Latest news with #watershortage
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Fears of 'water rationing' without controversial reservoir, government claims
Oxfordshire campaigners against plans for a mega reservoir near Abingdon have dismissed government claims Britain will face water shortages. Water Minister Emma Hardy warned that the country will face 'water rationing like we have in the Mediterranean' without new reservoirs. It comes as controversial plans to start on massive infrastructure projects near Abingdon are pushed ahead by Labour with the South East Strategic Reservoir south west of the town expected to be nearly as big as Gatwick Airport, holding 150 billion litres of water. READ MORE: Murder probe after death of 40-year-old woman in Abingdon The minister suggested that water shortages could hit households and businesses in the next decade if the government fails to build new artificial lakes as she unveiled plans to speed up the planning approvals process. Abingdon Reservoir has been a controversial project for more than a decade (Image: Thames Water) The government plans to bring in legislation that make reservoir proposals 'nationally significant' in terms of planning, giving ministers, rather than local councils, the final say on whether projects go ahead. At the same time, Environment Secretary Steve Reed intervened to bring two projects planned in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire into the 'nationally significant' category. Flash Sale Alert! 🌟 Dive deeper into the stories that shape Oxfordshire with Oxford Mail. Unlimited local news, an ad-free app, and a digital replica of our print edition—all with 80 per cent fewer ads on our site. 🗞️ 👇#StayInformed — Oxford Mail (@TheOxfordMail) May 26, 2025 But campaigners against the Abingdon project said the changes were for nothing. READ MORE: Abingdon locals 'worried' as Abbey Gardens shut by police Derek Stork, spokesperson for Group Against Reservoir Development or GARD, said: 'This statement is just the government trying to look as though it is taking action, when really it's not taking action at all. 'These reservoirs, as is the case with the SESRO proposal, were already nationally significant projects so won't be sped-up.' Water minister Emma Hardy meets schoolchildren (Image: West Oxfordshire District Council) Mr Stork said that the government already took control of the Abingdon reservoir project by approving the development consent order, to allow the £2.7million project to go ahead without a public enquiry. GARD, along with organisations Safer Waters and CPRE Oxfordshire, will be appealing this decision at a High Court judicial review hearing, scheduled for two days starting June 26. READ MORE: Red Arrows to fly over Oxfordshire: When and where to watch Mr Stork said: 'We started off opposing this reservoir, but what we've got round to is the system is just totally not fit for purpose. That's why we're taking the government to court. This reservoir is only symptomatic of what's wrong with the system.' 'We think the way these mega projects are proposed and analysed is totally wrong. We can't find valid justifications for it – because they aren't there. 'A successful public inquiry into against the biggest project is what's going to change the government's thinking about this. 'By winning the public inquiry we hope not only to defeat SESRO, but also to change the system. That decision would really resonate.' READ MORE: Police urge public to avoid popular Oxfordshire park Current plans are for the reservoir to be delivered by Thames Water to supply water in the southeast. This is the second attempt at building the mega reservoir, after an attempt under the Conservative government failed following a public enquiry in 2010. Thames Water previously said it 'welcomes the government's plans to improve infrastructure across the region'.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
First new reservoirs in England for more than 30 years given go-ahead
The government has ordered the building of two reservoirs, the first to be built in England for more than 30 years. The lack of reservoir capacity, combined with a rising population and drier summers caused by climate breakdown, has put the country at risk of water shortages. The government warned in recent weeks of an impending drought if there was not significant rainfall soon, and reservoirs have been reaching worryingly low levels. The environment minister, Steve Reed, has awarded the status of 'nationally significant' to two new reservoir projects in East Anglia and Lincolnshire and ordered that they go ahead. These will be the first to be built since 1992. The government said this would shore up water resources for more than 750,000 homes in England's most water-stressed areas. Without more capacity, the UK will be at risk of running out of water in the medium term. The Environment Agency has predicted a shortfall of almost 5bn litres a day by 2050. The water minister, Emma Hardy, said: 'Today we are backing the builders not the blockers, intervening in the national interest and slashing red tape to make the planning process faster to unblock nine new reservoirs. This government will secure our water supply for future generations and unlock the building of thousands of homes as part of the plan for change.' The building of thousands of homes in the areas to be served by the reservoirs is being held up as there is not the water supply to sustain them. Anglian Water is proposing to build Lincolnshire reservoir to the south of Sleaford, which should be working by 2040. It has partnered with Cambridge Water to propose the Fens reservoir, located between the towns of Chatteris and March, to be completed in 2036. Lincolnshire reservoir would provide up to 166m litres of water a day for up to 500,000 homes, and the Fens reservoir would supply a much-needed 87m litres to 250,000 homes in the driest region of the UK. The projects will now progress to consultation phase. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion David Black, the chief executive of Ofwat, said: 'We welcome the clear focus the government is placing upon accelerating the delivery of supply and resilience schemes that will meet our future water needs and support economic growth. Alongside the £2bn of development funding announced at our 2024 price review, this will help us to deliver the largest programme of major water infrastructure projects – including nine new reservoirs – seen in decades.' The other seven new reservoirs planned to be built by 2050 will be in Oxfordshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Kent, East Sussex, the West Midlands and Somerset.
CBC
6 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Leaders across Nunavik want utilidors for water. Experts say it's not easy.
Social Sharing As Puvirnituq, Que., continues to grapple with its water shortage, officials are looking at permanent solutions to aging infrastructure across Nunavik. On Monday, a state of emergency was extended for another 10 days. In the past, leaders across Nunavik have called for utilidors to be installed in their communities. Those are corridors for providing utilities like water either underground or above ground. Hossein Shafeghati, the public works director at the Kativik Regional Government (KRG), said that's an avenue they've considered for many years, but there are two main barriers — money and permafrost. In 2019, a feasibility study for utilidors just in Kangiqsualujjuaq — an average-sized Nunavik village with a population of under 1,000 — estimated the cost to be $170 million. "With the inflation we have had in construction projects … if we were to start this year, it would probably be around $300 million," Shafeghati said. Most of Nunavik is covered in permafrost, a thick layer of soil where temperatures are below for at least two years, and that makes burying water pipes underground a challenge. Michel Allard, an emeritus professor with Laval University's geography department, has been studying permafrost thaw in Nunavik and Nunavut for decades. "It's not easy to dig in the permafrost," he said, adding that permafrost melt is a gradual process. Given the rising population over time, he said many Nunavik communities built water pumping stations near lakes to draw more water for delivery and sewage ponds to dump wastewater, in the absence of a utilidor system. "As the size of the community increases, water consumption increases as well," Allard said. "People feel the need now to have water from the tap. That means having pipes or buried pipes … to bring the water directly to the houses." Pipes in other Arctic communities In Nunavik, only Kuujjuarapik has a utilidor system. Shafeghati said that's because the village is built on sand, rather than permafrost and it's easy to excavate. "So the pipes are buried at a safe depth with a very low risk of freezing," Shafeghati said. "Incidents of freezing happen quite often, but that [happens] closer to the surface … and they have a municipal crew that is trained and equipped with the tools they need to address those freezing events rapidly." Further north in Nunavut where there is permafrost, partial piped systems exist in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and Resolute Bay. Allard has studied the system in Iqaluit, which is also possible because of the community being largely built on sand. He also looks to other circumpolar countries like Alaska and Greenland for inspiration, which have pipes above ground too. "[In Greenland] they have utilidors, but they also have insulated and heated pipes that run on the surface … they build on hills, they build on bedrock, much more so than we do in Nunavik," he said. However, he said digging those ditches, and blasting that bedrock, can be costly and complex and he stressed that each community has its own geology to consider. 'There's nothing much left' Shafeghati said he's calculating budgets for some new projects, but "there's nothing much left" from provincial funding. "To put anything underground, it's not realistic with that kind of money," he said. He said in many municipalities across Canada, funding is distributed per capita. "That might sound fair, but it's not equitable, so it should be a needs-based system," he said. Quebec's Indigenous Affairs Minister Ian Lafrenière said he's not opposed to the idea of exploring utilidors in Nunavik, but he said he first wants to complete the post-mortem with local authorities into what has gone wrong in Puvirnituq. "I want to see the results of this complete review, because if there was a need for money … nothing was proposed to us. So let's look into it. If it is an issue with money, we're flexible," he said. He said there are several funding agreements on a yearly basis for all services in Nunavik amounting to roughly $800 million, and several agreements had funds unspent. Shafeghati believes utilidors in other parts of Nunavik are possible. In the meantime, he said he's looking at other avenues such as subsidized private-public partnership and improving the water trucking system. That includes working on boosting the workforce, currently dominated by men. "We will need more education … because this is very labour intensive. Or we should perhaps invest in housing to bring in workers from the outside because a lot of our villages have very, very young populations."
CBC
22-05-2025
- Climate
- CBC
Temporary pipe installed in Puvirnituq, Que., amid water emergency
Social Sharing Water is starting to flow through a temporary pipeline in Puvirnituq, Que., amid an ongoing water shortage in the community. Workers spent most of Wednesday unrolling a roughly three kilometre long flexible pipe that bypasses a section of the permanent pipe that froze mid-March. This critical corridor connects the water pumping station to the treatment plant. The blockage, coupled with hazardous weather conditions, has restricted water delivery across the community of 2,100 people and led to a state of emergency on Saturday. The situation has resulted in school closures, and some hospital patients to be sent south for care. Hilda Snowball, chairperson of the Kativik Regional Government (KRG), said on Wednesday that they've started filling up the water pumping station, though there's still ongoing work to clear the snow on the road to the station and sewage lagoon. "The temporary pipeline will fill up the water pumping station where the water trucks get their water from, so it will continue delivering water to each resident," she said. Truck drivers from neighbouring Inukjuak have also been helping out with deliveries. Puvirnituq mayor Lucy Qalingo says things are looking up for her community and she's hopeful the interim measures will be fully operational by Sunday. "Roads are thawing, the snow is thawing, the sun is shining," she said. Roughly 120,000 litres of water has been flown in, alongside sanitary products. Service points have been set up at the primary school and hospital. These are places places where people can access necessities, such as bottled water, sanitary products and disposable utensils. A dozen local Canadian Rangers have been activated to help distribute supplies. Those rangers were already helping out unofficially in the community prior to the federal emergency management minister approving that request. Though Snowball, the chairperson of the KRG, said the official deployment means the Canadian Rangers can alleviate some of the expenses of the relief efforts. Funding is 'peanuts' Deliveries of supplies will continue until the state of emergency is lifted, Snowball said. After that the focus will be on fixing the pipe that froze, which can't happen until summer. A heating wire, which prevents water from freezing during the winter, has reached the end of its life. "It was impossible to thaw the area where the pipeline froze, so there will have to be construction on the pipeline during the summer once the ground is unfrozen," Snowball said. Determining why the pipe froze will also be a priority for the Quebec government. In 2023, the KRG signed a five year deal with the Quebec government which provides $163 million for municipal infrastructure. While Snowball appreciates that funding, she said the amount is "peanuts" when it's spread across 14 Nunavik villages. She uses the example of the renovation of a childcare facility in another Nunavik village costing roughly $7 million. She said water infrastructure is particularly outdated in the region and there are three villages looking to do repairs on pipes. "They're now 15 to 20 year old infrastructure, which is why we are seeing a lot of damage with the pipelines," she said. "As well, the service trucks … before the pandemic we purchased trucks at about $300,000. Now they're at $600,000. It will require a lot of funding to really catch up." Ian Lafrenière, Quebec's minister responsible for relations with the First Nations and the Inuit, has reiterated his desire to conduct a post-mortem after the emergency phase is over, though he doesn't believe money is the issue. "I heard people talking about the lack of money and the funding in the last agreement that we gave KRG. There was still some money in the agreement that was leftover," he said.
BreakingNews.ie
20-05-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Syria's driest winter in decades triggers severe water crisis in Damascus
Syria's capital is suffering from its worst water shortages in years as a result of the lowest rainfall in more than six decades. The Ein al-Fijeh spring in the Barada Valley is almost dry, leaving many people to rely on buying water from tankers that fill from wells. Advertisement The spring is the main source of water for five million people, supplying Damascus and its suburbs with 70% of their water. Government officials are warning that things could get worse in the summer and are urging residents to economise in water consumption while showering or washing dishes. 'The Ein al-Fijeh spring is working now at its lowest level,' said Ahmad Darwish, head of the Damascus City Water Supply Authority, adding that the current year witnessed the lowest rainfall since 1956. The spring is the main source of water for Damascus (Omar Sanadiki/AP) The channels that have been there since the day of the Romans two millennia ago were improved in 1920 and then again in 1980, he said. Advertisement Mr Darwish said the water comes mainly from rainfall and melted snow off the mountains along the border with Lebanon, but because of this year's below-average rainfall 'it has given us amounts that are much less than normal'. The spring also feeds the Barada River that cuts through the capital. It is mostly dry this year. During Syria's 14-year conflict, Ein al-Fijeh was subjected to shelling on several occasions, changing between forces of then-president Bashar Assad and insurgents over the years. In early 2017, government forces captured the area from insurgents and held it until December when the five-decade Assad dynasty collapsed in an offensive by fighters led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, of current President Ahmad al-Sharaa. Advertisement Tarek Abdul-Wahed returned to his home near the spring in December nearly eight years after he was forced to leave with his family and is now working on rebuilding the restaurant he owned. It was blown up by Mr Assad's forces after he left the area. Mr Abdul-Wahed said: 'The Ein al-Fijeh spring is the only artery to Damascus. Now it looks like a desert.'
