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More ire was directed at water companies today for failing to stop leaks that were squandering billions of gallons each day while forbidding millions of people from using hosepipes.
More than 30 million people in England and Wales presently face or are already under limits for how much water they may use.
After a drought was proclaimed today for significant portions of the south, south west, central, and eastern parts of England, millions more people now face the possibility of additional restrictions.
But despite this, leaks cause water companies to lose up to two billion gallons of water each day.
Residents in the impacted region have resorted to social media to express their ire at the corporations, accusing them of delaying issues for weeks while imposing limits.
The Thames Valley area, home to more than 15 million people, will soon be subject to a restriction on the use of hosepipes and sprinklers, but the water provider has not yet announced an exact start date.
In spite of making efforts to use water “efficiently,” like the Germans and the Danes, Thames Water acknowledged earlier this week that it still wastes more than 635 million litres of water daily.
Londoner’s have blasted the water provider for not addressing big leaks.
One guy recorded a leak that has been happening on his street for more than a week.
He depicts in the movie the water that had flowed from the spring, where there had been two weeks, down the road.
On August 8, Thames Water had promised to arrive and remedy the leak, but four days later, they still hadn’t shown up, he said.
Because of the water constraint and the ongoing hot wave, he said: “Even if they asked for a hosepipe restriction, we still have this.”
Currently, the UK wastes roughly two billion gallons of water each day, or 20% of all water used in the nation.
Due to the “no substantial rainfall” expected, there are worries that hosepipe prohibitions may persist until October.
Around the course of the weekend, temperatures are predicted to surge to over 36°C, with a “category three” heat alarm in effect for most of England.
Five million people are served by Yorkshire Water, which was the most recent business to declare its first hosepipe ban in 27 years.
On August 26, a temporary ban will start, and anybody found violating it might be fined up to $1,000.
However, Yorkshire homeowners have turned to Twitter to demand that the business patch the leaks that are causing water to stream into their roadways before prohibiting them from using their hosepipes.
Another lady said that it was “disgraceful” that Yorkshire Water had imposed a hosepipe restriction when a leak close to her house had not been addressed for more than three weeks.
In the video, a section of a road is blocked off by yellow barricades, and a blue arrow painted on the ground indicates the location of the leak.
Although it seemed that repairs had been done, water was still leaking into the roadway.
1.4 million people in Kent and Sussex are already subject to limitations as a consequence of the South East Water embargo, which started today.
A hosepipe restriction prohibits anyone from attaching their hose to the public water supply.
This entails that it will be unlawful to fill swimming pools and wading pools with hoses, clean your home’s walls or windows, or wash your automobile.
‘Bit perplexed how you can allow this leak continue since 1:30 AM this morning yet still implement a hosepipe restriction starting Friday,’ one lady said on Twitter.
If there is such a lack of water, we need to halt all leaks right now.
In the video, you can see water leaking from a pipe into the street and soaking a neighbouring sidewalk.
One more displayed a leak on Kent’s Sittingbourne High Street.
Since the leak started, at least 40,000 litres, according to the lady who submitted the video, have been lost.
People in South Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, and the Isle of Man were subject to the ban a week ago as a result of Southern Water’s new regulations, but leaks are still taking “several weeks” to remedy.
Welsh Water said on August 19 that water consumption would be restricted for residents in Pembrokeshire.
Welsh Water was questioned about how they expect the public to “worry” about water waste “when the corporation that manages doesn’t” by a lady who posted a video of a sewer overflowing.
The limits are being implemented as a result of certain areas of England having their driest July on record and reservoir levels reaching their lowest points in 30 years.
Water company executives should hold off on receiving bonuses until they have fixed the mains leaks that are wasting billions of litres of water daily, according to critics.
Until the holes in the leaky pipes are verified, the Liberal Democrats and the charitable organisation The River Trust want the government to ban water company officials from receiving a pay raise.
Analysis of Businesses Executives at English water and sewerage companies made £48 million in 2020 and 2021, according to figures kept by the Lib Dems in the House, including £27.6 million in bonuses, perks, and incentives.
Southern Water, which on Friday banned the use of hosepipes, gave its executives bonuses of £3.4 million despite pumping raw sewage into rivers and failing to mend leaky pipes.
A dispute over Thames Water’s inability to operate a £250 million desalination plant intended to provide up to 100 million litres of water per day during droughts has led to threats to enact a hosepipe ban. Despite the collapse, its executives were paid almost £5 million.
The company, whose CEO Sarah Bentley made over £1.25 million in salary and incentives last year, urged Londoners to save water by taking shorter showers this past weekend.
A hosepipe restriction was implemented by South East Water for select customers in Kent and Sussex, and during the previous two years, it has given its executives approximately £646,000 in bonuses and perks.
Tim Farron, a Lib Dem who is in charge of rural affairs, said it was outrageous that water company executives receive bonuses even though they don’t bother to fix leaks while millions of people are affected by hosepipe bans. What in the world did they do to earn these bonuses?
“Ministers are enabling crisis after scandal involving water companies.” People are tired of it. It’s time for someone to confront these businesses and demand action. Fixing these leaks should be the first step, followed by a permanent halt to sewage pumping into rivers.
A 50% reduction in leakage by 2050, according to Christine Colvin of The Rivers Trust, is seen to be “ridiculously unambitious.”
What qualifies as excellent performance by water providers, she continued?
“They are essentially just receiving rewards for their financial achievement, and there is no connection between their awards and environmental performance.”
Despite projections of an increase in droughts, water providers have only committed to halving leakage by 2050. With just 35% of the normal monthly rainfall in England last month and only 53% in Wales, it was the driest July in England since 1935.
Water providers have responded to social media concerns by stating that they are still working to fix leaks that the public has reported to them.
‘We would like to thank the public for reporting leaks to our network by phoning us, via social media, or by using our website,’ a Southern Water representative said.
Every day, we patch hundreds of leaks—22,500 in just one year—while working day and night to find and mend pipelines across a vast network. These are ranked in order of severity. Water loss from visible breaches is often less than that from concealed leaks on bigger pipelines buried further beneath.
“We’re substantially investing in intelligent network technologies to help us detect breaches quicker, but consumers still perform a crucial service by informing us,” the statement reads.
‘Reducing water wasted via leaks is one of our important aims,’ a Yorkshire Water spokeswoman said. ‘We have cut it by 50% since our previous hosepipe restriction in 1995/96 and we are hoping to decrease it by further 5% by 2025.
We put a lot of effort into fixing leaky pipes throughout the year, and this summer we have added personnel to our field teams and switched to a seven-day workweek to find and fix leaks more quickly.
“We know it’s not acceptable to be wasting so much precious water, but we’re doing something about it,” a Thames Water spokesperson said. “Our shareholders recently approved an additional £2 billion into the business so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage, and river health.”
It won’t happen overnight, but we’re moving forward and have achieved our three-year leakage reduction goal, cutting the amount of water lost by 10.2% since 2019–20.
“Our goal is to reduce leakage by 20.4% between 2020 and 2025, and in 2021–2022, we fixed more than 60,000 leaks, or nearly 1,200 leaks on average every week.”