We Brits, and probably we Ancient Brits did as well, always talk about the weather. Why is this? Because if it isn’t raining, or drizzling, or spitting, it soon will be. And when it isn’t raining, or drizzling, or spitting, or drenching up on the Atlantic seaboard of Cymru or Eire or Gall-Ghaidheil all the way up the west coast of the many islands, rocky shores, seaweed, sandy bays, rugged ancient rocks, the Light is very beautiful, and the many dark rain clouds make the possibility of seeing a rainbow. And there are some lovely clear sunny days too, or a few anyway.
Rain is water falling out of the sky when a cloud gets too heavy. Water on the ground is rivers, ponds, streams, burns, lochs, lakes, springs, tarns, dewponds, waterfalls, tributaries, fjords, rockpools, and puddles. Human society uses man-made reservoirs, farmers have iron drinking troughs for the animals or a big farm bucket, domestic households used to have a water butt, and there is an elaborate network of purifying and pumping stations, and the water pipes serving households and businesses. There is also an elaborate network of ah-em, the sewerage.
In the last few weeks water has been much in the news here in Britain, and for polarised reasons. These increasing hot and dry periods in the south, especially the south east, are hitting the headlines in the most basic way because humans need water to survive and without it we only last a few days. We are not a Saharan Euphorbia or one of the many native cactus plants of the southern landmass of America. Humans need more than a few drops of water every few months, as does every mammal, large or small.
To have 1000s of households without water, and in hot weather, and in a modern society where a household runs on water is disastrous, and the 1000s of customers of South East Water Ltd. have experienced days of outage. In a modern household in Britain of today water is used for flushing the toilet, the shower, the bath, the washing machine, probably a dishwasher, and running kitchen taps. Those with a garden, and who do things in the garden, often run a hose over plants and some even over the lawn.
The average use of water per head each day in the ‘UK’ is c.150 litres. That’s a lot. Lined up in 5 litre large containers that’s 30 of them, and then it looks like even more.
South East Water Ltd. is Ltd. because it is a private company, under a parent company (such is the appropriation of biological terms which the modern world uses) of HDF (UK) Holdings Limited. The name (UK) would suggest British owned. But no, the parent company itself is owned by the Utilities Trust of Australia 50%, the NatWest Pension Fund and Desjardins which have 25% each, and then an assortment of international investors who believed a water company in the south east of England was a good move. It was Mrs Thatcher who in 1989 pushed through the privatisation of the water industry in England and Wales. Water continues to fall as rain over the ‘UK’ without heed to its devolved jurisdictions or county administration, or privatised or public utility companies.
So far so difficult for the household in south east England. Individual consumers blame the company for executive pay, not fixing leaks, and not preparing for hot weather. The company says there was simply not enough water, which there wasn’t, and – and – consumption went up in the very strangely hot weather, thereby emptying reserves even quicker. All this happened without any major electrical failure, on which the entire human water system relies in Britain.
Head west about 200 miles and on Sunday 24th May the River Wye was granted a legal charter at the Hay Literary Festival. This legal status means the River Wye is the first ‘UK’ river to gain charter status. The charter gives legal rights to flow the water from source to estuary, to biodiversity, to be free from pollution, amongst a few others.
The launching of the charter at a Literary Festival, albeit Hay (on Wye), which is the original heavyweight of Literary Festivals, and its location of on the Wye, nevertheless, it is a Literary Festival, not a legal or political conference. Avara Foods campaigners say have majorly polluted the river in its mass chicken farming business, and that Welsh Water have failed to act over sewage spills. Apart from the unnatural nutrients from intensive farming which are choking waterways over most of Britain, the matter of sewage is a difficult one because all mammals, chickens and humans, produce the by product of what is termed sewage in modern Britain.
Giving a legal charter is a little confusing for the River Wye. It flows down the ‘UK’ borders of England and Wales, and it also is subject to the rain falling from the sky. In wet weather the flow will be fuller and faster, and may even flood, as in 2021 after Storm Christoph, and no human would be able to bring a case for damages against the river, because it has no money, no corporate structure, no offices, and no telephone contact number. In very dry weather the flow will be much reduced, though unlikely never to flow because the catchment area is such that it is a watery area and springs and small tributaries are enough to gather water into a river.
If the granting of a charter will stop the intensive chicken farming (done to provide the very cheap supermarket and takeaway food the ‘UK’ citizens crave) that would be very good in a few decades time for all the delicate life forms injured or killed by the human activity, when the river has adjusted again. If it doesn’t stop the chicken farming, what is the point of a charter? A river cannot represent itself in court, and legal status means a legal standard to adhere to. If neither regional council on either side of the river, nor the devolved government of the Welsh Senedd or the Westminster Parliament Dept. of Environment have done anything, nor Severn Trent Water on the English side, when they do have statutory power, what is a literary collaboration between those same regional councils and environmental pressure groups going to do? To do to actually change anything?
It is not possible for humans to stop producing sewage and the ageing water network cannot cope with processing the now c.70 million humans by products. When the networks were constructed the population was about 20 million and domestic household water consumption was hardly anything. Water butts were the norm in outside spaces and wet wipes and other pipe clogging throwaways had not been invented.
In the south east, the water company is blamed, and in the west, the River Wye has been granted a legal charter to flow free from human damage. Other countries have done similar, in Canada and New Zealand, but therein lies the difference. Humans around the world are generally more respectful of the reality and necessity of water in the whole of life. And coming further down the modern political scale, the societies which really worship and revere water are those who live from that water. The pan African reverence for water Mami Wata, Nyami Nyami of the Zambezi, Oshun, and the once world over gods and goddesses of springs and rivers who guarded the flow and appreciated the respect and honour given by the humans. The vast life giving source to ocean of the Ganges for half a billion people will also be suffering from modern existence no doubt, but the psychology, the spirit and the survival of the people who live from a river as their only water source is about as polarised as could be from us spoilt people in the ‘UK’ who blame everyone except looking at the societal and household relationship with water.