For customers of #SouthWestWater, this will come as no surprise, but in the two years to March 2022, SWW spent more on interest payments & #dividends than it did on maintaining (improving) its infrastructure....

You can decide for yourself whether this in any way contributed to their catastrophic failure of #water supply early this year.

That this included a 'special dividend' approved by #OfWat merely confirms that the regulator(s) have been asleep at the wheel.

I live in Devon. I am under a hosepipe ban. My supplier (South West Water) is very kindly suggesting some "easy wins" for me to save water, like taking less time in the shower, or using my washing machine less. It reckons that this way my household could save 12 litres per person per day, for a total of 48 litres saved per day, or about 18,000 litres per year. Sounds like a lot, right?

Yeah. The thing is, South West Water (in common with the other privatised water companies) lost 90 *million* litres *per day* in leaks in the last year for which data are available (https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/publication/leakage-dataset-march-2023/). And even that is likely a significant under-estimate, because it's under investigation by the regulator on suspicion of mis-reporting its leak figures. It has also paid out £112M in dividends to shareholders this week, while kindly putting my bills up, so sorry, we need money for investment to stop dumping all this sewage we're dumping. Illegally.

My little 48 litres is a literal drop in the ocean. Why on Earth would I put myself out when it will make not a blind bit of difference to the water available for general use?

In absolute terms, 18kl per year feels like a lot, granted. But the sheer effrontery of coming to me effectively cap in hand while handing out an actual fortune to their shareholders makes me want to just leave all my taps running.

South-West Water: Take the beam out of your own eye. Fix your flood of leaks before you come asking me to inconvenience myself to save (relatively speaking) drops. You've got the money for it, or at least you did before you gave it to your shareholders. Scum.

#uk #water #leaks #ukwater #devon #hosepipeban #southwestwater #nationaliseukwater

Water companies feel the heat as commercial bans loom in dry summer | Water | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/17/water-companies-feel-the-heat-as-commercial-bans-loom-in-dry-summer

#Water
#WaterShortages
#Sewage
#NationalDroughtGroup
#SouthWestWater
#HosePipeBans
#NonEssentialUseBan
#OFWAT

Squelched home from the bus stop. Removed and wrang out socks.

But what's this? It's a letter from #SouthWestWater telling me there's a hosepipe ban owing to drought.

We may have had an exceptionally dry Februry, but it's hardly stopped raining since then.

I will not be getting out my (non-existent) hosepipe.

South West Water fined more than £2.1m over sewage pollution

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-65403267

#SouthWestWater #SWWater #SWW #WaterCompanies #Pollution #Sewage #Effluent #Fines #Devon #Cornwall #Environment

Peeps who live in Devon and are served by Roadford Reservoir, South West Water are introducing a hosepipe ban in the area. Helpful link below with a postcode checker https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/environment/water-resources/hosepipeban #devonuk #devon #water #southwestwater

Devon hosepipe ban from 25th April

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/devon-hosepipe-ban-april-25-8358465

#Devon #Cornwall #WaterShortage #Drought #SouthWestWater #SWW #WaterCompanies #Reservoirs

South West Water enlists dogs to sniff out leaks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-65199197

#SouthWestWater #SWWater #SWW #Water #WaterCompanies #Leaks #Leakage #Dogs #Devon #Cornwall

Cornwall: Desalination 'could provide third of county's water'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-64862756

#Cornwall #Water #Desalination #Reservoir #EnvironmentAgency #ClimateChange #SouthWestWater

View across the #RiverDart this morning. The temperature is now 9 degrees. I swim further up the river because the #waterquality further down river is shocking. Runoff from the fields and raw sewage is a heady mix #southwestwater