Water waste.

[Workingman]

This green and pleasant land is awash with fresh water - in ponds, lakes, streams and rivers; it also has some pretty magnificent aquifers - so there should be more than plenty to satisfy our needs.

Well there would be if we didn't lose enough to meet the needs of 20 million people through leakage every day. We extract roughly 25bn litres per day yet lose 3bn of them - ~12%. Not only is that a shocking waste in itself, but it also means that we are using up reserves to cover the loss The Environment Agency reports that we could be in a position where we suffer floods and droughts at one and the same time.

I know from having worked with pneumatics and hydraulics that leaks are unavoidable, no system is 100% leakproof, but 12%!.

None of us would accept 12% losses in our daily lives for anything - fuel, money, food - and nor should the water industry. At least the EA has not shot at the easy target, US, in its latest report.

[meriad]

12% is totally unacceptable... that is quite shocking really. Water is such a precious resource and a fresh running water on tap a privilege.

[cromwell]

That is a bit of a shocker. At a bit pf a tangent, with the way that the population is increasing won't we be needing some more reservoirs soon?

[Suff]

Not shocked at all. Anglia water pumps its water out of wells. So when the privatised they went on a massive exercise of pipe renewal and infrastructure upgrade. My father's water pressure went up from 2 bar to over 8 bar simply by the lack of leakage in his line.

The net result? The markets dropped the share price and punished the company for "wasting" good shareholder dividend on "non essentials".

The dark underbelly of the capitalist beast. This is the kind of thing Government regulations are made for. Regulate? Not really, much better to spend on 900 dedicated anti "hate crime" police in London than legislate to make sure the people have clean water to drink and bathe in...

Surprised though. I thought it would be higher. Yorkshire water was blocked from redistributing water over the river system because of the levels of signal crayfish in the reservoirs which was driving out the native crayfish in the rivers, as I recall. Which makes the whole distribution thing much harder.

Around London they have been closing reservoirs and building houses on them because the land value is astronomical. Which begs the question "where the hell did they expect to get the water from?". There is a new 20ft water main which now rings London. It would seem that the more affluent water area's, like Wales, are expected to contribute to the London water situation.

London did, however, under Boris, open a water desalination plant (blocked by the most wonderful Ken LivingScum), which produces enough fresh water for 1M people every day. The plant cost a measly £250M. Given the propensity to move more and more to renewables, these type of plants could be carbon neutral by two decades from now. 4 more and London is water assured 24x7x365 with minimal feed in from outside.

Nobody said it had to make sense...

[cruiser2]

I have reported a small leak in the road I live in three time to the local water authority.
Have now sent an email to the MD of the company saying I do not want my water supply interupted as they have not repaired the leak.
It has been like this for a month. Not even marked as a job to be done.

[Workingman]

I have reported a small leak in the road I live in three time to the local water authority.
Have now sent an email to the MD of the company saying I do not want my water supply interupted as they have not repaired the leak.
It has been like this for a month. Not even marked as a job to be done.

That is the sort of thing the report was about, not what we or industry uses - lost water.

If we (the water utilities) could cut down leaks to something reasonable, say 5%, that would be enough to cover 11.5 million people - per day. That's a few decent sized reservoirs not needed.