Fracking on the Pinedale Anticline formation in Pinedale, Wyoming. As bad as this looks it gets worse. There are serious water shortages in western USA currently. Could this be how 64% of the UK looks in 10 years? That’s up to all of us.
The corporate-led worlds of Smart Metering and Fracking seem like they are about to converge around our most precious commodity: water.
The Telegraph’s Tim Ross yesterday reported that millions of people will face higher bills under plans to make water meters compulsory.
“Water companies across a third of the country will be required to consider fitting all properties in their areas with a water meter and billing customers for every drop they use” reports Ross, adding that Environmental Secretary Owen Paterson has admitted that “some family water bills could double” as a result of the move.
“It follows warnings from the Government’s environment specialists that climate change and England’s growing population will put the future supply of water in reservoirs and rivers under “serious stress””, Ross adds.
What’s interesting about this news is that it cites climate change and population growth as the reasons for compulsory water metering, and makes no mention at all of two more likely suspects – namely the amount of water lost through leakage (3.3b litres per day in the UK – enough for 1/3 of households daily water needs!) and the enourmous amount of fresh water that will be used in the environmentally-ravaging process of hydraulic fracturing, AKA “fracking”.
According to CleanWaterAction:
Each [fracking] well uses between two and five million gallons of locally-sourced freshwater which will be permanently contaminated by ground contaminants and toxic chemicals contained in the fracking fluid.
This is a very big deal because in the South East of the UK alone – a “water-stressed” area – the number of wells being earmarked for fracking is a staggering 36,000 (thirty six thousand)!
Let’s take a quick look at some figures:
- Number of frack wells earmarked for drilling in SE England: 36,000
- Number of gallons/litres of fresh water used per well: 2-5 million gallons / 8-20 million litres
- Total estimated number of litres of fresh water needed for SE England fracking agenda: 28.8 TRILLION to 72 TRILLION litres!!!
- Total UK water consumption (per day): 16.5 billion litres
- Total UK water loss through leakages (per day): 3.3 billion litres! (treated water)
It is very important to note that the fresh water consumed as part of the highly-toxic chemical cocktail in fracking is contaminated and lost to the water supply forever. 72 trillion litres – taken out of the fresh water supply and gone for good.
Why haven’t these figures been mentioned as key reasons for you needing to pay twice as much for your water in future (assuming you have not been rationed out of it altogether by an extended hosepipe ban)? Why are neither fracking water demands nor leakages mentioned in the same breath as the requirement to meter every drop you drink?
Maybe its because these inconvenient truths would have people in uproar.
The fact that we also have so much water being lost each day through leaks is something we reported on previously (where we also warned about the dangers of electromagnetically-conditioned water through Smart Water Meters). 3.3 billion litres PER DAY are lost, and in spite of the fact that some water companies want to bring down that figure, OFWAT (the regulator) has targets/caps on how much companies are allowed to spend on leaks – limiting the amount that can be spent to stop them.
At least with these enormously wasteful leaks, the water at some point will make its way back into the water cycle. Not the case with the fresh water used in fracking – that’s contaminated for good.
Indeed, unless the pivotal and on-going protests in Balcombe can successfully repel the corporate fracking interests, the South East of the UK alone (think Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex, Dorset) is looking at the possibility of having 36,000 wells fracking-up the countryside and 70 trillion litres of fresh water forever.
If you would like to know more about the fracking agenda, we would highly recommend watching the Fracktured Future presentation by ex-oil industry exec, Ian R. Crane, or going to one of his talks. Ian presented at our Get_Wired event and is currently touring the UK to raise awareness about the grave consequences of fracking.
And if you would like to make your voice heard on the fracking issue, tomorrow some of the team from SSM UK will be joining what promises to be the largest flash mob ever assembled, in Balcombe, Sussex, to be with thousands of other people (including 500 choral singers) to sing an anti-fracking version of Jerusalem.
TOMORROW, 14:00, Sunday 11th August 2013, London Road, Balcombe, Sussex. Belt It Out @ Balcombe. This is a crucial time for our country. Will the people or the corporations win out? That’s up to you.
Read the Telegraph’s article here Millions face higher bills under plans for compulsory water meters – Telegraph.
Original link to this article:
https://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/the-fracktured-future-of-water-millions-to-face-higher-bills-with-compulsory-water-meters-to-satiate-uks-thirst-for-fracking/
Good luck. It’s heartening to see how much public awareness and opposition there is to fracking. We need the same awareness about smart meters
There will come a time when people will not be able to afford the basics to live,water in this case.I for one have got to the stage of sick and tired of being made poorer,with basic needs of life going more and more expensive.
Sick and tired of a rich,by my standards,person telling me what is right and necessary.
This is all to make oil companies and governments richer at the expense of the environment and ordinary people. At its most basic it’s basically greed on a massive scale, squeezing the very last drop of non renewable fuel out of the ground and depriving us all of water. They don’t give a shit because they’ll all be living in a place where fracking is banned. There’s no hope for the human race.
we are so primitive as a race it is deeply embarrassing that we cant seem to work for the good of the people and planet alike. my children will have to suffer the concequences of the rape of this planet its not fair, what gives you the right to take so much and pollute so heavily it has to stop or there will be nothing left for the next genoration and that is suicide we cant let that happen NO TO FRACKING ITS MADNESS PLEASE PLEASE STOP TO THINK OF THE FUTER THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY WE NEED TO KEEP OUR HOME SAFE SO WE CAN LIVE .
The most worrying part of fracking is the chemicals that will contaminate the land.
The elite have bought land that will not be contaminated.
It’s always the same,the poorer people of this country end up paying through the nose,wind power,we all pay for that while Lord Buggeroff gets rich from it.
I am sick tired and fed up of being down trodden by the rich of this country.