Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Water

There has been a lot of talk about this over this summer, the worst drought that anyone can remember or the worst since this date, depending on what country you are in.

The UK one of 1976 sticks in my memory, I was 7 and very much remember standpipes in the road, using bath water to flush the toilet, for whatever reason the summer 2003 doesn't resonate as much with me as the 1976 one, maybe because I was married with two small children by then I had other things to worry about.

Anyway where is the leading you might ask well the question of why has the UK suffered so badly, there are lots of factors, but one that comes to mind is that you have to invest in your infrastructure. Since 1976 the UK population has grown by over 11 million, that to put it in perspective is roughly the same size of the population of the whole of Andalucia in Spain, where I currently live. 

Something is definitely broken in the UK, water in Spain is a public/private partnership at the municipality level, of which there are 785 in Andalucia, but is essentially devolved to the 17 regions, one of which is Andalucia, given regions and municipalities are directly elected lack of water or sewage flowing into the sea is very visible by your electorate. Last winter where we live sewage pipes got destroyed by the winter storms meaning sewage could have flowed into the sea. The Andalucia govt stepped in and fixed them. The UK is a bit of a joke here as to how can anywhere where it rains so much be short of water?

It also doesn't rain on the Costa del Sol for 6 months over the summer, but we can still fill pools, wash cars, water gardens etc. so they have the water supply part right as well, now to be balanced this is not the same everywhere in Spain, but my direct experience says where we are they have it right with ours known as La Concepcion Reservoir. Here we are after a seriously hot summer (it was 31C on Easter Sunday and we've had more fires and 40C+ days than ever) and it'll be hot for many weeks to come and the reservoir is at 73% capacity still. The reservoir was built in the early 1970s and was controversial but the vision of it can now not be denied as it supplies the 450,000 people on the Costa.

This photo was earlier this week of La Conception, they even publish a webpage about how full it is https://www.embalses.net/pantano-847-la-concepcion.html so no hiding.


 


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