months ago, as he left office, Bob Carr said a desal plant would be built and identified the plot of land.
Much outrage from the public, and the 'sudden discovery' of groundwater has shelved the plan, but the energy required to run one of those plants is enormous and the potential for harm to the surrounding aquatic life outstanding.
Of course being the driest, flattest continent Australians are used to recycled water and leak-free pipes. NOT. Recycled water is considered to be sewage, and the water company gets away with whatever it damn well pleases. The public just won't accept recycled water, and so want more rivers dammed, just like the last one - Warragamba Dam, west of Sydney, was proudly built in a rainshadow. Nice.
Much outrage from the public, and the 'sudden discovery' of groundwater has shelved the plan, but the energy required to run one of those plants is enormous and the potential for harm to the surrounding aquatic life outstanding.
Of course being the driest, flattest continent Australians are used to recycled water and leak-free pipes. NOT. Recycled water is considered to be sewage, and the water company gets away with whatever it damn well pleases. The public just won't accept recycled water, and so want more rivers dammed, just like the last one - Warragamba Dam, west of Sydney, was proudly built in a rainshadow. Nice.
police state said:
Why is it that though we live on a large Island, seemingly blessed with being surrounded by water, lots and lots of it, we seem to rely solely on the heavens opening for our freshwater supply. Is desalination really a big deal to instigate?. It certainly never held the Israelis back from irrigating a large arid desert. Is Our country ran and managed by complete fools who fail to acknowledge that we are going to be here for a very long time, and water is something we are increasingly relying on. Or am I missing something? Why can't we have a 'proper' country?
Desalinisation is hugely energy intensive, we have more than enough rainwater. The problem is that the pipe system leaks, the Victorians were brilliant engineers and build things to last, but 150yrs with minimal maintanence is pushing it.
Unfortunately the proirity of water companies is to keep the network running on mimimal repairs in order to preseve cash for paying dividends to shareholders.
{Mrs Thatcher 1980)I've discussed this before with a neighbour who was a waterboard engineer. The problem, he says, is the fact that the system is des9igned to facilitate water coming from inland and ending up at the sea, Desal plants would be based by the sea and feed the water back into the system..............hey! don't shoot the messenger
mattley said:
Why can't we have a 'proper' country?
Oh, and geography is catching up. Sotland and the North of England have got loads of water, always have had, ran the mills, and the workers. At same time there was plenty down south for the modest needs of merchants.
If the need had been there then, we would have a huge victorian canal that was grossly over engineered, and we would be running at 20 times it's original capacity, bring water the length of the land.
Now that population has concentrated in the SE, the lack of a water grid becomes problematic. People pave their front gardens to park their cars so water runs into the drain rather than the ground. People sell their gardens for flat space. People put anything down the drain, which slows reprocessing.
That's probably the main reason for the "sudden" water shortage in Kent. Plus we've had a very dry winter. Plus, there's no news like bad news and once the media get hold of a problem, it becomes an insurmountable population-threatening national disaster. Especially if (well, only if) London and the Home Counties are affected. If it were Cornwall, Northumberland or any other "Here be dragons" part of the nation, it would be relegated to a couple of column inches just below "Local Vicar grows Cannabis" and "What's on in Wolverhampton".
My water bill dropped by 75% when I went from rates to a meter - where's the problem?
billb said:
is it me or are all big compnaies fleecing us on utilities etc - petrol, gas, water, banks, councils
I thought it was me until you said it. The cost of living is going through the roof and the nobody seems to be noticing it. Gas, 25% up, Elec 25% up etc etc and yet by some miracle we have a government quoted 1.9% inflation. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny.
Ribol said:
Gas, 25% up, Elec 25% up etc etc and yet by some miracle we have a government quoted 1.9% inflation. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny.
The government have introduced a system called 'hedonics' into inflation calculations that has basically had the effect of letting them make up whatever figure for inflation they like.
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