Water rationing is an unacceptable failure
England saw the driest July since 1935 and, for East Anglia, the South East and the South, it was the driest July on record. The unmistakable signs of an imminent drought are all around though, for now, the official status is “Prolonged Dry Weather”.
This stops short of a declaration of drought which brings with it specific mitigation measures that can include controls of water supplies. None the less, hosepipe bans are already being imposed in parts of the South, with further measures likely in the coming weeks given that no significant rain is forecast for the entire month.
Drought has so far been averted because the winter was wet, filling reservoirs, rivers and aquifers. The 1976 drought followed a particularly dry winter and several years of below average rainfall. We are not there yet but may be soon. The last serious dry spell was in 2012 when a number of water companies applied for drought orders.
Reduced rainfall happens every now and again but the impact is exacerbated by population growth in the very areas that get the least. It is critical, therefore, to ensure the infrastructure is robust enough to withstand shortages, with adequate reservoirs and repairs to leaks. Around 25 per cent of Thames Water supply is lost this way.
For a city like London, one answer is desalination. Yet as we report today, the capital’s single plant at Beckton, opened just 12 years ago, has effectively been mothballed. The facility cost £250million and can produce 33 million gallons of water per day, enough for 1 million people in north-east London. This should have been the first of a number of similar plants using the brackish water in the Thames Estuary but no others have been built. The failure to use the Beckton plant means that, with drought conditions imminent, the people of the capital will face mitigation measures that might otherwise not be required.
What is the issue here? Such plants operate all over the world without problems; yet the Beckton scheme has never been fully operational and Thames Water says “necessary planned work” will not be completed until next year.
As a whole, the country receives plenty of rain but mostly in places where it is not needed. In addition to more desalination plants, water transfer schemes should be expanded and new reservoirs opened. With the prospect of energy shortages over the winter, the last thing the country needs is to have its water rationed as well.