Water, water, everywhere. And now you’re in charge of it

I’ve just come away from a 2 hour meeting with consultants charged with reviewing our water supply and outlining the measures to keep it running.

Whilst the UK debates taking water back into public control, it’s pretty unimaginable that it should be taken out of public control here. It’s quite a responsibility for a small village, but luckily we have Marcel on the council, who retired to Fuilla after running the water system in Perpignan. It’s probably not quite the restful retirement anticipated, but we are very grateful to him for being able to sense check and steer us through the necessary process as the elected custodians of our resources.

Our village runs its water supply.

What comes out of our taps originates in the water table within the area of the village, it’s pumped up from two boreholes and then treated and distributed through a system of pipes over 5km long.

The consultants gave us a rundown of the state of our system - what’s working well, what needs remedial work, some updates that we need to do. And importantly, what we need to do to ensure the future volume of water is sufficient for our village’s needs given potential population growth or changes in use patterns (we have quite a number of second homes - if they all were in use all year the consumption might be quite different) and environmental impacts of climate change.

I’m coming to learn that all French reports start with a section ensuring that the current system is being made best use of, and that inefficiencies are eliminated before capacity increases are considered. For the water system, it’s making sure that the equipment is up to date and maintained and that there are no leaks in the system. At equipment level, we will have to change the way the water is tested and chlorinated (new systems will keep the chlorination rate constant) and get the borehole pumping system reviewed to make sure it’s working optimally. There are also a couple of places where their investigation indicates leaking pipes, and we need to find and fixe those.

To guarantee our future water supply, the consultants considered how we could bring an old spring back into use. Its use was discontinued because it is naturally high in fluorides (the local geology is rich in minerals, to the extent that the area has been mined for centuries). The consultants costed two plans, one to use the spring to augment the boreholes (effectively watering down the fluoride to sufficiently low levels) or to remove the excess fluoride so that it could be used when the boreholes were not producing enough.

Then there are our pipes. Some of which are made of a kind of PVC used before 1980 which can degrade, releasing compounds into the water. For this we have to run regular tests at 17 points over the course of a year, then prioritise and replace them in order of severity.

Basically it’s a lot of work and the price tag is formidable. I didn’t add up all the small upgrades, repairs and maintenance but 5 000 € here and 20 000 € there quickly adds up. Bringing the old spring back into use is estimated between 160 000 and 200 000 €. Replacing all our distribution network would come to over a million euros. However, there are things we need to do immediately, and items we can programme over time. Most of the work is eligible for grants of upto 80% of the cost. This too seems to be the French way - a combined approach of responsibility and support.

The consultants also calculated the appropriate increases in the cost of water to cover the investments. Raising the price will not be welcome, but it will be clear that it reflects the investment we have to put in. No-one is profiteering - and also we never discharge raw sewage into our rivers (just for comparison with privatised water in the UK). We will also be able to phase the work over the coming 5-10 years ensuring that it will not come as a surprise or be too abrupt.

One of the important issues for the us as a council is to coordinate the work on the new pipes with resurfacing of one of our village streets we are keen to get on with. No-one wants to make the road nice (it’s overdue new tarmac) and then dig it up. Looking at how to programme this in is intricate - but it’s all important.

FYI, I just checked Yorkshire Water’s record it’s ‘down to’ 1000 discharges of raw sewage per week, whilst profits are over £300 million. Draw your own conclusions.