Water use

[Billy Wobble Dagger]

Here's an interesting article from todays press. It all sounds like a reasonable idea from water meters to more porous substitutes for tarmac. The cost and time to implement these items along with the monumental task of changing people’s attitudes as usual will be the downfall I suspect.

How our voracious appetite for water is having a profound effect on the environment - Independent Online Edition > Lifestyle

BWD

[kshotton45]

That was a well balanced article. We seem to know part of the problem, but are we going to do anything about it ?

' We need to dig up our Tarmac car parks and replace them with a porous surface. '

Tear up our block paving and tarmac driveways ? I'm all for it! But am I on my own !!??

Keith.

[Tursiops2]

Excellent article, I'm going to print it out and show it to my landlord.

Originally Posted by kshotton45

Tear up our block paving and tarmac driveways ? I'm all for it! But am I on my own !!??

Keith.

No, I'm with you all the way on that
T2

[Chiltern Chris]

Hi All,

This isn’t anything new. The porous tarmac issue is just one method of what’s called SUDS i.e. sustainable urban drainage systems (Environment Agency - SUDS - Guidance). These methods are now widespread for many developments. If a development needs consent from the Environment Agency (EA) then they are most likely to make the developer use a SUDS technique, local councils aren’t so switched on about this when giving out planning permissions but they’re slowly getting better. There has been a problem with the Civil Aviation Authority criticising SUDS within 13 miles of any airfield as they might attract birds (it shows that CAA might know about airfield regulation but nothing about birds). The problem becomes clear if you draw a 13 mile diameter circle around all the airfields in the SE England and see that about 50% of the land area is covered.

As for water demand, at the recent panel hearing about the government’s targets for house building in the SE, the EA asked for stringent water efficiency requirements to be built into each house but the government inspectors refused to accept this and said that they preferred to encourage a new massive reservoir instead. They also refused to link green infrastructure e.g. sewage works, to the house building programme i.e. the Councils will be able to build new houses before they have provided the systems to protect the environment from the development.

We now have a reasonable knowledge of how to protect the environment from sewage, over abstraction, diffuse pollution from farming etc. but there isn’t the political will to either spend the money or upset the Daily Mail / News of the World readers (is media prejudice illegal yet?) as they represent most voters.

Chris

[Jez]

Originally Posted by kshotton45

That was a well balanced article. We seem to know part of the problem, but are we going to do anything about it ?

' We need to dig up our Tarmac car parks and replace them with a porous surface. '

Tear up our block paving and tarmac driveways ? I'm all for it! But am I on my own !!??

Keith.

Your not alone

[Tursiops2]

Originally Posted by Chiltern Chris

We now have a reasonable knowledge of how to protect the environment from sewage, over abstraction, diffuse pollution from farming etc. but there isn’t the political will to either spend the money or upset the Daily Mail / News of the World readers (is media prejudice illegal yet?) as they represent most voters.

Chris

SUDS law, innit

[svenrufus]

The political will for ideas like a major new reservoir is greater than it will ever be for legislation for water efficiency and SUDS as it seems politicians are obsessed with large scale projects, with a big budget, that can be shown on TV as demonstrably taking action. Showing an urban drainage system is not nearly as glamorous as showing a big hole in the ground full of water (never mind the empty rivers and choked ponds).

How do you sex up a story about toilet hippos?
What's so great about rainwater capture and re-use, it's just not tele-genic.
Banning sprinklers? You've got to be kidding, political suicide!
A new reservoir on the otherhand - now we know that someone is doing something!

Unless politicians are prepared to act from conviction rather than political expediency, we will carry on getting these cock-eyed solutions that actually solve nothing, while at the same time exacerbating other problems.

It's all far too depressing for a Friday night.