Weather

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Hows everyone finding it .We had a second wednesday league match cancelled last night.Will be rescheduled fortunately.Couse was swamped last weekend and will surely be again on saturday.

About half of all the courses in England are closed today because of flooding.

Lucky there's a drought then.

Does anyone else find it incredible that water companies reckon they are struggling to supply people with water when we live on an island where the average rainfall is 30 inches a year, and you are never more than 70 miles from the sea? It won't be long before some bright spark decides it would be a good idea to import water from Africa.

Much needed rain today for SW Scotland. Courses still quite dry!

We had a real treat today as The Duke of Rothesay read the Scottish weather forecast on BBC Scotland

Cant believe the weather has apparently been really good in SW Scotland. Its p!ssing down again just like it was 2 weeks ago in Aberdeen which lead to the courses being shut for a few medals. Have a golf match tomorrow hope its open...

Doon

You guys in the SW mustn't know how bad the weather in the rest of the country has been for the last month and half. In Edinburgh we have barely had a day above 12 degrees and rain almost every day. Yesterday on the way home from work I was soaked through to my underwear and a river was starting to flow down the street.


Someone told me the scottish ski season is predicted to last until mid june.

George1507 wrote:...Does anyone else find it incredible that water companies reckon they are struggling to supply people with water when we live on an island where the average rainfall is 30 inches a year, and you are never more than 70 miles from the sea? It won't be long before some bright spark decides it would be a good idea to import water from Africa.

I'm not a great advocate of the water companies (get those leaks stopped for one thing!) but I think you're being a bit simplistic there George. The sea is saline as I'm sure you're aware(!) so that's an irrelevance and large parts of the country get much of their domestic water from underground aquifers etc. These have been run pretty low over quite a period and the fact there's loads of water running all over the place up here doesn't mean those aquifers are anywhere near replenished. I doubt the water companies are at liberty to simply drain water from the rivers and other waterways either.
To be honest, too many people think plentiful, good quality water is a freebie and they waste huge quantities of it.

navyblueshorts wrote:

George1507 wrote:...Does anyone else find it incredible that water companies reckon they are struggling to supply people with water when we live on an island where the average rainfall is 30 inches a year, and you are never more than 70 miles from the sea? It won't be long before some bright spark decides it would be a good idea to import water from Africa.

I'm not a great advocate of the water companies (get those leaks stopped for one thing!) but I think you're being a bit simplistic there George. The sea is saline as I'm sure you're aware(!) so that's an irrelevance and large parts of the country get much of their domestic water from underground aquifers etc. These have been run pretty low over quite a period and the fact there's loads of water running all over the place up here doesn't mean those aquifers are anywhere near replenished. I doubt the water companies are at liberty to simply drain water from the rivers and other waterways either.
To be honest, too many people think plentiful, good quality water is a freebie and they waste huge quantities of it.

It matters that as an island we are so close to the North Atlantic as thats where most of the rain comes from. The weather patterns dump a lot of rain on the UK.

True, but it's topgraphic rain, which means most is dumped over the West. Not good for the densely populated areas of the SE.

Certainly been coming from somewhere this past month or so, very depressing. Still a sunny weekend beckons and Im actually going to be swinging a club in anger for the first time in 2012, only 9 holes but its a start.

You just have to taste the water in big cities compared to rural locations to appreciate what a valued commodity good water should be.

The amount of people from the SE who have asked whether they can drink the Scottish water is hilarious.

Ive always drank tap water in the SE, just chill it in the fridge, tastes really nice. Cant understand people who buy bottled water.

Where my parents live, in the countryside in the middle of nowhere, there are a few natral springs you can just drink out of.

Mac, you say that almost with surprise. You could probably drink from the Water of Leith and come to no harm.

Ok so to the water company question. This is something I'm slowly becoming well versed in as 5 weeks ago I changed jobs, no longer at the Telegraph instead moving to the Water industry with South East Water. Nearly finished their lengthy induction stage but we have been doing everything you can imagine to do with Water supply.

The reason the SE is in drought and will likely be up until the end of summer 2013, is not because of the average rainfall still being relatively high, its due the the last 2 winters (our usual wetter season) being so dry. Most of the water supplied in souther England comes from underground boreholes and aquifers which are near on empty based on the fact the winters were so dry that they did not recharge with natures water. So that meant the reservoirs at places such as Bewl had to be used to provide water to the homes usually supplied by aquifers and boreholes, which left it at only 41% full which is the lowest level its ever been at and is only enough to provide water for upto 2years.

2years may sound like plenty but when you consider all water companies have to provide the government with a gauranteed 25year planned supply to make sure reserves aren't diminshed long term its not long at all. Realistically it'd take 5months constant rain like we've had to get to about 60% of whats supposed to be supplied.

The other point re: Sea water is a no go, simply because the purification process would have to have even more filtration stages and even higher costs to turn that into drinking water. When you consider 2.1 million cubic meatures of water a day is filtered at a small plant like bewl to pump that water from sea to there and the purify it, you'd be looking at a cost in excess of double what your current rates are for your water supply and then your waste water rates would be doubled to as that's done on a percentage of water used so e.g if your rates are £400 a year you'd be near on 1K for the priviledge of a hosepipe that's had sea water filtrated for use!

navyblueshorts wrote:

George1507 wrote:...Does anyone else find it incredible that water companies reckon they are struggling to supply people with water when we live on an island where the average rainfall is 30 inches a year, and you are never more than 70 miles from the sea? It won't be long before some bright spark decides it would be a good idea to import water from Africa.

I'm not a great advocate of the water companies (get those leaks stopped for one thing!) but I think you're being a bit simplistic there George. The sea is saline as I'm sure you're aware(!) so that's an irrelevance and large parts of the country get much of their domestic water from underground aquifers etc. These have been run pretty low over quite a period and the fact there's loads of water running all over the place up here doesn't mean those aquifers are anywhere near replenished. I doubt the water companies are at liberty to simply drain water from the rivers and other waterways either.
To be honest, too many people think plentiful, good quality water is a freebie and they waste huge quantities of it.

I'm not being simplistic. The water companies are very happy to take money off customers, but they aren't planning for big population increases in the south east. Meanwhile they are losing up to 67% of what they collect because of pipe leaks. So this global warming or climate change thing is being trotted out as the reason they are struggling. In reality, they should be -

* collecting more water
* losing less water
* educating customers better
* investing more, and paying less
* reducing dividends (which are being paid largely to foreign investors)

The infrastructure is still largely as it was in 1920, the water companies would clearly rather pay themselves and shareholders rather than fix the problem. For the avoidance of doubt, the problem is neither lack of rain (because rainfall averages haven't changed over a century), nor population changes (which have been predicted since 1950).

George: Water companies are planning for the increasing population in the south however what they cannot do is know exactly what rate that will happen as when a new building development is passed they have no say in how much an effect that will have on water provision they are merely expected by governements to provide it no questions asked.

Collecting water is a lot more in depth that simply pumping sea water in, as I've said in the south the largest supply comes from aquifers and boreholes and those recharging is dependant on rainfall filtering through the earth, and despite this last 6 weeks we simply haven't had enough rain to recharge those supplies.

Regards to educating customers, agreed more could be done on that point and that's why the government and water companies are bringing in the CMP metering programme as simply the best way to get people to reduce consumption and think about how to save water is to make every cubic metre chargeable. Houses that are rateable value for water get the luck of the draw because they pay a flat fee so leave taps and things running to waste as it costs them no more, however put those on a metre and you'd see peoples wallets take a dent and they'd realise how to save money is to reduce consumption which then enables everyone to have more water for longer.

I can't speak for other companies but I know SEW have and are still recruiting leakage technicians to reduce the number of leaks and are spending 100's of millions on replacing all the victorian iron pipes with better options to prevent leaks.

The biggest waste of water in a house is people standing in showers when they aren't actually washing, a simple 5 min showers compared to a 15min one can save you around 400 cups of water each shower!!!

Another is the toilet! 10L per flush and the average house probably does in excess of 10 flushes a day so in less than 2 weeks that over a 1000cubic litres of water! If you ask you water company for a Hippo Bag (saver flush bag) to put into your cistern that will be reduced by 60% per day so imagine how much that'd save if everyone used those plus how much money that'd save individuals as consumers.

Most consumers are better off with water meters because they end up paying less.

Meters help but they aren't the answer. My parents had a water meter, and if you didn't use a minimum level of water, then there was a flat charge levied instead. This was more than the equivalent amount of water used, so we worked out it was cheaper for them to leave the cold tap running in the bath for an hour a week.

Water companies have to invest more money in reservoirs and collection systems. That's the only way they will be able to meet the demand.

Unfortunately for them, that means reduced profits, lower share prices, reduced bonuses, lower dividends and they don't want to do it. 1980s governments sold them a vision of ever increasing profits for little investment, and that's what they are wedded to.

Not sure who your parents are with but that seems an odd pricing scale. Everyone has a minimum standing charge, but for metered customers that's usually really low.

Problem with investing in more aquifers, boreholes and reservoirs is the government! Simply the government would rather sell the land required those things to developers as there's more money for them in that, which then puts a strain on water resources as water companies are simply told supply the water end of.

Doesn't help that water companies are a monoply as you can't change supplier like you can with gas and electric so that always make it seem for the company rather than the consumer.