Lord Smith the man who hopes his flow of ideas will save us from drought
This article speaks powerfully to many of us in the dry east side of the country – it explains how Lord Smith who leads the Environment Agency has been ruminating on our current drought problems. It goes on to explain:
“Water companies should build interconnecting links so that they can share water easily, and move it around the country in drought periods, he feels.
Such a system would be as effective as the expensive national water grid which is sometimes proposed to deal with Britain’s north-south rainfall imbalance, but far quicker to put in place, and far less costly. Lord Smith, who, as Chris Smith MP, was Labour’s Culture Secretary in Tony Blair’s first administration from 1997 to 2001, is somebody we will be hearing a lot more from, now that south-east England and much of the Midlands are officially in drought, after two of the driest winters on record, and with no sign of the heavens opening to replenish reservoirs. As the environmental regulator of the water industry, he will be the public face of drought control if an emergency arises during the summer.”
The importance of water to the land based economy is often singificantly overlooked when we rush to talking of the “flower bed” inconvenience of hose pipe bans. Lets hope discussions like this start to put a long term solution to a persistent problem more firmly on the agenda.