This summer has been exceptionally hot and dry: the Met Office describes it as the "Driest year so far since 1976". As I write, we are a week into September and yesterday was 28°C at Oare Marshes. Everything feels fried for lack of rain. Or at least it did until somewhere in the pitch back of last night when we had a brief thunderstorm with the first serious rain in our area for months. Nevertheless, this morning everything feels tired by the long absence of rain and has been dried thin; last night was not nearly enough to make any difference.
This dates me, but I remember the summer of 1976 extremely well: there was so little rain that we would save the bathwater to put on the potatoes growing in our vegetable patch. This year likewise, water from almost any source (for example, rinse water from the washing machine) gets saved to go on the vegetable patch or the flowers.
Anyhow a few pictures to illustrate the point. The opening picture shows a view across a local field where the grass is dried to hay already, although the deep-rooted trees have managed to maintain their green colour. It's good to see these trees still green (I believe they are fed by underground water coming off the North Downs), because elsewhere, especially along the sides of the motorways, the trees are going brown and shedding crackling dry leaves as if autumn has come wildly early.
The same pond on two occasions. (Above) 2022-08-28 completely dry. (Below) 2021-01-07 An example of the pond in its normal state. Previously, it was a permanent pond; it has become ephemeral. [*see update below]
A local pond, which I've never seen dry out before, is now empty. In all the years we have lived in this area, I've never seen it without any water. Now, it is completely dry. [*See update below]
Even at Oare Marshes, a wildlife reserve that I have visited regularly for decades, the East Flood has dried out, for the first time I can remember.
A black-backed gull pecks at a dead eel ( I think) on the cracked dry mud of the East Flood at Oare Marshes. Usually, water at this same spot is deep enough to support a large population of dabbling ducks and waders.
There is so little water around that our local water company has imposed a hosepipe ban. However, that doesn't mean that the water companies are not profligate themselves. There has been public outrage at the water losses through leaking pipes — something like 3 million litres per day of potable water lost through decaying infrastructure. It is no surprise that ground movements caused by drying earth during drought should cause occasional leaks, but there have been four recent ones in that road alone.
Despite inflicting a hosepipe ban on us, the water companies continue to lose water through significant leaks. This example is from the recent August Bank Holiday. (Above) 2022-08-27. (Below) 2022-08-28. The leak occurred before the Bank Holiday, but although the repair started before the holiday weekend, the leak appeared to have been left alone over the period. Water continued to leak, and spread further. Fortunately on the Tuesday, the repair seemed to be completed. However, another leak appeared within a couple of days further down the same road …
Adding further to public fury, water companies have not invested sufficiently in additional sewage capacity to meet the growing population of the UK. On those occasions when areas have had heavy rain over the summer, the sewage system has not been able to cope; correspondingly, there have been vast discharges of untreated sewage into rivers and the coast.
As an outsider, this looks like a classic case of regulatory capture. Water companies are natural monopolies, and the job of the state, once they were privatised, was to regulate them properly. Media accounts suggest that far from being a tough regulator, Ofwat has effectively turned into a lobby group for the water companies.
Anyhow, the first sign of rain for us in East Kent after months is good news. The weather forecast suggests more on the way. We need it.
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*Update 2022-09-09. That didn’t last long! Over the last three days, we’ve had some torrential rain. The dry pond I showed has already refilled, to my slight surprise. The water table must have been very close to the surface and it didn’t take much to get it back to a more-or-less normal level. Another pond nearby, which is truly ephemeral, shows no signs of refilling, which is also the way it should be. Some normality seems to have been restored.
The refilled pond, 2022-09-08
Incidentally, one Twitter user reports that there has been more rain in this part of the world in the first few days of September than in the whole of June, July and August.
About Oare Marshes. The Kent Ornithological Society has a new report describing the water situation there.
https://www.kentos.org.uk/images/Society_news/Oare_Marshes.pdf