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A HUGE and REAL Problem

Having lived for many years under what seemed like a perennial hosepipe ban in Sussex, I have been totally gobsmacked by the lassiez faire attitude down here in Dorset. The local attitude seems to be use it or lose it FFS.
 
Paul Boote said:
If it's looking bad, blame it on summat else, whether it's mammalian furry or humanoid smooth-skinned....

Chaps, immigrants or no, WE indigenous Brits are VERY different people from the Brits of 1976 - with far greater expectations and demands, and are much greedier, much less tolerant types.

So, before we start scapegoating...
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Whether or not any, or all of that is true Paul, are you seriously trying to claim that the 'wicked we indigenous Brits' as you call us, the ones you are so fond of beating on....are solely responsible for the mess this country is currently in ? (With the exception of your good self of course) Are you seriously suggesting that the massive increase in England's population over the last twenty years has absolutely nothing to do with the increase in demand for water? Has nothing to do with the increased demand for housing? Has nothing to do with the madness that is the draining of flood planes and all the other insanity involved in finding space to build those extra houses that are required? Has nothing to do with increased demand for all our resources, and the resulting increase in pollution that this all creates?

The 'Wicked We' really did that all on our own Paul?

Or could it be that as usual, the truth is rather more complicated (or perversely, more simple) than that? The population of the world is now increasing at a rate the planet cannot support as things stand. It is not the 'wicked we', OR the hapless immigrants who are to blame, in this country or anywhere else come to that....but the fact that the imperfect and steadily decaying system that has served us up to now can no longer cope with the numbers it is presented with.

I obviously have no idea what the future holds, though the Tottenham riots may be a foretaste of things to come as the inevitable system failures generate more and greater dissatisfaction. What I do know is that I do not need you, or anyone else, to set themselves up as my 'moral guardian', to spout forth with roars of righteous indignation every time I shed a public tear or two at the steady but ever accelerating demise of the sport I love....however I choose to do that. It may well be selfish to wail aloud when an otter or an 'EE' eats a barbel or whatever, and it may even be true that I am in part to blame for the lack of healthy fish to replace that lonely old chap....but at my age, that sort of thing matters....my needs are more immediate than yours, time is not with me I fear :p

So...I will strike a deal with you dear boy...you carry on saving the world, and I will carry on whining every time another barbel disappears. We will both be wrong.....but so long as we don't get in each others way, it won't really matter, will it?

Best of luck to us both, I say :D

Cheers, Dave.
 
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Paul Boote said:
Just see something done when prime stretches of rivers like the Test and Itchen dry up and rendered fishless / unfishable and no longer income-generating . Mega money, mega-connected owners, quiet words in the right clubs in the right ears... As for the rest, well, "It's the fickle British climate ...quite beyond our control ... try bathing with a friend ... but do please keep shopping, you've got to keep shopping...". As I sorta hinted with the title of this thread, there are far bigger problems (and predators) than otters and seals with the likes of us around.
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Agreed absolutely!

Regards

Hugo


 
Population growth equals economic growth, if the local population won't breed like rabbits, then we'll get people in that will. Once again economic growth, or to use the layman's term 'make more money' is the root cause of all of earths/mans problems.
 
I have a particular interest in the Kennet which has dried up in its higher reaches west of Marlborogh. To quote 'This is Bath' today:

"Thames Water takes ten million litres a day from the Kennet at Axford, mostly to supply households in Swindon, but when that water is returned to the river system it flows back to the River Ray, a different river. Thames Water said it is ‘working with’ the Environment Agency on a £10 million plan for a new pipeline to supply Swindon which would reduce the abstraction pressures on the Kennet, but the Western Daily Press has learned that the complicated way it will be paid for means it is years away from even starting.

“It is frustrating because the plan is ready to go, we and Thames Water have agreed it,†said Fiona Holmes from the Environment Agency. “But because it is being done to benefit the environment, Thames Water can claim compensation from us and we will have to pay for some of it. Unfortunately, right now, we don’t have enough money to do that. The earliest we’ve said it will happen is 2014-15, but even that looks unlikely now.â
 
BBC news on Jan 12 this year...

" China Investment Corporation (CIC), the country's sovereign wealth fund, has bought 8.68% of the company behind UK utility group Thames Water.
It is the fund's first major share purchase in the UK, after Chancellor George Osborne visited China this week.
Thames Water is owned by Kemble Water, a consortium of investors led by Australian bank Macquarie.
CIC was set up in 2007 to invest some of China's huge $3.18tn (£2tn) in foreign exchange reserves.
In a one-sentence statement on its website, CIC said it bought the stake through a wholly-owned subsidiary. No purchase price was disclosed.
Thames Water, acquired by Kemble in 2006, is the UK's largest water and sewerage company, serving about 14 million customers.
CIC chairman Lou Jiwei had said recently that his company was interested in investing in European and US infrastructure.
Speaking about the deal, the Chancellor said: "This is a significant step by China. It is a vote of confidence in Britain as a place to invest and do business.
"This investment is good news for both the British and Chinese economies."

So the shareholders of Thames water are doing fine. Yippee
 
I'm not sure about water being shipped to places like spain but to quote a comment in 'This is Wiltshire' <Riverbed near Marlborough lies empty (From This Is Wiltshire) >

"... it's not the amount of people that is the problem, it's the privatisation of the Water Authorities. Water is being pumped out and sent by container ship to places like Spain, where it's harder to extract water. It's unregulated profiteering by multinational companies that has made the Kennet dry up. The aquifer feeding the Kennet consists of rain that fell on the chalk downs of Marlborough 200 years ago. But due to unregulated extraction in the last 20 years, that 200 year buffer zone has been sold off for profit by Thames Water. Mostly to high end industrial customers, both at home and abroad. And of course, domestic customers are subsidising these huge polluters and wasters, with higher water bills every year, while their industrial tariffs are frozen, or actually falling. Water is not a commodity to be kept, or sold off according to Market forces. It's a Utility that belongs to everyone equally, not just 'venture capitalists' who would whore their own mothers out for profit. Water is the most valuable resource this planet has, and it should not be under the control of profiteers and corporations."
 
You would think we could transfer the water around from one side of the country to the other with pipes following motorways etc. When the Severn is in flood for a week or two theres enough water goes into the sea to keep the South East going for years
 
Water is being pumped out and sent by container ship to places like Spain, where it's harder to extract water. It's unregulated profiteering by multinational companies that has made the Kennet dry up.

Sorry, not a laughing matter, but reminded me of "Peckham Spa Spring Water".
 
John Robbins said:
You would think we could transfer the water around from one side of the country to the other with pipes following motorways etc. When the Severn is in flood for a week or two theres enough water goes into the sea to keep the South East going for years
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Why does everyone seem so keen to destroy the Severn? We have companies who still want to put a barrage in and every time the southern bit of our country gets a bit dry this old chestnut come up. The Severn and it's tributaries already suffer flow problems and has to be controlled by compensation releases. It is over extracted along the whole of its length to provide agricultural water and supplement the Birmingham pipeline.

I would suggest that we stop building houses in the southern parts of the country and relocate business etc. to the northern part where there is plenty of water and plenty of unemployed people due to the greed culture of the last thirty years. We could also change agricultural practise so they use less water, growing crops for food rather than to feed more animals to provide cheap meat or ever more potatoes so that MacDonald's can keep its chip prices down.

Climate change is with us whether you choose to "believe" it or not and the water situation is only going to get worse. Short term profit has been the goal of the majority in this country and water privatisation was based entirely on putting free money into loads of peoples pockets so they would keep voting for Thatcher. Long term planning for the future water needs of the country was thrown out. We now have a system planned very sensibly by our Victorian forefather to serve them for the next 50 years back in the mid 19th C. Perhaps we should think about investing the nations wealth in its future rather than in the finance industry?
 
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Nick Clark said:
I have a particular interest in the Kennet which has dried up in its higher reaches west of Marlborogh. To quote 'This is Bath' today:

"Thames Water takes ten million litres a day from the Kennet at Axford, mostly to supply households in Swindon, but when that water is returned to the river system it flows back to the River Ray, a different river. Thames Water said it is ‘working with’ the Environment Agency on a £10 million plan for a new pipeline to supply Swindon which would reduce the abstraction pressures on the Kennet, but the Western Daily Press has learned that the complicated way it will be paid for means it is years away from even starting.

“It is frustrating because the plan is ready to go, we and Thames Water have agreed it,” said Fiona Holmes from the Environment Agency. “But because it is being done to benefit the environment, Thames Water can claim compensation from us and we will have to pay for some of it. Unfortunately, right now, we don’t have enough money to do that. The earliest we’ve said it will happen is 2014-15, but even that looks unlikely now.”


I'm not sure about water being shipped to places like spain but to quote a comment in 'This is Wiltshire' <Riverbed near Marlborough lies empty (From This Is Wiltshire) >

"... it's not the amount of people that is the problem, it's the privatisation of the Water Authorities. Water is being pumped out and sent by container ship to places like Spain, where it's harder to extract water. It's unregulated profiteering by multinational companies that has made the Kennet dry up. The aquifer feeding the Kennet consists of rain that fell on the chalk downs of Marlborough 200 years ago. But due to unregulated extraction in the last 20 years, that 200 year buffer zone has been sold off for profit by Thames Water. Mostly to high end industrial customers, both at home and abroad. And of course, domestic customers are subsidising these huge polluters and wasters, with higher water bills every year, while their industrial tariffs are frozen, or actually falling. Water is not a commodity to be kept, or sold off according to Market forces. It's a Utility that belongs to everyone equally, not just 'venture capitalists' who would whore their own mothers out for profit. Water is the most valuable resource this planet has, and it should not be under the control of profiteers and corporations."
Click to expand...


Good comments. Back in the "We won the War", very optimistic, the future's not Orange but bright, generally socially cohesive 1950s and '60s, the Chiltern streams were drained dry largely without complaint, for they were felt to be a necessary sacrifice to assure a better future for everyone in that part of the South East; today we are living in that now rather dull and tarnished future and, in the South and East at least, are having to drain more rivers dry, build more roads, lay more tarmac and concrete, build more Tescos for today's shelf-stacker Brits to have any sort of a job and a future.

We went very wrong somewhere along the timeline of the past five decades, led there by powerful people who knew best, grew wealthy and got the devil out of the mess they had made, abroad or somewhere remote, scenic, expensive and exclusive at home.

As I said at the start of this thread, I am an optimist, believing that with a will there is always a way; we just have to make sure now that a few bottom-liner denizens and corporations don't force us any further along their way, but make them realise, as the British Press is beginning to realise now, that you are finished without us. Time for some HUGE rethinks about water policy and a whole load of other stuff, I reckon; time, too, for the once "Mustn't grumble", now long-suffering British public to find a voice and tell its self-appointed business leaders and masters just what it thinks of them.
 
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Hi men,

1976 , fantastic summer , rivers really low , spent 2 weeks at Downton on the hants Avon catching chub and dace , sunburnt , happy lunches in the pub in wood green after mullet fishing in Christchurch harbor , selling off the catch to the landlord .

One year later , valley flooded to biblical proportions , no fishing to speak of . Let's hope that pattern is repeated , well , perhaps not feast and famin , but some wet stuff anyway .

Hatter
 
One year later , valley flooded to biblical proportions , no fishing to speak of . Let's hope that pattern is repeated , well , perhaps not feast and famin , but some wet stuff anyway .

Noooo, all the ponds will flood, and the piggies will escape into the now bulging river systems. The pond pig anglers will complain that their quarry has swum away, and the barbel anglers will complain that all they can catch are carp.
 
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