ACOMSDave

Community Journalist

Water and Politics, A Dirty Business

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Water In 2021 I wrote about the crisis we were having with water in N Ireland.  To put it bluntly, our waterboard has left a lot of things undone, and on reading a current article by Sandra Laville which stated that our Ministers were warned over 20 years ago on how private equity would affect the water industry and ultimately our safety and well being (The Guardian 20 May 2023).  Basically, privatisation would lead to (as it normally does with private companies), the concentration on those areas which made money, and then left to the side those areas which didn’t but are necessary for the well-being of the population, i.e. sewage treatment, water pipe replacement etc.  According to figures released, which Sandra reported on, our rivers in the GB receive 11bn litres of raw sewage from 30 water treatment works in a year, and in 2021 the Guardian reported that 7m tonnes of raw sewage were discharged into Northern Irish rivers a year, NI Water said at the time, that these overflows were required to reduce the risk of sewage escaping from sewers and causing the flooding of homes, schools and businesses…

The difference between Great Britain and N Ireland is N Ireland’s water is controlled by the state (so far), and in Great Britain, it is privatised.  The privatised water companies are led by profit as I have already stated, whilst a state-owned enterprise should be led by safety.  It is not to say money isn’t a consideration, but it is to say that the planning should be different.

Privatisation

2023 Richard Seymour wrote in ‘A Short History of Privatisation in the UK’ … The emerging doctrine was that privatisation would make the large utilities more efficient and productive, and thus make British capitalism competitive relative to its continental rivals (1982-1986: Lift-0ff) …

However, the experiment cannot be seen to have worked, and certainly, Margaret Thatcher would be shocked to discover how many of our privatised industries are now controlled by extremely large organisations outside the United Kingdom, who only consider profit first!

The future

Currently, the water companies are saying that they will have things fixed by 2030, but, it will come as part of its £10bn investment, but that this will have to be paid from users.  So the observation might be, we pay the rich, including the shareholders, but we suck from the poor.

Water runs out as bosses rinse utilities for profit

Water tap. Free public domain CC0 photo.

I want to quote from an article about the Full Monty TV Series:

…The political destruction wreaked by successive governments wasn’t about destroying industry:  it was the infrastructure of the country they’d come to asset-strip, slowly and incredibly successfully.  Schools, hospitals, dental care, social care, mental health care, transport, the courts, water:  all of the structures that allow people in need to function were now on the edge of collapse…

If you wish to survive in today’s society you must be extremely rich, or be a politician, the ordinary working person is going backwards.  Only the ordinary working person can change this by voting in elections, both local and general, and if the right candidate isn’t there, then again do something about it – it is your country

 

…The structure of an oil molecule is non-polar. Its charge is evenly balanced rather than having one positive and one negative end. This means oil molecules are more attracted to other oil molecules than water molecules, and water molecules are more attracted to each other than oil, so the two never mix… (Science Sparks)

I think from looking at all the parties in or out of Government, we can now say that ‘Water and Politics’ don’t mix most definitely for the benefit of those who are not wealthy!

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Northern Ireland Water and Meter Charges

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Northern Ireland Water at our doorstep

Ireland Northern Giants – Free photo on Pixabay

Northern Ireland Water is a finite resource.  Rainfall in Northern Ireland is variable, with the monthly rainfall varying from year to year.  According to statistics produced by Statista, since 2010, winter has on average been the wettest season, however, in 2019, winter was in fact the driest season with summer that year being the wettest.

Also, when compared to the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland receives less rain than both Scotland and Wales.

In a letter dated 12 April 2012, in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, Northern Ireland Water stated that 25 reservoirs, which you would think might be enough for our needs.

However, Sir James Bevan in his March 2019 speech cautioned that the country is facing “an existential threat” and reaching “the jaws of death … we will not have enough water to meet our needs.”

With this in mind, I now would like to re-look at how the Northern Ireland Water organisation works.  NI Water is a Government Owned Company (GoCo).  The main characteristics of which are:

  • Its constitution is set out in Memorandum and Articles of Association.
  • It is unambiguously under public sector control.
  • It is established under and must conform with companies’ legislation.
  • Over 50% of ordinary share capital owned by the government.
  • Shareholders may receive regular dividend payments.
  • There is an accountability relationship with a sponsoring Department, and
  • It is permitted to recover costs and build up reserves through trading operations.

 

Northern Ireland Water

Sewage Treatment Works, Omagh © Kenneth Allen :: Geograph Ireland

In 2002 things were looking to be changed.  For decades domestic water and sewage services in N I had been provided without charge to customers.  Only non-residential customers received water bills and had water meters.  So suddenly out of the blue (or a government think tank), it was muted that all N Ireland water and sewerage services would become ‘self-financing.  Over the next two years exhaustive and extensive consultations on water reforms were carried out, with the aim of introducing water meters for new homes as well as water and sewer charges for all domestic customers.  The water charges plan was included in the Water and Sewerage Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, introduced by the then secretary of states Peter Hain; and it was in parallel, that Northern Ireland Water Limited was created in April 2007.  But, due to the anti-water charges campaign, in 2007, the plans for water charges were abandoned.

Northern Ireland Water

File:Water meter with remote reading.jpg – Wikimedia Commons

But as I have alluded to water is a finite resource, and our climate and therefore our weather is changing.  The government is having to look closely at all areas of the country to see if there are ways in which the ‘users’ (that means you) can be made to think more carefully about the usage of resources, and this includes water.  The possibility of water charges being reintroduced is entirely possible when you also look at the debts which the country has ramped up over BREXIT and also Coronavirus (COVID-19), and the government seeks ways in which to reduce the National Debt.

 

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