Water - What A Waste!
Many years ago on my previous website, I wrote an article about water shortages and droughts, and I find myself doing it again, probably because it is quite an important subject. A quick search online, - courtesy of Google, tells us that ‘England faces a major water deficit within 25 years, driven by climate change, population growth, and high demand. Officials from the Environment Agency famously warned that the country hits the ‘jaws of death’ by 2050—the point where water demand surpasses available supply'
There are three reservoirs planned in the near future that I can see, one in Lincolnshire, another in the east, maybe Cambridgeshire or Norfolk, and one in Oxfordshire, with nine planned in total. But with the warning we had some years ago, shouldn’t the first three be nearly finished, never mind stil in the planning?
Let’s face it, water is quite an important part of our lives, is it not? It is needed to survive for us to live in many ways: industry, farming with food, and plant growth, you name it, water is usually connected somewhere.
According to my research, the 3 wettest winters on record have been 1914, 1915, and the record-breaking levels of local rainfall in specific parts of England. Yet here we are some 8 months later talking droughts, hosepipe bans, and more. Is it me, or are we missing something? If those first 3 reservoirs were in place, how much water would we have available to the population after last winter alone? If the 9 were ready, there would possibly be no talk of droughts and shortages.
It’s times like this I can’t help thinking the government has their priorities wrong. They are concentrating on housing people flooding into our country that shouldn’t be here; that in itself means we will need more and more water, but with one of the wettest winters on record only 8 months past (actually less as winter finishes around March time,) haven’t they missed out on saving billions and billions of gallons of water to help with this situation?
Sri Lanka - but the future in the UK?
"Dry river bed in Sri Lanka" by Bioversity International is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
With weather seeming to get warmer year on year, this is quite an important part of parts of England’s future; it’s not as if it’s a maybe, it’s a fact. I am in Wales as I write this, and driving to our campsite near Corwen, you could see how low the water levels are in the lakes compared to their maximum. The government needs to act, and they need to act quickly. What happens if these warmer summers continue and no reservoirs are built? We will have hosepipe bans in May. Sorry, but this is just not good enough.
Added to this, as mentioned, we continue to let people flood into our country (no pun intended) who simply add to the problem; we let our population grow at a rate that the country cannot sustain, two subjects I will write about in the near future, but action needs to be taken, and it needs to be taken now, not when we are shipping water into these areas by the lorryload to help local residents. If the warning had been heeded years ago, we could already be benefiting from the builds and the wet winters.
But not only do we need to act now, why aren’t these highly paid CEOs seen on TV each night asking us to save water, maybe giving us the little tips along the way, simple things like not running the tap all the time during the cleaning of your teeth or shorter washing cycles on the washing machine when we can? Watering cans instead of hose pipes in gardens and when washing cars. Only wash cars if urgent, not for your weekly wash and polish.
People are set in their ways, and with the busy schedules that people have these days, saving water may not be the first thing on their minds, so if they were being reminded 2/3/4 times a week during the commercials when Coronation Street and Love Island were on the TV, it just might hit home with some people. Who knows until we try it, but we don’t!
But I also believe the construction industry and the government could help massively if it were a law of some sort that each new build house or new kitchen fit meant that every kitchen must be fitted with one of those instant water-heating taps. How often do we turn the hot tap on to let gallons of water go to waste before it is hot enough for us to use, and sometimes the opposite, running cold after hot to let it cool down? Millions and millions more gallons are wasted each year, which could be stopped if this were put in place; the cost of one instant heat tap will add very little onto these costs compared to what water would be saved!
Anyway, just some thoughts on our latest drought situation, combined with one of the wettest winters on record just gone. And what I do know is since my post of many years ago, nothing has changed!
Thanks for reading
DJ
