Water outages

[Nice65]

Ah, here it is. Have a cheery day everyone

Millions of tonnes of toxic sewage sludge spread on UK farmland every year

Exclusive: Experts call for stricter regulation as current rules set in 1989 require testing for only a few heavy metals

www.theguardian.com

 

[slowworm]

Ah, here it is. Have a cheery day everyone

Millions of tonnes of toxic sewage sludge spread on UK farmland every year

Exclusive: Experts call for stricter regulation as current rules set in 1989 require testing for only a few heavy metals

www.theguardian.com

Thanks for that. I've moaned about this sort of thing a few times on here but I'm not sure many people know much about it. In my experience some of the problems are known and understood by the EA but there is little monitoring or enforcement. It's not just fields and waterways that are contaminated but the sludge is often dragged over the roads and contaminates what is grown in the fields as well.

 

[Nice65]

Thanks for that. I've moaned about this sort of thing a few times on here but I'm not sure many people know much about it. In my experience some of the problems are known and understood by the EA but there is little monitoring or enforcement. It's not just fields and waterways that are contaminated but the sludge is often dragged over the roads and contaminates what is grown in the fields as well.

It's very scary reading, the industry is still using the guidance set out in 1989 and farmers are spreading this poisonous muck over the land our food is grown in. I wonder if 'organically' grown produce can be labelled as such if this sludge has been used on the soil, I'd imagine it probably could as no chemicals are being recognised as being present?

 

[Woody girl]

Oh that makes me so glad I decided to get that filter. I know it's not 100%, but at least I'm lowering the odds with it.
I've known Brita filters realy only improve the taste by filtering out things like chlorine . Would be useless for other stuff.
I'm happy to put up with the juggling involved to get decent water.
The smell of chlorine out of my tap is often overpowering. Not good.
I just need to remember to take a glass of filtered water to the bathroom to clean my teeth with now. Something that is often overlooked.
I no longer drink tea when out. The water hasn't been filtered. The teabags are shedding plastic into the tea, bovar in the milk... Teapot and loose tea, or plastic free teabags from now on at home.
I'll take my own flask out from now on.

 

[GreyCat]

I have been wondering.....

The local anthracite we get from the little drift mine in Cwm Nedd is the purest in Europe, most output from the mine goes to the middle east for use in filters in desalination action plants.

I have a half bucket of the dust left over out of the coal bags.......

...... wondering if it could be used as part of a home made filter bed.....?

Stream running through the garden is spring fed, and nothing spread on fields upstream (they are rough unimproved hillside with some natural woodland regeneration). The water is naturally high in iron though. I think the stream was originally the drinking water before the mains water went in (relatively recently, late 70s to early 80s I think)

Thoughts?

GC

 

[Pattree]

Isn’t the first job to get an analysis so you know what you are removing and what you need to remove (if anything)

 

[GreyCat]

Hmmmm. Maybe.... but that will of course change depending on weather conditions.

Interesting challenge....

GC

 

[slowworm]

I wonder if 'organically' grown produce can be labelled as such if this sludge has been used on the soil, I'd imagine it probably could as no chemicals are being recognised as being present?

I looked that up and it seems not in this country. I do try to try to buy organic produce but the shops down here have reduced their ranges, it's very hard to get organic milk for example.

But even if you don't spread it on your land directly you may still be contaminated. That's.our issue, we dont want obviously contaminated water run off but it would seem no one cares about that.

 

[slowworm]

Thoughts?

I'd agree you would need to know what's in the water before it's filtered and what's in it after its filtered, not just to see what's removed but also if anything unwanted is added.

I've just been servicing my ram pump today and noted how much sediment was in the header tank for it. If your water has much sediment that might block up any useful filtration properties of the coal fairly quickly?

 

[Woody girl]

I see this week,there have been water problems in Devon due to burst water main, and Royal Tunbridge Wells with water quality issues due to a batch of "bad" chemicals.
Burst mains are one thing, but bad chemicals?????
Reminds me of the Redruth incident in Cornwall where aluminium was poured into the treatment plant tanks, polluting the drinking supply.
Can we rely on our for profit water companies for safe drinking water? Makes you wonder.

 

[Pattree]

I am strongly of the opinion that Thames Water should not be re-nationalised ie. purchased back from their shareholders. The company should be confiscated and the board made responsible for any compensation involved.

Utilities should not be privately owned. They have to show a profit year on year or else their share price drops and they risk being taken over.
This means that no matter how much we all try to cut down in the use of water, gas or electricity, the overall bill must go up by more than the retail price index.

It was wrong to start with and it’s wrong now.

Sorry, but I feel strongly about this. I have had to listen to third world political ministers incredulous that we allowed privatisation.

 

[slowworm]

It's worth pointing out when the aluminium sulphate was added to the water supply in Camelford the company was in public ownership. I'm not sure the ownership model had much to do with the incident though.

Personally, as we don't get mains water here I'm not a fan of nationalising the water companies and having to pay for yet another service we will not benefit from.

Public bodies seem to constantly be making a mess of things, just look at what a basic error the OBR did by publishing the budget before it was announced. That probably cost some people many millions.

With the water companies, along with the environment in general, I think better regulation is required.

 

[Woody girl]

It's worth pointing out when the aluminium sulphate was added to the water supply in Camelford the company was in public ownership. I'm not sure the ownership model had much to do with the incident though.

Personally, as we don't get mains water here I'm not a fan of nationalising the water companies and having to pay for yet another service we will not benefit from.

Public bodies seem to constantly be making a mess of things, just look at what a basic error the OBR did by publishing the budget before it was announced. That probably cost some people many millions.

With the water companies, along with the environment in general, I think better regulation is required.

What happened in Cornwall was the delivery driver put the chemicals in the wrong tank. Carelessness on the part of the delivery driver.
It wasn't discovered for a while, (I think about a week or so.) Carelessness on the part of the company.
Water should be tested daily.
Water is critical to our survival and wellbeing. You can't mess with it without harm.
Our rivers and seas are testament to that. 25yrs ago I'd see salmon regularly in my local river. Started seeing dead ones here and there, but haven't seen one for many years now. Used to see trout in the leat, again, non to be seen for several years now.
A result of the water quality issues I mentioned earlier in this thread maybe?
As I'm typing this the song by Burl Ives, cool clear water comes on the radio! How's that for synchronicity!

 

[Toddy]

Alum is commonly used to flocculate the particulate matter in water coming from rivers and reservoirs. Our water comes from way up on the Lanark moors....peat and heather, etc., The water in the reservoir is whisky coloured.
By the time it reaches our taps it's clear.

I spoke with a couple of the water treatment engineers when I was querying pouring used natural dye and mordant down the drains.

They are very careful about what goes into our drinking water and what comes out of the sewerage.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but they are aware, and they are making good effort to be both economical and healthy about both.

 

[Falstaff]

Do we have any forum members in the areas affected by this chemical/quality incident?
How have they been getting on?
It just goes to show how fragile our supply chain networks are, the impact of failure and how easily they can fail.
I did have a scoff at some of the radio complainers, "unable to have a shower every day, terrible, needing to boil water, third world country etc" - just goes to show how soft we've got.

 

[Pattree]

Just up the road the, Cooperative Wholesale Society had a big horticultural estate. It was all supplied by a bore hole. The CWS are long gone as have many of the glasshouses. Much of the land has been built on but it’s still supplied by a private company running the bore hole.

Every couple of years residents, old and new, get a letter telling them to boil drinking water. This can go on for weeks. Even a cafe attached to a garden centre has to sell bottled water. My son used to live on the estate but we tanked drinking water to him and washing was fine. It happened a couple of weeks ago. I won’t buy bottled water but I can manage an espresso without a glass of cold water if I really must.

 

[Kadushu]

I have several friends in TW and it's been chaos. The water went off on Saturday and it's only just come back (Thursday). The shops sold out of bottled water within 24 hours. People with a bit of garden might have a water butt which is good enough for flushing toilets. People living in flats without that option are literally high and dry.
Some are seeing the funny side though...

 

[MrEd]

Prompted by this post I’m thinking of stacking two 60l drums to make a rainwater collector/gravity filter connected to the roof drainage (rones?)

I might experiment with the 25L drums that I’ve got and go from there.

I have 3 60l drums linked in series with pipes at the top, water enters number 1 and that’s where the majority of the silt and leaves collects, some in number 2 and barely any in number 3. There is a takeoff tap on 2 and 3, 2 quite near the bottom and 3 it’s about 4 inches up so any silt is below the level of the tap.

We were without water for 48 hours a couple of years ago (burst main) and we used butt water for our washing up and handwashing stuff and bottles for drinking and cooking. If it had gone on longer/didn’t have the bottles we probably would have had to filter for drinking and cooking.
Perhaps with a Millbank bag and a bucket, would probably have become an hourly chore to keep a supply up, and would have had to be rationed (using water for more than one purpose)

Good idea to have some resilience I think.

 

[Woody girl]

I have several friends in TW and it's been chaos. The water went off on Saturday and it's only just come back (Thursday). The shops sold out of bottled water within 24 hours. People with a bit of garden might have a water butt which is good enough for flushing toilets. People living in flats without that option are literally high and dry.
Some are seeing the funny side though...

View attachment 99830

It just goes to show that we need to take water supply a bit more seriously.
My usualy clear drinking water went a nasty brown a few weeks ago, and tho it was remedied very smartly, it made think again, and get my butt into gear and buy the berkfeld.
I'm glad I have my new water filter and can collect, prefilter with a milbank, and then fully filter any water I might need. I have a few gallons stored, but it wouldn't have lasted as long as this incident has.
I also have a camping bucket toilet, and plenty of wood pellet kitty litter, so wouldn't need a poo cruise.
Does sound fun though, and a typical British way to deal with a bad situation, with good old British humour.
Hope the situation remedies quickly.

 

[GreyCat]

I've got a spring-fed stream. (Currently a very full stream, glad I cleared the trash grate this morning given the weather). Never dried up even in driest summers. Also some water butts filled with stream water- 4 x 250L- and at the bottom of my Willow chest freezer, I have a dozen 5L bags of drinking water. Being frozen and in the dark, it not go off, and is doing sterling duty maintaining freezer temp as the willow only takes up half the space. (It was put in primarily to maintain freezer temp, then I realised it was also useful spare drinking water, it is in proper water containers).

Our mains water is pumped up the hill, whilst we are at a level where the mains pressure is enough to provide it, if the pump fails/they forget to turn it back on after routine servicing/it trips and doesn't come back on line etc, then the houses above us lose their water. You know when it's happened as the water is very aerated when the pump restarts. Not unusual for it to happen, on average once a month. So I'm conscious of what our alternatives might be if we were ever affected.

(On my "to get" list is a water filter. Or maybe a big pack of activated charcoal to make a filter butt).

We have private drainage, a downstairs loo and a dirty water pump which will lift water out of the stream and plenty of hose. So if we lost mains for a few days, could rig that to pump water into the loo cistern, would use a bucket if it was just a day or two. (There's probably enough head for flow without a pump, but that would involve a lot more piping and would pose other challenges....). If all else fails, I have the composting loo out of my van, plenty soak for it and plenty space to dispose of the liquid bottle contents.

Hot water wise: have a big Maslin pan for jam-making, so could boil a gallon a time- just pop it on the Rayburn and leave it for a while. Fine for a strip wash and washing up.

Not perfect but a big improvement on what we had before we moved here.

GC