The whole ban / shortage thing is fabricated just to deflect attention away from the other things that are going on.
If that's true, then why don't we have a permanent ban ?
Well, because the ban is just ONE of many deflection devices that get rolled-out every now and then by the spin doctors.
Didn't you notice the fuel tankers strike that never was ? The drivers needed to give 7 days notice of strike action, but the ministerial advice was to fill-up your cars ASAP.
This kept the media from focusing on the naming of who was lunching in private with the PM and influencing government policy, as they bombarded us with pictures of petrol queues.
All they had to do was say "fill up your tanks" and we all stopped thinking about how the head of a supermarket chain got to say his piece on the minimum pricing of alcohol directly to the PM in private.
Common sense would say that all profits made by utilities should be ploughed back into the infrastructure. The current system is a real mess as it is an area that doesn't lend itself to privitisation. You need one government owned utility body which shouldn't need high paid executives and share holders but should be run on key principles such as - ensure the best value for the customer at all times but never compromise investment. This isn't a car company or electronic company, it is a utility company.
What makes me laugh is the way people talk about a water shortage as if we've lost it to another planet. there is the same amount of water as there always has been for millions of years, and it will come back down to earth eventually.
What makes me laugh is the way people talk about a water shortage as if we've lost it to another planet. there is the same amount of water as there always has been for millions of years, and it will come back down to earth eventually.
What makes me laugh is the way people talk about a water shortage as if we've lost it to another planet. there is the same amount of water as there always has been for millions of years, and it will come back down to earth eventually.
That may be right for water in general which is mostly in the sea, but collectible water from the land is not an infinite resource. I've read it can take hundreds of years for water to percolate through the ground and rise up again in springs. Most of the water falling as rain and draining into the rivers today ends up in the sea where it came from within a few days so it is springs which replenish our rivers long-term and we are not very good at catching and storing rain.
It's only because of intensive water recycling that we are keeping up with competing needs of industry, farming, domestic users and nature. I heard somewhere that most of London's drinking water taken from the Thames is filtered and chlorinated urine from residents further upstream. Our spring fed rivers are being drained by industry and intensive farming and re-filled with processed sewage, ask any angler about the abuse of our rivers and it's impact on nature.
Desalination does sound sensible to me but not sure anyone is looking for a solution to the wider issues all the time domestic consumers are happy to drink processed piss and the hosepipe ban can be used to encourage the idea that we are the problem.
The funny thing about all this is, that I naturally assumed that the water we send back to the water company is cleaned and then stored and sent back to us. Hence the school yard facts that used to fly around the playground back on the 80s about the fact that the water we are all drinking has been drunk by 7 other people before us.
I never realised until a few years ago (while in France) that we are one of the few countries in the world that does not reuse the water. Strange.
Reading that is like watching an episode of 3-2-1. You just know the answer is going to be "Dusty Bin", even though you start off thinking you're in line for a holiday in Majorca!
.. this land of ours gets gets more and more ridiculous .. since the 'drought' was declared it has hardly stopped raining and yet, lo and behold, there are governmental warnings that stand pipes may need to be installed in some streets in especially 'dry cities and towns' as rationing may become necessary. This is ENGLAND for God's sake not Jordan, Somalia, Sudan or the middle of the Sahara .. in the immortal words of Robert de Niro .. 'what the f**k' ? .. the foreign mothers who now own the majority of our essential utilities had better get their priorities right or some enlightened UK Goverment may decide to re-nationalise them without compensation .. I hope
.. this land of ours gets gets more and more ridiculous .. since the 'drought' was declared it has hardly stopped raining and yet, lo and behold, there are governmental warnings that stand pipes may need to be installed in some streets in especially 'dry cities and towns' as rationing may become necessary. This is ENGLAND for God's sake not Jordan, Somalia, Sudan or the middle of the Sahara .. in the immortal words of Robert de Niro .. 'what the f**k' ? .. the foreign mothers who now own the majority of our essential utilities had better get their priorities right or some enlightened UK Goverment may decide to re-nationalise them without compensation .. I hope
But according to the "experts" Jordon, Somalia, Sudan and the Sahara Desert get more rain than we do. Therefore we all will have to pay more and have water meters fitted.
Some people think this is just a ploy to get money out us. Not me but then i'm gullable
That's right. Damn those 'experts' and their years of education, research, experience and knowledge. Clearly someone who has no experience or understanding of climatology, meterology, geography or geology knows far more about it by correlating 3 weeks' worth of heavy rain after two years of the driest weather on record with a massive conspiracy to foist water meters on the British people.
lordromford has it right on the reason why a sudden month of heavy rain does not actually do much to alleviate drought.
Here in Oz we have only just come out of a decade long drought with water restrictions in place and desalination plants being built all over the country, well, in the ocean actually.
You need an awful lot of consistent rain to end a drought because otherwise the 'run off' water does not penetrate the water table under the soil and simply evaporates.
You basically need the rain to be hitting fully hydrated soil so that it seeps through to the rest of the system.
The problem is that if you are a for profit company, your systems are just as good as 'they need to be', not a little better than they need to be. It doesn't make financial sense to be anything else -your duty is to shareholders. That's fine when you have normal levels of rain over a period, but if it's a little lower you have a problem. Wherever you stand politically, privitisation of utilities in inefficient and pointless.
All very interesting but the fact is that the water authorities are actually a monopoly and you have to buy your water from the designated supplier in your area so for us it's Thames Water or nobody hence we are slaves to their policy of saving all their income to pay hefty dividends to their share holders. If we had a proper water grid we could then choose our supplier in the same way we do for Gas and Electricity that would at least (in theory) create some competition.
That said whatever Thames Water say they have singularly failed to invest, sold off reservoirs and don't fix their leaks so their answer is rather than make investment they start a programme of rationing (because thats what it is) as it's a simple solution and doesn't require them to spend money. Personally if we ever get to the point where we are going to stand pipes in the street that wil be the day when my Direct Debit is cancelled as they will not be providing the service I am paying them for. In the 7th largest economy on the Planet, a country in the Northern Hemisphere which gets a shit load of rain this is a national scandal.
Comments
Didn't you notice the fuel tankers strike that never was ?
The drivers needed to give 7 days notice of strike action, but the ministerial advice was to fill-up your cars ASAP.
This kept the media from focusing on the naming of who was lunching in private with the PM and influencing government policy, as they bombarded us with pictures of petrol queues.
All they had to do was say "fill up your tanks" and we all stopped thinking about how the head of a supermarket chain got to say his piece on the minimum pricing of alcohol directly to the PM in private.
It's only because of intensive water recycling that we are keeping up with competing needs of industry, farming, domestic users and nature. I heard somewhere that most of London's drinking water taken from the Thames is filtered and chlorinated urine from residents further upstream. Our spring fed rivers are being drained by industry and intensive farming and re-filled with processed sewage, ask any angler about the abuse of our rivers and it's impact on nature.
Desalination does sound sensible to me but not sure anyone is looking for a solution to the wider issues all the time domestic consumers are happy to drink processed piss and the hosepipe ban can be used to encourage the idea that we are the problem.
I never realised until a few years ago (while in France) that we are one of the few countries in the world that does not reuse the water. Strange.
Some people think this is just a ploy to get money out us. Not me but then i'm gullable
Here in Oz we have only just come out of a decade long drought with water restrictions in place and desalination plants being built all over the country, well, in the ocean actually.
You need an awful lot of consistent rain to end a drought because otherwise the 'run off' water does not penetrate the water table under the soil and simply evaporates.
You basically need the rain to be hitting fully hydrated soil so that it seeps through to the rest of the system.
They just love our benefits etc.
I'm sure they'd agree the country is still pathetic! Hah.
That said whatever Thames Water say they have singularly failed to invest, sold off reservoirs and don't fix their leaks so their answer is rather than make investment they start a programme of rationing (because thats what it is) as it's a simple solution and doesn't require them to spend money. Personally if we ever get to the point where we are going to stand pipes in the street that wil be the day when my Direct Debit is cancelled as they will not be providing the service I am paying them for. In the 7th largest economy on the Planet, a country in the Northern Hemisphere which gets a shit load of rain this is a national scandal.