To think it is the water companies that need to conserve water, not householders?

[7ofNine]

FFS, it's June 2nd, and already had a text from my water company asking for "my help to keep demand down in my area" by not using sprinklers or hoses.

AIBU to think they should work on the 30-50% of water they lose from the system every year instead of harassing 'customers'?
FWIW I have no garden or balcony, so I don't use sprinklers or hosepipe anyway!
Plus we all turn off the tap while brushing teeth etc, don't waste water wherever we can.

@Hopoindown31

I'm really interested as to what is prompting this spike in demand. Water companies are claiming it is because of lockdown, but I'm not sure exactly why. Electricity consumption is down over the same period.

They are also claiming in my area that this is am issue with insufficient treatment capacity rather than reservoir stocks. That sounds like poor planning and a failure to invest.

Yes people are at home but surely that is outweighed by all the industry that isn’t running. Not to mention swimming pools and water parks.

Our city was on flood alert early this year, I've never seen it as bad, and now there are adverts telling people to conserve water!

I'm in Cumbria too. It's raining right now, but it was such a shock as it hasn't actually rained for a good couple of months. It's been sunny all of lockdown basically. In a normal year this would have been a major conversation topic, as it just doesn't happen! I've lived here for 15 years and I've never seen so long without proper rain (not that I can remember anyway, it might have happened, I'm not a weather statistician).

Just because somewhere floods doesn't mean you can't have a drought a month later.

Are people really so ignorant about the water cycle? Go and look at your local pond / lake / river / reservoir. It will be very low.

The fact it bucketed it down over winter does not mean we have endless water in the summer.

Well, if now privatised, profit 'generating' water suppliers currently
chucking dividends at shareholders, while, say, 4.5 years ago it threw it down for 3-4 months in southern Hampshire, a veritable Water World- had invested in water storage instead of investor appeasement....

United Utilities reservoir levels
www.unitedutilities.com/help-and-support/your-water-supply/reservoir-levels/

They do have water in most parts, they just can't treat it fast enough to supply all the taps at once.

I just had to empty my rather manky pool
So I saved as much as possible in buckets for watering and water butt

Can I justify the eco system that use the plants in my garden

It’s annoying though given our rain

Does anyone else feel like some sort of apocalypse is nigh flooding, covid 19, drought, there'll be some sort of plague of locusts next ...

Next door fill their huge 12 foot pool and empty it every day. Apparently that's easier than cleaning it or looking after the water quality for a few days.

Assuming they aren't the only selfish, wasteful fuckers out there.

there'll be some sort of plague of locusts next
already there:
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/gigantic-locust-swarms-hit-east-africa/

The water company in this region tends to fix stuff pretty quickly if local issues are anything to go by. I don't think it's unreasonable to remind people to not be wasteful, people filling their pools up with fresh water everyday, pressure washing everything in sight for the sake of it, leaving the tap running whilst brushing their teeth is wasteful anyway. People should be mindful of water, but many people aren't, as they just take it for granted.

Saturn in Aquarius
Pluto in Capricorn
Neptune in Pisces

All 3 at once. Strange times... apparently

It's been hot and rain-free for months, with everybody at home for extra showers, garden sprinkling, power washing, paddling pools etc. As we're in a pandemic, water companies have to ensure backup plans for continuous supply in the event that they are significantly short-staffed for a period. Those reservoirs absolutely should not be used up because people want sprinklers on all day. Most years we all need to be a bit careful in summer, it is certainly fair enough to ask people to dial it back a bit or nobody would know that there's a shortage looming. I've seen our water company out fixing leaks, but like most companies they've had staff absences, that has probably reduced some of the planned works.

We had a similar message from our water company, ironic considering most people with this company will either live in flats or have very small gardens.

My dc haven’t left the house in 76 days so on a nice day I am getting the hose and pool out. It’s one of the few things they can do. No walks, bike rides, playing at the beach etc

MRex you're kinder than me!

I can't be doing with water companies' 'Ooh! Be careful!' - rhetoric, as they've richly delivered dividends to their shareholders over at least a decade of wet weather.

Now it's coming home to roost, that lack of investment in infrastructure in favour of shareholder appeasement.

As I said, 4 winters ago Hampshire was awash. Time to consider storing during the good times to mitigate against the bad. But did any of them? Nope. Assumed they'd get away with it next year. And the one after. Chairman after chairman pocketing his bonus.

Utilities must be renationalised. 'Private' cannot be trusted with them.

They need to get their house in order for sure, but if we all carry on and they have to introduce drastic measures, being judgemental isn’t going to help anyone. I’ve been trying to help by decanting ‘grey’ water collected in my washing up bowl into a bucket, to water my plants with. I get about 2-3 full buckets a day just from what results from me washing my hands, rinsing stuff out etc.

I use my hosepipe with a watering can, so I collect water when going between pots, if you see what I mean.

I agree that water companies should do more to deal with leaks but people should stop wasting water too.

They do not need to water their lawns. After the first rain we get, grass will recover.

I can't be doing with water companies' 'Ooh! Be careful!' - rhetoric, as they've richly delivered dividends to their shareholders over at least a decade of wet weather.

You realise that's just England though? Welsh Water/Dwr Cymru is not for profit and has no shareholders.

All of these things are contributors to the problem of water supply, but actually there are two bigger ones that I don't think have been mentioned.

(1) The vast majority of our reservoirs were built before 1950; and the last one to be built, I believe, was around 1980. It is 2020. These reservoir systems were built to serve significantly smaller populations than we now have; and populations who have massively different demands on water. I am sure that I am not the only person here who recalls life in a home with no bathroom and an outside toilet. In the 1960's lots of working class homes were without them, and some still were in the 70's.

(b) And the biggest contributor to shortage isn't the delivery end - it's the supply end. As many people have observed, it rains a hell of a lot in the UK. But over the last 70 years we have increasingly built our towns and cities in ways that do not efficiently collect water, and which sprawl across the land limiting the efficient collection of water. Basically, we have limited the amount of land which soaks up and collects rain - drains etc don't do this for us, the land needs to do it. But now instead of gardens, large or small, we have patios and other non-draining landscaping. Our towns, cities and everything in between them are "concreted" in, getting rid of grass and open land. More recently there has been a reversal of some of this, not least for aesthetic reasons, but not enough to reverse the poor drainage of the land. And this is also a factor, not just in not collecting the water that falls, but also in diverting it into areas that then flood worse and worse, because the water isn't getting underground in the way it should.

For 20 or more years environmental architects have been advising us to built our communities better. Such designs are certainly more useful to the natural environment and more pleasant to live in. But not nearly as profitable.

My garden (and very very nearly my house) was flooded earlier in the year.
Cause? Very heavy rain and completely blocked surface water drains.
The water companies can't just take the money and not invest in the infer structure.
I live in a dry area of the UK, not raining much in the summer is not new here.

Drivers are also responsible regardless of what they drive.
Roads that block the natural drainage.
Parking spaces everywhere.
Front gardens concreted over so it can be parked on. Looks good, but shit when it rains.
Then the weekly wash and endless water from the power hose. Some do this a couple of times a week apparently. Oh and of course the water needed to erm wipe rain away 🤣

Oh and leaks, if your in an area that don’t really care. Call them constantly. Ask for updates. Once it’s possible, if you can go in person. The repair gets done quickly and if the service was dire, the one star or whatever is still available.

We're serviced by Scottish Water and the service is shocking. Three days on the trot this week I've switched the tap on and not a single drop of water has come out. I called each time and was told, 'oh well you have to expect it at this time of year, people are filling up paddling pools and the like'. Er, what? Having no water for three consecutive days and being unable to wash or flush the toilet or fill a kettle because folk are filling up paddling pools?!

being judgemental doesn't help Yes it bloody well does!

Being 'judgemental' is placing a 'value judgement' on something. That 'value judgement' I place is upon the profiteering private water companies who prioritised, are were gaily legally permitted - to place profits and board bonuses ahead of forward planning; safe in the knowledge that no Tory government, stacked with such chairmen, shareholders and donors as it is, would ever place a bloke's opportunity to profit behind the Public Good.

Abetted by attitudes like yours. They know they can get away with it because we don't, or are nor permitted, to hold them to account.

It’s completely ridiculous.

I live in the East Midlands, a part of the country which doesn’t usually get extremes of weather. Recently, however, it rained almost continuously from mid September to the end of March. Autumn was a complete wash-out, with countless events cancelled due to floods followed by the wettest winter on record. Rivers burst their banks and roads & fields were flooded over a wide area time and time again. Our local reservoirs were overflowing for months. It was a monsoon, not a winter.

Now, after six weeks of dry weather, Severn Trent Water who make £ hundreds of millions in profit every year are bleating about water shortages and asking people to save water. Fucking useless idiots .