Heat is on for water companies
Urgent action must be taken to improve infrastructure ahead of future extreme weather
The farming column and Country Matters articles are written by Andrew Davis, who welcomes suggested topics for coverage. He can be contacted on (01635) 564526, or email editor@ newburynews.co.uk
THE drought and hot weather this summer has brought some issues into sharp focus.
It has been the driest summer here since 1976, but the European Commission has recently announced that it is the worst drought on the continent for 500 years.
On top of all the other challenges, this brings major environmental and economic issues.
It will take many months before the drought is alleviated as reservoirs, aquifers and lakes very rarely recharge in summer.
Plants, particularly trees, transpire, drawing huge quantities of water from the soil – it is estimated that a mature oak can transpire 100 gallons every day.
It is rare for there to be any ‘effective rainfall’ in summer – the soil is so dry that it will soak up rainfall before any percolates through.
So it will not be until the leaves drop in autumn that any rainfall can be surplus and start the process out of drought.
Rivers are either spate rivers or chalk streams depending upon the underlying geology.
Where the rock is impermeable, such as granite, rainfall that percolates through the soil hits the rock and drains away into watercourses.
But where the underlying rock is permeable, such as chalk, the water soaks in.
Below chalk deposits is usually clay so that water collects in aquifers and comes to the surface through springs.
A chalk stream, fed by springs, has a more constant flow of water.
A winterbourne is the upper reaches of a chalk stream that usually dries up in summer.
Fed by springs near the top of the aquifer, water only runs when the aquifer is nearly full.
The impact of climate change has been accepted for decades, so it was entirely predictable that we should see more summer droughts.
We should have been planning for this for years with new reservoirs and the potential to move water from areas that receive high rainfall to areas where it is lower.
And yet what investment that has been made has concentrated on flood relief, getting rid of unwanted water at times of high rainfall.
It makes absolutely no sense to rush floodwater down river and out to sea when the land may be suffering from drought a few months later.
Even small-scale farm reservoirs could make a big difference and are quicker and cheaper to plan and build than vast lakes.
Water was a nationalised industry until privatised by Margaret Thatcher in 1989 with the expectation of greater investment than a public utility could manage.
There is limited competition, however, as the private water companies are effectively regional monopolies.
Much of the infrastructure dates back to Victorian times with the result that many water mains are decrepit and subject to leaks.
It is estimated that 20 per cent of water is lost through leaks across the country, some 3,113m litres a day.
Water companies claim they are mending leaks as fast as they can, but what is needed is the wholesale replacement of rotten pipes.
George Eustice, secretary of state at Defra, has proposed a national grid for water across the country.
One of the problems with such infrastructure projects is that the planning and consent phase takes years, by which time the cost has spiralled out of control.
The lamentable lack of investment also extends to the sewage system.
Water companies are allowed to discharge raw sewage into rivers and the sea in exceptional circumstances when torrential rain threatens to overflow the drains.
This has been abused to a staggering extent with 373,000 spills in 2021, more than a thousand a day.
Monitoring of discharges is woefully inadequate – this is an emergency that should be tackled much more aggressively by the Environment Agency with the prospect of prison sentences for those who flout the regulations.
But the Environment Agency is underfunded, partly due to cuts made when Liz Truss was secretary of state.
Meantime water companies are thriving and paying large salaries and dividends to their shareholders.
Investment has been put at £10bn a year for the past 20 years but, of that only £5.7bn each year was spent on new infrastructure, down to £4.8bn in 2020/21.
Total dividends paid out to shareholders since privatisation is estimated at £72bn.
This level of performance is totally unacceptable, a national scandal.
The Government must insist that Ofwat and the Environment Agency take firmer action to enforce regulation.
Unless urgent action is taken, we will be increasingly vulnerable to future extreme weather cause by climate change.