Empty reservoirs

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 girlymonkey 23 Sep 2021

Went for a walk to the upper Glendevon reservoir in the Ochils today and it's almost not a reservoir anymore! We reckonned the water is around 30 meters lower than the maximum! One "arm" of it is just a river again and the main body is absolutely tiny! It's crazy!

 tomsan91 23 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

Due to chemical shortages many water companies are opting to draw down reservoirs over river sources as they provide a lower chemical dose to get out the door. This and the dry summer in the west has not left the industry in a comfortable place 

In reply to girlymonkey:

According to a local the rainfall on Lismore is down over 60% this year. With no mains water islanders rely on wells and boreholes. The situation has improved in the last couple weeks but the situation remains precurius.

OP girlymonkey 23 Sep 2021
In reply to tomsan91:

Thankfully, I'm pretty sure this one is no longer a drinking water supply!

 r0b 23 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

Been getting emails from United Utilities saying that the reservoirs in the Lakes that serve Manchester are at 40% when they are usually at 70% this time of year

 nathan79 23 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

Haven't seen it in the flesh, but a colleague posted some pictures on out internal work social media platform (I work for a national water company, no prizes for guessing who!) and I was astonished. Never seen it that low.

Summers are generally trickier of late, I don't think anywhere has had to switch to back-up reservoirs yet this year, but a number are critically low. The rain will come and after such a dry spell that'll being issues of it's own.

 Martin W 23 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

https://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2021/09/08/incredible-images-show-underwater...

A Scottish Water spokeswoman today said: “The Upper Glendevon reservoir is one of five reservoirs that make up the Glendevon supply system and the water level of that particular reservoir does tend to drop to low levels most years.

“The combined storage of the overall Glendevon reservoir system, while below average for the time of year, is within normal operation range with no immediate concerns.

“The exposure of the old farm buildings does occur at low levels and we have seen this quite frequently in the past.

“We are seeing low reservoir levels across Scotland and would encourage all customers to continue to use water efficiently and to make small changes to their behaviour that will enable us to maintain normal supplies for everyone.”

OP girlymonkey 23 Sep 2021
In reply to Martin W:

Ah, ok. I had thought it was just a feed to the lower reservoir which is hydro. Are reservoirs dual purpose? Can they run them through the hydro scheme and then use it for drinking too?

 daWalt 23 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

> Can they run them through the hydro scheme and then use it for drinking too?

good question, I don't know for sure. I presume they must do. it's still raw water at that point and is unlikely to get contaminated within the turbine.

I'd was reasonably sure that Glen Devon and the others in that area were still supply reservoirs, but you might be surprised at the number of SW reservoirs that aren't. a fair few are just fish-ponds now, some are reserve, others are pretty much off the network for good but are kept going anyway. so there is (theoretically) a bit of an oversupply of reservoir capacity in central scotland. this is a bit of a historic legacy, there were many more high water use industries in the past, and the supply network used to be much more local / fragmented.

I think (personally) the north-west and western isles are likely to get the worst of any scottish drought, they were close to shutting off the main in 2012 [2nd wettest year on record - ironic :-D]

OP girlymonkey 23 Sep 2021
In reply to daWalt:

Apparently Ornkey are already having to import drinking water as their supply has run too low

In reply to girlymonkey:

Kinda tells you what is about to happen .. .. .. .. .

DC

 freeflyer 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

> Apparently Ornkey are already having to import drinking water as their supply has run too low

Seems desalination is one of the few pies that EMEC doesn't have a finger in. Wouldn't surprise me if they were looking into it though.

https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/241187-wave-power-for-clean-drinking-wa...

 wercat 24 Sep 2021
In reply to r0b:

I had quite a shock at the water level when I rode up past Thirlmere on Monday

 wintertree 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

Fascinating thread, thanks.

Plenty of reading on reservoir levels here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-situation-local-area-repor...

 Garethza 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis

This will become a very real problem in the future.. oh the irony though of living in Scotland and running out of water !  

The fact that water is not metered in Scotland (mine isnt atleast) means nobody really cares about how much they use so its a free for all at the moment.. I guess there is no simple way of retrofitting water meters either so it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

 fred99 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Garethza:

> This will become a very real problem in the future.. oh the irony though of living in Scotland and running out of water !  

> The fact that water is not metered in Scotland (mine isnt atleast) means nobody really cares about how much they use so its a free for all at the moment.. I guess there is no simple way of retrofitting water meters either so it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

There is a simple way - just raise the cost for those without a meter by 100%.

You'll more than likely find that those who are most against the idea of meters are those who waste it the most - baths rather than showers and twice a day at that, hosing down the car every time it gets dirty, watering the plants in the heat of the day, leaving taps running - so it wouldn't really be that morally wrong. It would sure as hell get people asking to have meters and stop wasting it.

5
 subtle 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Martin W:

Looks spooky - and I did apprecaite this part :

"Graeme Brown replied: “So many new housing estates getting built in Fife but with the same amount of water supply it will only get worse.” 

Its always the Fifer's to blame, always the Fifer's

OP girlymonkey 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Garethza:

> This will become a very real problem in the future.. oh the irony though of living in Scotland and running out of water !  

And I think that is a big problem - it's in our psyche that we are a wet country and we couldn't possibly have water shortages!

I think people need to better understand too that it's not just about how much water we have (although this current problem is), but actually the cost, chemicals and energy which go into making the water clean enough to drink is all something we should be concerned about. So even in a more normal year, we should still try not to waste water. 

 Dave Hewitt 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

Interesting re the Ochils reservoir - I've seen the low water level from afar but haven't been close by of late - must go and have a look before it fills up again.

Everyone sounds very young on this thread - no one has yet used the standard older local name (which I would use) and called them the Frandy reservoirs!

OP girlymonkey 24 Sep 2021
In reply to subtle:

> Its always the Fifer's to blame, always the Fifer's

Of course it is!! Blooming Fifers!! ;-P

1
OP girlymonkey 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Dave Hewitt:

The fishery is called Frandy, I think?

I think you have plenty of time to go and see it, it's going to take a while to fill up again!! Pretty spooky and well worth a visit

 Dave Hewitt 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

> The fishery is called Frandy, I think?

The name pre-dates the fish farm. The older/more local than me Ochil regulars pretty much all call them the Frandy reservoirs - until relatively recently, even though it has the Upper/Lower Glendevon name on the map, it was quite unusual to hear anyone call them anything other than Frandy.

> I think you have plenty of time to go and see it, it's going to take a while to fill up again!! Pretty spooky and well worth a visit

Will do, sounds good - shades of my old haunts in Derbyshire with Ladybower drying out. Incidentally, in a very dry spell in August 1983, I was at the top end of Glen Lyon with a few friends and we got round the Meall Buidhe and Stuchd an Lochain pair of Munros not via the dam (which has always seemed a bit silly, despite being popular) but by crossing the loch in the middle - it was dried out at the narrow bit that harks back to it having been two lochs originally. I've been back there a few times since then but have never seen it that dry again, and I haven't heard of anyone else getting across that way - although I seem to recall that Hamish Brown mentions it having been similarly dried out another year..

 Toerag 24 Sep 2021
In reply to fred99:

> There is a simple way - just raise the cost for those without a meter by 100%.

> You'll more than likely find that those who are most against the idea of meters are those who waste it the most - baths rather than showers and twice a day at that, hosing down the car every time it gets dirty, watering the plants in the heat of the day, leaving taps running - so it wouldn't really be that morally wrong. It would sure as hell get people asking to have meters and stop wasting it.


^^ This - well, just make it cheaper for those on meters actually. That's what was done here, the average family bill is cheaper on a meter than paying by rateable value of the house (the non-metered method).

OP girlymonkey 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Dave Hewitt:

Sounds like this might be the year to revisit it to see if it's back to that level!

 wercat 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Dave Hewitt:

August 1983 was particularly hot - men sleeping on top of the Portacabin spider blocks at Kishorn instead of in their rooms which were unbearably hot, as I remember.

my internal thermostat didn't survive that and I've had problems keeping cool in heat ever since.

Post edited at 13:19
 airborne 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

This was Haweswater a couple of weekends ago...


 wercat 24 Sep 2021
In reply to airborne:

Gwen Moffat wrote a murder mystery based on Haweswater drying up in the 90s - a child's body discovered from the time predating the flooding of Mardale iirc

OP girlymonkey 24 Sep 2021
In reply to airborne:

Is that a railway line which has appeared?

 Martin W 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

If you zoom fully in on the photo then it's clear that the two adjacent linear features which appear above the water are drystone walls.  They might have been walls either side of a railway but there's no railways marked in that area on any of the historic maps on the National Library of Scotland's wonderful historic maps web site (https://maps.nls.uk), and the only one shown on railmaponline.com (https://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php) is the one used in the construction of the dam.  However, the dam is at the north end of the reservoir, whereas I'm pretty sure that the photo was taken near the south end looking roughly north-west over the promontory called The Rigg, and the wee island slightly north of it - which was almost an island no longer due to the low water level at the time.

TLDR: I think they're just walls either side of a road or track, like a number of others visible in the photo higher up the exposed shoreline.

Good photo, though.

Post edited at 14:54
In reply to airborne:

The road to Mardale Green.

 Stichtplate 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

With reservoirs running low in the rainy North West, how much worse off is the Southeast?

Post edited at 16:39

 petegunn 24 Sep 2021
In reply to airborne:

> This was Haweswater a couple of weekends ago...

The island is now part of the main land now, never seen it this low before!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUNFNy1DaCe/?utm_medium=copy_link 

3rd/4th photos 

Post edited at 18:19
 mondite 24 Sep 2021
In reply to Stichtplate:

> With reservoirs running low in the rainy North West, how much worse off is the Southeast?


Its been a rather wet summer here. Completely the opposite of normal. For example in herts I dont think I have come back from a offroad ride without some mud on me at any point this year. Normally get several months of bone dry trails.

Quick check (which wasnt made easy by the crap formats) shows that my anecdotal evidence is mostly supported by the experts.

eg Thames water has this to say

" Water levels in our reservoirs

At the end of August 2021:

Reservoirs in London were 89% full (88% full in West London and 94% full in Lee Valley), which is above average for the time of year.

Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire was 95% full, which is above average for the time of year."

Southern water are tracking fairly as well (although they have probably thrown any inconvenient figures into the sea).

https://www.southernwater.co.uk/water-for-life/reservoir-levels

So dont worry I am sure we will send you some water at a fair price once we figure how to put the pumps into reverse.

Post edited at 21:02
 Dave Hewitt 24 Sep 2021
In reply to girlymonkey:

> Sounds like this might be the year to revisit it to see if it's back to that level!

Yes, could be - although the top end of the Lyon glen, lovely though it is, feels like quite a long way to go for a day out from Stirling in the shortening daylight, to me anyway.

Re the Frandy/Glendevon one, I was up Ben Cleuch this afternoon (nice but quite autumnal-breezy) and the eastern end of the reservoir is visible from the summit. Today it just looked like a wall - no water to be seen and the inner face of the dam itself was looking very stark. Would be a good time for Scottish Water or whoever to do some maintenance on it - repointing or whatever it is that gets done. The North Third reservoir was deliberately lowered a few years ago, as you'll recall, and I think that was to provide access to the inside of the dam wall for a few repairs.


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