I found myself reflecting on a recent comment along the lines of “has anyone else noticed the stupidity of some people when dealing with water? The waste, the uselessness, the ignorance?”
Well, we see it all the time here in north-east Scotland, with people constantly telling us that Scotland has plenty of water and frequent rain.
Actually, we’ve just had a six-week spell without rain, our borehole ran dry last year (we’re the highest point on our catchment) and between 3in and 36in down, the soil here is dry.
We know quite a few people whose boreholes ran dry last year, and with little rain or snow this past winter, we’re all dreading the summer.
Our borehole already has less inflow than usual, the neighbouring farm’s wells are down and we have almost no water in the rainwater harvesting tanks.
Last year, we spent several months with showers only once a week, carting water on our Land Rover (converted to a 250-gallon bowser), clothes washing being done at the OH’s workplace, and asking visitors to bring their own drinking water with them.
The toilet was only flushed for solids.
But move downhill a few miles and people drawing on the same aquifer waste water constantly, while those on mains water think there’s an endless supply.
We see people washing their cars every couple of days, filling pools, leaving sprinklers on for hours and the like.
And we all know that almost every house has a dishwasher these days, while many people use their washing machine without thought for putting in a full load or using a water reduction cycle (we only wash with a full load and on the water reduction cycle).
We’ve raised the issue with our MSP, the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Executive and the various departments, but nobody really thinks it’s a problem.
“Drought? Water shortages? Perhaps in southern England, but Scotland’s too wet.”
Ironically, I’m an Australian who’s lived in some very, very dry places in my time but find my water situation much worse in Scotland than back in Australia.
It’s also much more difficult to find the water storage, conservation and pumping solutions that are commonly available in Australia.
We have 18,500 litres of water storage now but I’d like to at least double that.
Ideally, I’d have a mechanical wind pump on the borehole feeding a 50,000 litre tank that would gravity feed to the house, steading and troughs. I’d have another 10,000 litres of tanks connected to the gutters and then gravity feed those into a 2,500-litre underground sump with pump.
That would make me a little more comfortable!
We also need the water for fire-fighting.
The village does have a fire station, but it’s manned by retained fire fighters.
When a neighbouring farm burned down last year, it took about 35 minutes for the first fire crew to arrive (from Inverurie, also retained) and they quickly ran out of water.
We told them to pump from our 12,500-litre tank, which they emptied while they waited for a bowser to arrive from Turriff and transport water from a dammed burn in the village (not enough pressure from the hydrants).
I’d also like to install my own fire pump and hose, but as I’ve been quoted around £900-1,100 for a used pump, suction hose, hose reel and nozzle that will have to wait a little longer.
Yes, water is important to us but it doesn’t seem to be to many other people.
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