Fracking will dry the Country out. Forget the supposedly cheap gas that you will never get, think about how much water will cost as 4 million gallons are polluted with toxins for each drilled bore hole. The sun only has to shine for 5 minutes and the Water companies cry Hosepipe ban at the present but there is a real danger hosepipes will be outlawed altogether if fracking is allowed to continue. Today MPs will debate a new law allowing water companies to take more from our rivers and lakes - this could have disastrous effects not only on wildlife but on us a species. Once again it is a bill that puts profit before nature and people and there is a real risk if it is passed Rivers will run dry. The assets of your Country that keep you alive are being sold for profit without a thought to future generations. There will be no water, no rivers or lakes for your children to enjoy and well see bath night once a month make a return as the cost of water escalates past that of petrol. Have no doubt that fracking is behind this bill and unlike Texas we cannot afford to close 30 towns due to total loss of water. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wind in the Willows river risks running dry if new water bill is passed New laws allowing water industry to take more out of rivers and sell privately would pose a grave threat to wildlife and habitats Rivers including the one Ratty rowed Mole along in Wind in the Willows face running dry far more often under new laws that will increase the water taken from them, according to critics of the governments water bill, which is debated by MPs for the first time on Monday. Already one in seven of Englands rivers have unsustainable amounts of water drawn from them, causing serious harm to the fish, animals and plants living there. At particular risk are chalk streams, a very rare habitat almost completely confined to England. The River Pang, a tributary of the Thames in Berkshire and whose water voles are thought to be the inspiration for Ratty in Kenneth Grahames classic story, is one of just 160 chalk streams. The waterways, many of which already run dry, host otters, salmon, trout, crayfish and water buttercups but are prized by water companies for the very clean water that has been filtered through underwater acquifers. The new laws will allow for the first time all private holders of abstraction licences to sell their water to water companies, a move that would almost double the water able to be taken. Most of the licences were issued 50 years ago and were granted forever. Currently, 30bn litres a day are taken from rivers, 10% more than is ecologically sustainable, but licences exist for a further 50bn litres a day. The licence system is completely broken, unsustainable and out of date, having been set in 1960s with no regard to how much water could be sustainably taken out, said Dr Rose ONeill, a water expert at WWF. Maria Eagle, Labours shadow environment secretary, said: The serious environmental concerns are entirely justified and ministers should rethink their approach. Ministers acknowledged the problem in 2011 and pledged to reform the system, with the then environment secretary Caroline Spelman saying: We must act now to make the changes needed to keep our rivers flowing. However, the bill that will be debated on the house of commons on Monday no longer contains major reform plans but does include the changes allowing those with private abstraction licences to sell water to increase so-called upstream competition in the water industry. Ministers now say the licence regime will be reformed in another water bill in the next parliament. The government is dragging its feet for some reason and pushing it off to a future bill which may never happen, said ONeill. A spokeswoman for the department of environment, food and rural affairs said: Making sure we have enough water is one of the major challenges we face in the coming years. We are making changes to the water industry to address these challenges and we will be consulting on abstraction reform shortly. In July, Conservative MP Anne McIntosh, chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, led a report which condemned the governments lack of ambition and urgency. She said: We heard about the environmental damage unleashed by over-abstraction [but] the governments plans – to reform the abstraction regime by the mid-to-late 2020s – will not take effect rapidly enough given that our rivers are already running dry. In the spring of 2012, after the dry winter, we saw rivers up and down the country drying up, with local groups having to rescue fish, said ONeill. Without reform the risk is going to go up even further. The Environment Agency (EA), which manages abstraction licences and the protection of rivers, warned in June that other factors would compound the problem: In the future, population growth, climate change and economic development are likely to increase pressure for more water to be abstracted. As a result, unless we all act now, further environmental damage may occur. Ministers have already made one concession by pledging to make the water regulator Ofwat consult the EA before allowing private licence holders to supply water. But ONeill pointed out that the EA is facing further deep budget cuts, which will see its staff cut by almost 3,000, a quarter of the total in 2009. theguardian/environment/2013/nov/25/rivers-water-bill-wildlife-habitat
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:31:23 +0000
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