Water

Sometimes I feel very depressed. Technically, this is not clinical depression; it is merely a feeling of despair and inadequacy as I take note of events taking place from day to day. My depression is exacerbated by what seems an all pervading attitude to any problem that either nothing can be done or that there is only one possible solution - and that is not likely to be a pleasant experience.

Let me consider water supplies.

Mrs Thatcher - one of our great prime ministers, at least, she is if you think that wrecking the country is an indication of greatness - decided that we needed to privatise the water industry so that the efficiencies of private management would transform our water supply system to a wondrous enterprise for the 21st century. Most of the old water companies passed into foreign ownership, not, as you might have expected, to improve the quality of our Victorian systems. No, the primary reason for such foreign investment was that certain people thought that they could make a lot of money. And they did. But following recent dry summers and winters and hose pipe bans, etc., government decided that something had to be done about water leaks from the ancient mains. Losses were over 30% in many places and Thames Water alone was losing 1 billion litres every day through the apparently porous pipes. At the same time, as a result of our equally porous borders Britain, and particularly England, has had a rapidly increasing population with ever greater demands for water. There is now great pressure to do something serious to stop the leaks. Some companies have made progress and much less water is leaking away now than was the case 10 years ago. In some cases the reductions have been achieved by the simple expedience of reducing the water pressure - less water pressure means less leakage. These foreign companies are not particularly interested in whether we have adequate water supplies or not and it is cheaper and more profitable to do nothing.

Now we are being told that we have a terrible future ahead caused by global warming which will severely restrict our water supplies. In some parts of the world this is true - and will be as long as no-one makes any efforts to control population growth. In Britain, the thing that will restrict our water supplies is lack of storage. I cannot remember any really major water storage schemes in the south east - or anywhere else, for that matter - in the last 30 years. No doubt this summer we will have some great storms and many areas will be severely flooded. Think of the south west and the Severn valley as well as parts of Yorkshire. The water will subside and all the water will drain down into the rivers and, ultimately, the sea. We must address this. Every year we will have limitations in supply - in some cases quite severe - because we have had a bit of dry weather and we have inadequate storage.

England has a total surface area of 130,410 sq km and if we assume an average rainfall of 50 cm, then the total rainfall is some 65 billion cubic metres per year. Of this about 5 billion cubic metres is used by private citizens and industry [including nearly 20% loss]; ie about 7.6%. My estimate of rainfall was low, even in a globally warmed England. High ground and parts of west facing land have much more than 50cm in rainfall. I have ignored Wales and Scotland which are both wetter than England. So, the reality is that we use probably less than 5% of the rain that falls on England. We need to collect more of it and arrange an effective distribution system to move water from wet regions to dry ones - primarily the SE. This could be achieved by repairing and extending the existing canal system. It is nonsense to suggest that we have too little water. Down here in Crawley, the water supply system is much as it was 30 years ago and population has almost doubled. Building more storage reservoirs would also help wild life. It is suggested that increasing water supplies increases the need for treatment. In practice it will not. The primary purpose of my suggestion is to guarantee supplies. If population and standard of living rise then more water will be required anyway. It should be an essential of any new building development - domestic or industrial - that systems are included to better utilise water - particularly by making use of surface water which currently goes straight to drain. Britain's water consumption per head is about average for Europe but much less than, for example, Spain and [surprisingly] Ireland.

Of course, all of this would be much easier if all the water companies were in public ownership. But that is obviously a ludicrous idea.