Don't sell our water, swap it for Beer was a silly comment made by a drunk in my local pub a few days ago. We shouldn't sell our water to England or give it away for free, we should swap it for beer – a pint for every gallon! A silly comment maybe; but one that has some merit.
The whole of the UK has a fairly temperate climate; there isn't any part of these islands that suffer from the true meaning of the word drought.
The problem isn't that "Britain" is short of water; the problem is a geographic imbalance of water usage!
Too many people live in, and too many water intensive industries are based in water poor areas, like the South East of England.
The answer to the problem isn't pumping Welsh water over hundreds of miles into South East England in order to enable those water guzzling industries to survive, the answer is to rellocate those industries to Wales where the water is plentiful.
Breweries use about a gallon of water in order to make a pint of beer; why should we sell Welsh water to drought infested English brewers for a pitance when we have enough water to make our own beer, that we can then sell to England at a premium price?
Don't sell our water, swap it for Beer!!!
Update:
Welsh agenda makes a similar point in a more academic fashion
Actually that is a very good idea, it would seem that there is a similar idea at Welsh Agenda http://welshagenda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/water-and-postcolonial-economy.html
ReplyDeleteWho points out that the water isn't needed for domestic but industrial use. So we should attract the industry here.
Severn Trent has been handing water from Wales over to Anglian Water, at cost. Why ? Anglia is famous for it's ample water supplies. It's Englands natural swamp. Just because the English have drained the Norfolk Broads, and filled in the Cambridgeshire Fens for large scale agriculture, they want Wales to subsidise their industry. Why is it that Wales owes this part of England a living ? We should sell the water at commercial rates, or tell them to restore their own natural environment to the water resource it once was.
ReplyDelete