Water - a continual juggling act
28 11 2006First, the good news on the water front.
The borehole has now recovered slightly from its recent drop in flow rate, which means the pump has been able to fill the 12,500-litre main tank to the brim.
While we have to continue being careful, it does mean I can shower every other day instead of every third day and this will be something of a relief to the people I meet.
It also means we can do an extra load of washing a week and consider making some more homebrew.
But the bad news is that while we appear to have had some wet weather over the past three weeks or so, the amount of rainfall has been considerably less than many people think.
This is largely because the fierce winds make a little rain go a long way in getting everything thoroughly damp. We may feel wet, but we’re not actually soaked.
The lack of rainfall means the levels in the water butts collecting run-off from the roofing is down - we have 4,000 litres of capacity but only 2,100 litres or so of water.
It also means less water to percolate through the ground to the borehole over the next six months.
People do not know how fortunate they are to have mains water supplies (or reliable bores for that matter) and be able to use as much as they feel like without thinking further ahead than which tap to use.
We have to constantly think about the water supply, not just now but six to 12 months ahead as it can take that long for the rain falling on our small catchment to reach the borehole.
I expected and accepted this sort of thing when living in the bush in Australia, but it’s extremely weird to be in this situation in “rainy” Scotland.
Still, it’s no bad thing to be constantly reminded that resources are scarce in the overall scheme of things and that we have to be sparing in what we use, whether water, oil, wood, food, minerals, or anything else.
It is still the same in rural NSW mate. A nearby relation has just had to purchase 20,000 litres of water for $250.00 Aust as their only farm dam is now empty. This is common practice in this terrible drought these days. It is said to be the worst drought in 100 years.
Even the native wildlife are losing condition steadily as water dries up. Kangaroos in our area are noticeably in poor condition.
Glad that things are a little easier - get the home brew done first
Incidentally - we had a call saying that the grants forms are now available for water stuff - and did they want us to do a risk assessment (cost £50!) to see whether the water was up to scratch. I advised that we had had a filter fitted now because we couldn’t keep on buying bottled water blah blah… and that we wanted to claim retrospectively… he thought this would be difficult but advised that other folk were contacting their local councillors so I imagine we’ll do the same.
For those who haven’t been following this, Shirley’s referring to the bureaucratic nightmare involved in having a private water supply in Scotland.