Water Water Everywhere but not a Drop to Drink

Drought?


The current drought conditions are certainly helping the saplings we planted last November on the Undercliffe Nature Park. Many are showing shoots and hopefully they will survive and establish themselves.

We may be complaining that our weather has taken a turn for the worse with loads of rain, however many of us cannot understand why we have a hosepipe ban when it is too wet to use one.

Evidently its all to do with the the underground water levels and this is not the right type of rain as we need winter rain. Its them damn pesky plants that are pinching it all because it is spring.

On the Isle of Thanet most of our water is supplied by boreholes into artesian wells which are filled by water draining down through the soil. The powers to be say that we should not concrete our drives or gardens because this prevents natural drainage. OK but how could the building be justified of Westward Cross where vast areas of previous farm land and hospital grounds have been concreted and tarmacked over. Large scale developments like this must have an effect on our water table. As a result we must be losing gallons of water which would normally replenish stocks.

This situation is also compromised by increased building of dwellings creating more demand on supplies. The outcome in the long term will require more expensive solutions to support this demand. In turn this will have a major effect on our future water bills. In particular desalination will be costly and increase our carbon footprint to a massive size 12.

Towns and villages used only be built where there was adequate water supply. Now we appear to totally disregard this in the planning stage. Does it not make sense to consider future housing developments and industrial sites only after a solution to the water crisis is found? With climate change it ain't going to get any better.