BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
As long as the shareholders don't suffer.
- Thread starter Salty seadog
- Start date
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ebikeerwidnes
Senior Member
Many years ago - but well after privatisation - I was talking to a bloke near a reservoir
He obviously worked for the water companies - or a closely related company
He was saying that when the companies were privatised they went all in to cut away anything they possibly could
if you couldn;t justify a job in very short term categories then that job was gone - and so was the person doing it
any long term concepts with no short term effect were just ignored.
The example he gave was a group of people who spent their working days wandering around the moors with a spade and pick axe or similar.
Their job was to wander along the route of the ditches in the moors that the water flows down to get into the reservoirs
If they started to get overgrown then they went down and dug them out and cleared them
But the ditches would take years to get too bad to work - so they could be sacked with no short term effects -so they were gone
Remember - a few years after the privatisation when there was a dry summer and all the reservoirs dried up??
Funny that it had not happened before to anything like that extent??
The reason - according to this bloke - was that the water that did fall just soaked into the ground
previously the cleared ditches would direct it to the reservoir and fill it up
but the ditches were all blocked so the reservoir was not as full as it should have been
and the rain that fell after the main winter parts - soaked into the ground rather than topping the reservoir up constantly
Hence they dried out when previously they would have been fuller at the start and more would have been added for every spate of drizzle
I noticed a few yeasr later an article that they had started clearing the ditches again
I am sure there were other example where the new shareholders just looked at short term money
and this is where we end up
and if must be true because some bloke told me!!!
He obviously worked for the water companies - or a closely related company
He was saying that when the companies were privatised they went all in to cut away anything they possibly could
if you couldn;t justify a job in very short term categories then that job was gone - and so was the person doing it
any long term concepts with no short term effect were just ignored.
The example he gave was a group of people who spent their working days wandering around the moors with a spade and pick axe or similar.
Their job was to wander along the route of the ditches in the moors that the water flows down to get into the reservoirs
If they started to get overgrown then they went down and dug them out and cleared them
But the ditches would take years to get too bad to work - so they could be sacked with no short term effects -so they were gone
Remember - a few years after the privatisation when there was a dry summer and all the reservoirs dried up??
Funny that it had not happened before to anything like that extent??
The reason - according to this bloke - was that the water that did fall just soaked into the ground
previously the cleared ditches would direct it to the reservoir and fill it up
but the ditches were all blocked so the reservoir was not as full as it should have been
and the rain that fell after the main winter parts - soaked into the ground rather than topping the reservoir up constantly
Hence they dried out when previously they would have been fuller at the start and more would have been added for every spate of drizzle
I noticed a few yeasr later an article that they had started clearing the ditches again
I am sure there were other example where the new shareholders just looked at short term money
and this is where we end up
and if must be true because some bloke told me!!!
matticus
Guru
I generally defend the BBC (as flawed but much better than the knockers try to make it), but they ran a very strange item on Radio news after the Boat Race. They had an E-coli expert on specifically to debunk the comment by one Oxford rower that he'd been ill with e-coli just before the race, contracted from the Thames. There was no comment on the race itself, and no comment on the general state of the river.
Fab Foodie
Legendary Member
Am sure they'll have been happy with their dividends....
Fab Foodie
Legendary Member
I heard that and also thought it somewhat odd.
It was Sir Hugh Pennington being interviewed, I think the reasoning is that Oxford had claimed that many of them had been ill just before the race (one said throwing-up on the morning of the race), and I think there were concerns about further investigations regarding had water quality impacted the race in one way or another yadda, yadda....
E.coli can make you either mildly unwell (mostly diarrhea, vomiting less frequently) and there are far more serious strains such as 0157 which can be fatal. But the point stands I guess is that whilst levels are high in the Thames and other polluted waterways it's not likely to me tha major cause of vomiting sickness as is generally assumed...though it's a bloody good indicator that the water's not 'clean'....
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Poacher
Regular
Did Sir Hugh offer to drink a glass of Thames water?
dutchguylivingintheuk
Über Member
Tap water is rated amongst the best in the world, lakes/nature water quality is amongst the worst in europe, so that a first interesting contrast.
It's an mixture between public and private, party covered by the ''waterschappen'' a seperate goverment body that manages everything to do with water, rijkswaterstaat(roads, brides etc. etc.) and the regulator who goes over regulations on water quality etc. A other detail thing relevant here is that there are technically no rules on storage of raw sewage(like an septic tank in a boat for example) however it is illegal(as in criminal law) to dump raw sewage.
but most water companies itself are technically privately owned but the law on water supply sees that they are in actually all owned by different parts of goverments, so for example in Noord Holland you have cities like Amsterdam, Enkhuizen, Badhoevendorp, Schiphol, etc. So the Noord Holland water company would typically owned by the county Noord Holland and the aforementioned cities and all the cities and villages i haven mentioned.(who are often also located in this Example in Noord Holland.)
matticus
Guru
You can't just leave an unattached "either" hanging there?!? Have you gone mad, man? Something in your water, perhaps?!?
Fab Foodie
Legendary Member
Good spot Matticus dearest! The water is unreasonably soft down here.
Either mildly unwell etc. etc. OR, Seriously farked!
Bazzer
Well-Known Member
Such a job would not surprise me.
My late paternal grandfather lived in the Fens, an area historically considered as a high flood risk. One of the jobs he had, at a time when water was considered a public utility, was spending his days checking that dykes were not blocked or filled and that they were doing their job. Namely draining the adjoining land and if part of a network, ultimately feeding water to one of the major drains constructed in the c17th and c18th.
Ian H
Legendary Member
Could it not merely be a result of over-indulgence the night before?
Not that I wish to absolve the water companies of responsibility for the sh!t in the Thames and elsewhere.
bobzmyunkle
Senior Member
No
matticus
Guru
This suggests a staggering ignorance of the approach taken by modern elite rowers, including those rowing in The Boat Race.
Ian H
Legendary Member
You mean they're not just there to enjoy themselves? I am shocked and disappointed. Still, I suppose if you're not bright enough to earn your degree by other means.
