Desalination

[Lonnie]

We come under Essex and Suffolk water, and i've been tyold, that the reason we don't have a hosepipe ban, is because after the 1976 drought, they invested in a desalination plant.

First i've heard about it, does anyone know if thats right?.

[Toureman]

Essex water are running a pilot scheme on a desalination plant, I don't know if it is running or not though.

Google "salination plant Essex"

[Lonnie]

Thanks Toureman, thats interesting, i'd also heard, from a different source, that we get water piped down from the lake district, but whicheve, as yet, we don't have a ban, so its likely to be one or the other.

[jake-the-peg]

I very much doubt you get water pumped down from the lake district. 83 % of it comes from rivers.

One of the things so often trotted out is the lack of a "water national grid" and one of the problems in doing it is the pumping costs in moving millions of gallons of water all that distance.

The main reason you've not got a hosepipe ban is more likely to just be one of supply and demand. Not all that many people and pipes in good condition 1.7 million people 86 litres per property per day leakage.

Compare that to Thames 8 million 253 litres per property per day leakage

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4989572.stm

In May Essex and Sufflok said their reservoirs were almost full http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5008782.stm

[JudgeJ]

Which all adds fuel to my argument (which I have expressed within a number of previous answers to do with water availability and drought) that this country does not suffer from a water shortage and that water is not a �scarce and precious resource�.

In a normal year more than half a million gallons of water per person falls in the form of rain across England, Scotland and Wales. Even if this rainfall is reduced to one quarter the normal amount (and this is by no means the case at present) there is still almost 150,000 gallons each per annum. Water consumption per head of population remains fairly constant at around 35 gallons per day � under 13,000 gallons pa. This means that the water companies have only to collect and distribute about 10% of rainfall even when this rainfall is reduced to a much greater degree than it currently is.

In the press recently there have been pictures of reservoirs taken during the summer of 1976. This was a far hotter and longer summer than we have experienced so far this year and the reservoirs were considerably lower then than they are now. However, there were no cries then of water being scarce or precious.

The water �crisis� is yet another example the public being bamboozled into believing that a problem exists which they must solve. It does not. The problem (if it exists at all) is for the water companies to solve and for which their customers pay them in advance, handsomely and compulsorily. It is competent management in those water companies which is the scarcity.

[jake-the-peg]

There were no cries of water being scarce or precious?

See here for standpipes in Yorkshire in 1976

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stori es/september/1/newsid_2492000/2492981.stm

[JudgeJ]

Yorkshire has always had trouble with its water, jake. I recall a couple of years ago (when there was no trouble elsewhere) they had to cart the stuff by tanker down from Scotland or somewhere. I think they're using too much of it in their beer.

[Lonnie]

Thanks all, for your well informed answers, explains a lot.