Water, we take it for granted, writes our Teen Blogger Rhian. We turn on the tap and there it is, hot for a bath or cold and ready to drink.
In other countries, people have to walk great distances just to get some water from muddy puddles and even in developed countries, you can’t necessarily run clean, drinkable water from the tap, but such things aren’t a problem for us in this country - at least, not at present.
The United Nations says that we need 50 litres per person, per day, for drinking, washing, cooking and sanitation, but in the UK it is estimated that we actually use more like 150 litres per person, per day.
So what? Well, we’re already hitting problems with availability. We get our water from reservoirs, rivers and underground sources, but climate change, European Union regulations regarding environmental conservation and the greater range and availability of household fittings and appliances that use water, are all having an adverse impact upon our limited water supplies.
What will make things very much worse in the future however in the significant and rapid increase in the population of the UK, mainly through immigration, coupled with the all of the intended house building that will be necessary to accommodate everybody.
This, according to Migration Watch can be thought of in terms of a new city the size of Birmingham, every five years - and that means an awful lot of houses built and fields destroyed.
Not only will all those extra people and homes want massive quantities of extra water, but the urbanisation of open land causes rainfall to run off rather than soak into the ground and this in turn, can cause flooding.
One of the problems with flooding is that it picks up a whole lot of pollutants which can then contaminate rivers and other areas where water is collected.
It’s not all a rosy prospect and whilst in the UK we can at least build desalination plants to extract fresh water from the sea, they are horribly expensive and there are consequently no plans for any at present.
When there are, I shall be a fully fledged adult and you can bet that by then, water will be attracting the same sort of taxation as petrol and tobacco do now.
This idea really annoys me because as I see it, I shall have enough money problems trying to pay for somewhere to live, plus paying energy bills and council tax too, without the water companies having to hike up their bills to pay for essential new projects.
I know in your eyes I’m probably just another interfering 18 year old but you know I’m right, so why can’t something be done about it now?
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