The links, below, tell quite a story – one of constantly inadequate preparation to meet extreme weather conditions, as well as one that drives urban expansion into the most dangerous areas associated with flood risk. It’s been known since at least 1928 (earliest video in the sequence under Link #1) that the growth of London into the Thames Estuary areas brings with it an increased risk of flood damage, yet still it goes ahead, while development to the West is – by and large – almost non-existent.
Common sense should be telling urban development planners that the safest way to build along a major river is upstream. Why? Because as the river moves along its course, it is fed by tributaries that add to its volume and that, of course, happens downstream. Any river is therefore more likely to flood in its lower reaches. We are seeing this on the Thames now, from Henley through to Staines and even into parts of Kent.
The Environment Agency is having to cope with small-scale flooding, due to a rise in the groundwater levels in Oxfordshire – where one of the current Prime Minister’s homes is – and in order to cope, they are, as shown and stated in one of the above videos, pumping the water away further downstream. The Environment Agency is therefore adding to the problems being faced in Henley, Staines, Chertsey and so on. So, all you folks in Surrey and south London who are paddling in raw sewage, now you know why you should write and thank the Prime Minister. 😉
On the plus side, the videos also mention that aquifers that were still not fully recharged after the New Year downpours have now been topped up. If Thames Water even whispers anything about hose-pipe bans this summer, they’re liable to get a swift kick up the jacksie from their customers.
We don’t manage water in this country. Basic infrastructure, some twenty-five years after privatisation, is still not in a 100% fit-for-purpose condition, and many people will recall that it took the water bosses to be dragged before a Parliamentary Committee in order to get the rate of mains refurbishment up to an acceptable level. What we’re not seeing, though, is a system of networked piping that could be used to transfer excess water from an area at risk of flooding, to one where there is little or no risk. Instead we see all that fresh water going to waste by being encouraged to drain into the sea. the cost of pumping excess water in this way could, after initial build costs, be absolutely zero, using pumps powered by wind and solar energy. And, let’s face it, when it rains heavily there tends to be a fair but of wind about at the same time.
It’s not just in the Thames Water area that we see problems. Somerset under water for two months provided a foretaste of the problems now being faced by the capital. But does anyone remember July 2007? Large swathes of Gloucestershire laid waste by standing water; and Sheffield at risk of a dam burst at its main reservoir. Yet, while those last two incidents were ongoing, Kent was officially declared a drought area. what did the politicians do about it? Played political football, trying to score Smartier points off it.
The cost to the taxpayers of the Gloucestershire floods was estimated to be in the region of £14,000,000. What has been done by central government to avoid a repeat? Yep, you guessed it. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Bugger-all. In fact, following the previous government’s 33% increase in flood defence spending, the present government has cut that amount by 27%, so there has only been a net 6% increase in funding for a problem that experts have been warning will only become worse as time goes along. There’s an old saying that our Christian-when-it’s-convenient government Ministers should be noting: “As thou sowest, so shalt thou reap.”
As climate change progresses – and few people can now doubt that it’s a real issue – fresh water will become more and more scarce around the world. Meanwhile, to go by what the Met Office is saying in the above videos, our own climate will become increasingly wetter. Whether it’s done by the government, or whether it’s left to private enterprise, surely it behoves us to collect that fresh water that will be falling upon us and storing it in underground cisterns or water towers for distribution to those countries that will become drought-stricken? Is that not an obviously humanitarian step to be taking? Our preparedness – if it was ever made a reality – would have the potential to stop wars from breaking out over life’s most basic requirement in the future. To my way of thinking, this would be a far better project for humankind to be undertaking, than planning the wholesale construction of desalination plants in the drought areas of the world which, once they’ve extracted the mineral elements from sea-water, will then have to find ways to dispose of those acidic and corrosive elements that are poisonous to arable soils. they can’t be simply dumped back into the sea on that kind of scale, because the salinity of the oceans would increase to the point where aquatic life could not survive. Ignoring this simple fact would serve to create famine around the world.
Consider certain parts of India for a moment. Not long ago – maybe a year or so – there were complaints from farmers that a certain major soft drinks manufacturer had completely drained the artesian wells upon which the farmers relied for fresh water for their crops. With the amount of rain that is set to fall upon the UK in coming years, there is a massive opportunity for trade with such places, if only the UK government would wake up to the idea.
Think about it – humankind transports vast quantities of oil around the world in supertankers and sometimes there are accidents that pollute great swathes of the ocean. To certain countries, such as India, water will become every bit as precious as oil, and all we are planning to do with our excess at the moment is to let it run off into the sea. Supertankers don’t have to be built just to carry oil, and they could prove to be as much of a lifeline to the world as oil is today. and any accident would have a negligible effect upon the oceanic environment.
Now: Nestlé is on record as saying that they believe that all fresh water should be privately owned. By them, of course. Is our government going to simply sit back and let yet another potential income-generating resource be snapped up by a non-UK private sector company, thereby denying our own nation the opportunity to create much-needed revenue for its Treasury? If anything, the government should, in the national interest, be re-nationalising the water industry in preparation for the time when it will be able to exploit the excess.
In view of the way this government is privatising everything in sight, including people’s medical records, though, the answer has to be “Probably.”
What does this mean for the average person in the street? One of the things it means is that if you’re working and either have an accident or need to have an unexpected operation, you’ll be chivvied back into work under Iain Duncan Smith’s latest proposals because the Treasury won’t be able to afford to keep you on sickness benefit until you’re fully healed. The reason it won’t be able to look after you is because today’s government won’t have planned and prepared to use a national resource for the nation’s financial benefit. Instead, a future government will simply increase taxes. We’ve seen it happen time and time again, ever since the revenue from the water, gas and electricity boards, the railways and the national airline ceased running in their entirety into the Treasury’s coffers. Nowadays the government is lucky if those privatised industries even pay their taxes! If you happen to be working for Nestlé, you’ll have been hit by a double whammy because the money that could have spared you any aches and pains caused by returning to work too soon will be going into their shareholders’ pockets.
So, maybe it’s time we had a good think about water in the UK and how it’s currently mismanaged, and started looking at ways to remove that “mis” from the description, hmm…?
Darren Lynch
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/video/playlist/floods/
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/floods-warning-thousands-more-homes-022059619.html
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/river-thames-flood-alert-more-rain-way-082414779.html
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/39-money-no-object-39-cameron-pledges-flood-170358795.html
