In The News

[Perdide]

Originally Posted by Big Orange

Look at the lavish security detail squandered on the Olympics - see the guys in the mixture of civilian and suspiciously unpoliceman type gear? Special Air/Boat Service?

And on another tangent, the weather this April has been highly crap after a decent February and March: why the pathethic hosepipe band in SE England? The hosepipe ban speaks more of the comparative inefficiency and underinvestment in the water infrastructure in a overpopulated region than Britain's actual lack of water.

Gah! The Hosepipe ban!! Or as it should be known, the most pointless act of token gesture politics known to man.

As in, it's fine to use loads and loads of water, just so long as its not from a hosepipe, unless you run a car wash then you can use one to waste loads of clean drinking water getting dirt off cars. Using a hosepipe..

The big problem is that the water companies see their main function as selling water. The sell it to each other as well as us. So they're in no big hurry to offer a service where water can filter around the country when they could tank it up and sell it to the dryer areas.

There has even been FLOODING in the country this week! If we're that short on water the water companies should have been down there with their big tankers sucking some of the excess water up!!!

There are plenty of ways to conserve water, it's just every time one is mentioned its either too expensive for the companies to do, or it's too inconvenient for the end user. Hell, we live on an island surrounded by water - but it's far too expensive and energy hungry to make de-salination plants apparently, even though other countries manage it, plus there is the small matter of the fact we literally pump sh*t out to sea, just off our coast.

Sorry, long rant! I don't even own a hosepipe either!!

[runalong]

Being devils advocate

A) shouldn't the Olympics have security there have been several unfortunate events before e.g Munich and the Atlanta Games? Large numbers of people in a worldwide event from many countries do make it a target sadly

B) my impression for the ban is that the cause is that the really large reservoirs we have didn't get their entire top-up they typically expect over the whole autumn and winter months. They were actually some of the driest on record. Therefore I suspect a few weeks intense rain isn't enough to rectify the problem. While other options are available I think you may want to bear in mind that any national network or esalination is going to be expensive and I can't help but suspect its you and me that will pay for it - so hosepipe ban or higher monthly water bills which do you prefer?

[Boo]

Originally Posted by runalong

B) my impression for the ban is that the cause is that the really large reservoirs we have didn't get their entire top-up they typically expect over the whole autumn and winter months. They were actually some of the driest on record. Therefore I suspect a few weeks intense rain isn't enough to rectify the problem. While other options are available I think you may want to bear in mind that any national network or esalination is going to be expensive and I can't help but suspect its you and me that will pay for it - so hosepipe ban or higher monthly water bills which do you prefer?

True. What annoys me about the ban is that water companies lose a huge volume of water through leaks etc every year, which they never seem in any great hurry to sort out. I'd just like if they did their part to maintain and repair the infrastructure instead of putting the onus on the consumer.

[Perdide]

Originally Posted by runalong

Being devils advocate

A) shouldn't the Olympics have security there have been several unfortunate events before e.g Munich and the Atlanta Games? Large numbers of people in a worldwide event from many countries do make it a target sadly

B) my impression for the ban is that the cause is that the really large reservoirs we have didn't get their entire top-up they typically expect over the whole autumn and winter months. They were actually some of the driest on record. Therefore I suspect a few weeks intense rain isn't enough to rectify the problem. While other options are available I think you may want to bear in mind that any national network or esalination is going to be expensive and I can't help but suspect its you and me that will pay for it - so hosepipe ban or higher monthly water bills which do you prefer?

I'm sure the devil won't mind

Yes it's true, the reservoirs are getting low, and the rain we've had hasn't done enough to fill them. My main gripe is that it's "The Hosepipe Ban" ie don't use a Hosepipe you wasteful people, rather than "Use water responsibly" but I guess that doesn't make a good headline. As it stands if you want you can still fill a watering can from a tap 200 times if you feel so inclined and pour it anywhere you like and not get fined. However businesses, such as those car washes, can still hook up their hoses to the tap and waste loads of water - which comes from the same reservoir. So how is that conserving low stock? I would have thought the priority would be to supplying water for drinking and hygiene, so a message to conserve it would be appropriate, as it is it's just "No hosepipes for domestic users".

My point is that the water companies instead of being in the business of conserving and supplying water are mostly only concerned with selling it, and like a lot of businesses don't like shelling out money if they can help it. So we have a ludicrous situation where we live on an island, have large parts of the country sodden with rain most of the time and because of various developments over the decades - flooding whenever we get heavy rain in sudden bursts. Yet we still 'run out of water'.

It's strange that none of these companies really want to put in measures that could stop the reservoirs running low, like tapping into known flood areas to capture and save such water when it happens. Or look to the sea, or the rivers or other water capture measures.

Of course they'll be expensive but it's not like you have to built a new one every year, with proper maintenance they'll last many decades - but as all the water companies have a bad record with repairing leaks at the moment anyway, apparently, I guess that's unlikely to happen. Ultimately we pay for the service anyway, a service they cannot legally withdraw from you, even if they do throttle the water pressure for bad payers.

So it should be a case that these companies do what they were set up to do initially, supply fresh drinking water to the nation and charge an appropriate amount for maintainance and upkeep of their networks and system *not* selling water. So if they did their initial job properally, rather than go for profit, then there should be no need for a "hosepipe ban" or vastly higher prices.

I guess the rise of the water meter suggests that they'd much rather sell us it rather than just monthly bill for upkeep. What this means is that poor people end up being able to afford little but the rich can just p*ss it away, which is hardly in keeping with conservation. Not like you can change supplier is it?

... Sorry, heavy rant for a Saturday.

[runalong]

I agree that things need to change but the scale of what is needed is big engineering and this isn't cheap. I think they're starting to look into it there are reviews of moving welsh water down south I unfortunately think the high cost if these works will be in us - unfortunately little way around it.

I agree a hosepipe ban penalises domestic users but if businesses were told to stop use they fold which is hard to restart when levels rise again.

[Pie Man 70]

There is a problem with the water companies not investing in infrastructure, it cuts into profits, and cutting back on maintenance really just means a small cheap problem becomes a big expensive one, which will mean even less likelyhood of a proper fix (See railways under railtrack). If the govt will insist on having private companies manage the water infrastructure then they must have sanctions for poor maintenance and low investment. Basically these companies shoudl be fancing fines and teh threat of loosing their franchise if a hosepipe ban is required.

There would then also have to be regulation in charges so the cost of doing teh job properly doesn't get dumped on consumers.

[peanut]

Originally Posted by Pie Man 70

If the govt will insist on having private companies manage the water infrastructure then they must have sanctions for poor maintenance and low investment. Basically these companies shoudl be fancing fines and teh threat of loosing their franchise if a hosepipe ban is required.
.

The companies already face fines if they dont meet leakage improvement targets (amongst others). However they are unlikely to be linked to hosepipe bans. The water companies have nothing to do with deciding that we are in drought conditions. They get told they are under drought order once reservoirs hit certain levels. They do decide how they will cope with drought conditions and unfortuantly stopping all the leaks is not really realistic propersition in a time scale of a year maybe not even in a decade. And much as I agreee with you about water being privatised investment in inferstructure has been greater since they were privitaised so that argument is a lame duck.

[Pie Man 70]

Originally Posted by peanut

The companies already face fines if they dont meet leakage improvement targets (amongst others). However they are unlikely to be linked to hosepipe bans. The water companies have nothing to do with deciding that we are in drought conditions. They get told they are under drought order once reservoirs hit certain levels. They do decide how they will cope with drought conditions and unfortuantly stopping all the leaks is not really realistic propersition in a time scale of a year maybe not even in a decade. And much as I agreee with you about water being privatised investment in inferstructure has been greater since they were privitaised so that argument is a lame duck.

Didn't know about investment in infrastucture. Suppose it may be more of a planning issue as well, building more houses than the existing resevoirs can support, sure I read somehwere that was one of the problems, but again I suppose I can't really blame the companies for that, since some of that cost should really be put to the developers as well. But surely reducing leaks would keep more water in the resevoirs, perhaps hodling off the ban until teh rainfall?

[peanut]

Originally Posted by Pie Man 70

Didn't know about investment in infrastucture. Suppose it may be more of a planning issue as well,

Its a planning and population issue. The major problem in this country isn't the lack of water its the number of people who live in the part of the country that doesn't have a great deal of water storage. The SE is a bit flat and overpopulated so will just about always be near drought conditions. For the rest I know the water company round here needs to get better at informing planning. I've been the one to point out that their inferstructure cant cope with a development when I've consulted on planning aplications when they should be the ones providing that information.

But surely reducing leaks would keep more water in the resevoirs, perhaps hodling off the ban until teh rainfall?

No doubt stoping the leaks would help the situation but its a long term investment issue and not likley to be sorted in the next decade.

[Australis]

The hosepipe issue here is a very different thing, I'll tell you about it some time.

The young lady with the makeup. You know what the sad part is for me? That her mum seems to be encouraging her to be impassive, which implies being passive as well. Being a teen is a time of passsion, temper a nd extravagances. She should be allowed to be a teen, not a passive, stiff, still doll.