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Wasting 915 million litres of water is about global warning
• I am writing to take issue with Thames Water’s
short-sighted attitude toward the environment (Borehole plan
to keep Regent’s Park green, Letters, March 23).
You quote a spokesman saying that “the company lost
915 million litres of water every day but leaking pipes are
a small problem compared to global warming”.
It is disappointing that an environmental services company would
fail to recognise the connection between water resources and
climate change, and also that they would use a bigger threat
to excuse their lack of progress in supplying a decent service
for customers and the environment.
We depend on our climate for rain to resupply our reservoirs.
Three years of below-average rainfall have already brought us
to drought conditions. In turn, this has rightly forced water
companies to introduce hosepipe bans.
Our changing climate seems to be pushing us toward a climate
that has shorter, more intense periods of rain, which quickly
flow off the land or result in flooding. This leaves us with
longer dry periods where we must depend on stored water.
If 915 million litres of water is being lost every day due to
leaks, then it is contributing to the risks associated with
climate change. It is not a small problem compared to climate
change, it is a large problem exarcebated by climate change.
Further, the energy and materials required to extract and clean
water from the environment, to ensure it is fit for domestic
use all depend upon fossil fuel energy. If we are losing 915
million of litres of water every day, then it is fair to assume
that we are cleaning 915 million litres of water too much. New
pipes would reduce the need to clean this water, and therefore
a reduction in the energy required to clean it.
Camden Friends of the Earth recently talked to the chairman
of the Water Consumer Council for the South East. He told us
that the water companies and the WCC aren’t geared up to
promote water efficiency.
So let us do it for them. Readers can find excellent water efficiency
advice, and get free water-saving devices at the Beat the Drought
website: www.beatthedrought.com
Alternatively, readers are invited to join Camden Friends of
the Earth: www.camdenfoe.blogspot.com
Graeme Maughan
Camden Friends of the Earth
Ground Floor Flat
8 Grove Road
Willesden Green
NW2
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