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How can England possibly be running out of water?

theguardian.com

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Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#271

Post by arichard123 »

krona wrote: post #145
autoexec wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to things like utilities every penny of profit comes at the expense of the public. Either prices are raised so that a small number of people can stuff their pockets with extra cash above what it costs to deliver the service and maintain the system or they get that extra money by failing to deliver the service or they do it by failing to maintain the system itself. I think the neglect and failure to inve…

> I think the neglect and failure to invest in infrastructure is the worst Cumulative capital investment by water companies in England and Wales since privatisation: £250bn. The infrastructure they inherited was never designed for the things it's being asked to do today, and it has a life expectancy. It would literally cost trillions to upgrade the entire sewerage system. This isn't apologia, it's just reality. The r…

But "investment" as the water companies define it is every penny not taken as profit. Staffing costs? Investment! Fixing leaks? Investment! So that figure sounds like money above and beyond, but I don't think it is.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#272

Post by qcnguy »

sandbags wrote: post #228
davej wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Ireland, our water is a public service and we have similar supply issues to the UK (and a similar rainy climate). I'm not discounting your analysis and I'm sure there are lots of other variables but it's always good to compare other outcomes when discussing counterfactuals.

It's a fair point that nationalised water industries can also be poorly run. But I'm not sure what the argument is that means the amount of money that privatised UK water companies have paid in dividends vs. invested in maintaining and expanding infrastructure isn't a significant part of the UK's problems. However, as a further point. If national priorities change then a nationalised water industry can respond (relat…

Paying dividends is good. It's how you attract the capital for investment without having to raise it via sale of government bonds or money printing.

The problem here is financial illiteracy - the alternative to paying dividends isn't that the same money all gets spent on the water network. Large scale investment is rarely funded from general revenues as it'd require spending years accumulating a huge cash pile that sits around doing nothing, and governments see such piles as pigs to slaughter. So the alternative is that the government borrows the money and then has to pay interest on it. From your perspective the UK "wastes" 8% of its spending on interest payments, and it's rising rapidly, but of course if it didn't pay interest then nobody would lend it money and all funds would have to either come from taxes or via inflation.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#273

Post by e-khadem »

alephnerd wrote: post #242
MrDrDr wrote: post #240

This highlights one of the big problems with liberal democracies - how do you provide efficient (and even innovative) public services? There is no free market for many public services like water (and where there is I’m all for privatisation). But the people (I am in the UK) do not tend to elect a government on its ability to manage these types of services. I do wonder if there some other structure that blends a not f…

> I do wonder if there some other structure that blends a not for profit ethos with employee ownership and just enough competition Legislate that certain public services are to only be managed and administered by the civil service managed and autonomous statutory boards. That's probably the easiest thing to do in a parliamentary system like the UK. Sort of like a "Water Management Board". Not every function in a demo…

This is the classic answer to these problems, but I think these "non-profits" and "civil managements" are inherently problematic.

Let's say that John Doe is a very accomplished visionary individual, and has quite a few revolutionary good ideas around improving the water system. Obviously Mr. Doe needed lots of lab equipment to gain experience and insight into these systems, and realistically needs a lot more if he wants to live to his full potential and benefit the public. He is determined to work towards the greater good, but also needs a lot more power [than the average citizen] to test his ideas.

Therefore in order to [be able to] accept this role, he has to be well-compensated (as a one in the world person). Therefore the payment package must look a lot more like the CEO compensation or a high-end management position, which is contrary to the idea of civil management.

Said differently, money can be a good proxy of the power to bring about changes, and if we truly want to try radical ideas (as we should in challenging problems), we need powerful individuals that can risk [their own fortune of course], not committees of less powerful people best suited for maintaining the status quo. In other words, the average citizen is much too risk averse to accept (or approve the payment package of) John in this position, and this can lead to stagnation.

I believe a better way to manage these systems that simultaneously protects the public from adverse incentives and allows high risk high reward behaviour is a middle ground. For example a risk averse non-profit for day to day operations + prize systems + modest (not too big) government-run research facilities.

Fundamentally speaking, there is always a risk / reward tradeoff, and I believe the current society is too conservative and is missing out a lot of opportunities (compared to let's say the cold war or WW2 era). We need to somehow rebalance this scale to live near a better operating point.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#274

Post by xico »

krona wrote: post #210
ellen364 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on "a third of customer bills go on interest payments", I'd guess the original comment was about Thames Water. In 2023 their interest payments were 28% of revenue. They also made the news for dumping particularly large volumes of sewage into rivers. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/18/water-firms-us... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67357566

> they also made the news for dumping particularly large volumes of sewage into rivers Yes and they have been fined for doing so, thus proving my point. These companies have statutory obligations . See the Water Industry Act 1991 and subsequent legislation.

Subsequent legislations are EU directives (and associated EU fines), which are not as corrupted as local legislations, and forced the UK to start building the Thames Tideway for instance. The population chose Brexit though.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#275

Post by alephnerd »

e-khadem wrote: post #273
alephnerd wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do wonder if there some other structure that blends a not for profit ethos with employee ownership and just enough competition Legislate that certain public services are to only be managed and administered by the civil service managed and autonomous statutory boards. That's probably the easiest thing to do in a parliamentary system like the UK. Sort of like a "Water Management Board". Not every function in a demo…

This is the classic answer to these problems, but I think these "non-profits" and "civil managements" are inherently problematic. Let's say that John Doe is a very accomplished visionary individual, and has quite a few revolutionary good ideas around improving the water system. Obviously Mr. Doe needed lots of lab equipment to gain experience and insight into these systems, and realistically needs a lot more if he wa…

> but I think these "non-profits" and "civil managements" are inherently problematic.

I'm not talking about "non-profits" or NGOs. I'm talking about legislating autonomous organizations within ministries with full autonomy and remit to execute on their jobs and only report directly to the Minister or the Permanent Secretary.

This is what Singapore does, which itself is based on the British colonial model.

At some point, too much democracy is delerious, and Tom, Dick, and Harry need to know their place. Not everything needs to be politicized and democratized.

> Therefore the payment package must look a lot more like the CEO compensation or a high-end management position, which is contrary to the idea of civil management

What country are you from? Even the UK has begun developing statutory boards like the FCA and SFO that pay market rate salaries for critical roles.

And until the Thatcher era, civil service pay was comparable or slightly better paid compared to other white collar roles.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#276

Post by throw0101d »

jemmyw wrote: post #177
mhh__ wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition every penny of profit always comes at someone's expense but I don't think we'd advocate for nationalising Tesco's?

That's true, but supermarkets compete with one another on price and other factors. They are motivated to do things to get more customers. Yes, there are many cases where supermarkets have been bad actors, but that's solvable with competition regulation. Water service is very different, and the current setup in the UK seems pretty insane - you can't have competition on who supplies water to your house. People aren't g…

> That's true, but supermarkets compete with one another on price and other factors.

Except when they merge/consolidate and say they can find savings (which of course will be passed onto consumers) through "efficiencies" and "synergies".

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#277

Post by anon191928 »

alt227 wrote: post #217
Frieren wrote: post #3

> Future generations, who will be dealing with long, dry summers, would probably be shocked at the profligate way clean tap water was used to flush toilets, water gardens and run washing machines. Climate change means societal change. There was a time that Northern Africa was one of the best places in the world to grow crops. They were at the top of civilization for thousands of years. Climate changed, what people co…

> we did this to ourselves I would argue that a small minority of the human race did this to the rest. > the lack of foresight Everybody on the planet is well aware of what is happening and why. Its not lack of foresight, it is pure ignorance and apathy of those who are making money off the backs of these tragedies.

[flagged]

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#278

Post by [deleted] »

antonly wrote: post #251
neuroelectron wrote: post #245

1. England population reaches ecological balance mediated by thousands-year old social hiarchies 2. Tax base plateaus 3. Import refugees and give them free money to increase tax base 4. Run out of natural resources 5. ? 6. Profit

This is a really shallow and unfounded take. Sad to see this here. This particular issue is imho mostly related to a lack in investment in water infrastructure (reservoirs and pipes). I don't see how migrants factor into this equation (not to mention that the "free money" given to migrants is scarcely a drop in the bucket). Please spread your hatred elsewhere.

[deleted]

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#279

Post by KoolKat23 »

krona wrote: post #145
autoexec wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to things like utilities every penny of profit comes at the expense of the public. Either prices are raised so that a small number of people can stuff their pockets with extra cash above what it costs to deliver the service and maintain the system or they get that extra money by failing to deliver the service or they do it by failing to maintain the system itself. I think the neglect and failure to inve…

> I think the neglect and failure to invest in infrastructure is the worst Cumulative capital investment by water companies in England and Wales since privatisation: £250bn. The infrastructure they inherited was never designed for the things it's being asked to do today, and it has a life expectancy. It would literally cost trillions to upgrade the entire sewerage system. This isn't apologia, it's just reality. The r…

So basically that £250bn is a bullshit figure, how long is a piece of string? It sounds big but it's meaningless.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#280

Post by jplrssn »

komali2 wrote: post #101
sandbags wrote: post #34

As the article mentions, privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources. What the article doesn’t mention is that pre-privatisation a new reservoir was built every year up to about 1960 and then every few years until privatisation in 1992. So we are about 30 years behind in adding capacity to the system. This combined with the inadequate levels of i…

I was fascinated on my recent trip to the UK to learn how much of their infrastructure they'd privatized semi-recently. Trains, hm, well it kinda works in Japan so maybe not so bad, but, water and SEWAGE??? In what universe does it make sense to have one of the most critical infrastructure systems, the backbone of health for a city, participate in a marketplace? Insanity. Not to mention the fact that at the end of th…

It’s ironic that after British Rail was privatized, many UK rail services ended up being run by subsidiaries of other European state railways: French SNCF, Dutch NS, Italian Trenitalia, and so on. Turns out the state knows something about running trains after all.
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