Although I wasn’t affected by this week’s drying up of water supplies to thousands of households, I had a lucky escape since the outages were fairly local to me. Thames Water apparently blamed the issues on flooding, which contaminated the supply. I know from the furore that I’m not the only one believing that a far better job could - and should - be being done by our water companies… On a personal level, I do wonder why the limescale in my supply is so bad that it eats through my appliances like crazy, when properties just down the road, serviced by another company, don’t seem to have limescale at all! What happened to consistency? Whether you’re personally affected by poor supplies or not, you’re likely to be as exasperated as I am that these water companies can’t get their acts together. It’s not just the supply either, but the removal and treatment of our wastewater and in particular the dumping of sewage into our inland waterways and the sea around much of the coastline where it will gradually pollute the water further afield… i.e. it affects everyone. 

  

Last Summer several French MEPs complained to the EU about the UK neglecting its environmental commitments by discharging raw sewage into the oceans. Since much of the UK boasts a combined sewage system, whereby wastewater from our toilets flows into the sewage treatment works through the same pipes as rainwater, the system’s designed to be able to overflow and discharge untreated sewage into our rivers and the sea to lessen the damage caused by flooding during heavy rainfall. This is meant to happen only occasionally but now seems to be the norm, despite the Government having responded to the MEPs’ concerns with something akin to: “We have big plans in place to sort it… watch this space”. 

  

The volume of sewage dumped and the incidences of it happening are increasing to a very worrying extent though. It’s inexcusable in this day and age – particularly with the technology available. My goodness, I recall writing about sewage being turned into briquettes for cooking, heating and building homes in Cleanzine more than two decades ago! I know our population has increased massively since then, but there’s also far better technology. What’s happened? There’s no excuse for getting something so crucial, so wrong. There’s understandable anger over bonuses awarded to the various water companies’ bosses for what is clearly abject failure. I’m pleased that some recipients have rejected them and that there have been resignations. What bothers me more though is that the mismanagement and resultant damage to our environment appears to have become acceptable, when it clearly isn’t. Why isn’t the Government forcing the companies to deal with the issues NOW rather than letting everything slide?