Bob Dales: How politicians have let us down as the rivers run dry

IF not now, water will be the most precious thing on earth, but already vast areas of China, Africa and Australia, which were formerly productive, have been desolated by prolonged droughts.

A large part of England has also become vulnerable.

Nine years have elapsed since our highly qualified Met Office scientists, concentrating on climate change, warned us there would be alternate periods of extremes: longer droughts, violent rainstorms and worse flooding.

They were specific about the effects of the droughts: acute shortages of water for the public supply and the ruination of crops. They could have added the ruination of fisheries, and much bird and insect life who depend on the aquatic environment.

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But successive politicians have let us down. They seemed to think that action should be taken to reduce our carbon emissions, which is arguably too late. They failed to ensure that effective measures were taken to reduce the effects of climate change.

Any schoolboy, faced with the problem of too much rain, and then none at all, would have come up with the answer – to store as much water as possible when it is plentiful. But such common sense appears to have been lacking among the politicians.

So now there are questions we have to ask. Where are the additional water storage reservoirs which, after those nine years, could now be full? They could have made it possible to step up water levels in depleted rivers and made it more possible to supply the public and save crops and wildlife.

And what about pollution? It is the biggest menace when river levels are low. Should the penalties on polluters have been doubled as well as making them pay for the water which was contaminated?

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There are many measures which could have been taken, such as over the checking of water wastage of water and the fitting of all consumer points with meters.

And why has there not been more action by water companies to stop the leaks from old systems? And what have public authorities done to ensure that drainage systems can cope with violent rainstorms?

It is better to spend millions of pounds on the prevention of flooding rather than having to shell out millions more to to repair the damage to the infrastructure caused by violent rainstorms. And that is before you get to the incalculable misery caused by damage to property and to industry.

Is the Environment Agency on the right track? Instead of pressing for more storage reservoirs it seems more inclined to divert flood water from the rivers onto the land. What it does not seem to realise, however, is that we have allowed our self-sufficiency in food production to fall below 50 per cent.

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It means that every acre of land in our small islands is becoming increasingly precious. And what about that lost to marshland?

Will the Environment Agency go on for ever with the old methods of water management?

Its Catchment Abstraction Management strategies leave the door open for even more abstractions of water from our rivers and underground sources. Has the agency and the Government developed any plan B, such as the readiness of sea water desalination plants if present sources fall too low.

Overall, our politicians seem to be too busy squabbling among themselves and playing party politics to concentrate on what is our most valuable thing for our eventual survival. It invites the question of whether historians, 50 or 100 years hence, record them as Nero.

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Will one party in power, allowing our economy to get into a mess, be followed by the other power having to spend their time trying to revive it? And currently, will that be possible?

Some will make the comparison between far too many members of the two Houses of Parliament, who have less work because they have devolved responsibility for certain areas to the assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and much of whose legislation is dictated by the EU, with the time when fewer MPs and a comparatively small number of hereditary peers governed a United Kingdom and the largest Empire ever known.

Are we all too preoccupied by current affairs that we are failing to look far enough ahead?