Low water level roulette

[haggis]

8 hours ago, Cheese said:

Agreed. They must have a pretty good idea of where closures are likely to be needed in the next 1-2 weeks in the absence of significant rainfall.  So just list them as an "Expected Stoppage" or something.  That would allow boaters and hire companies to make sensible plans - either to travel or not to travel.

I quite agree. Another boater stuck here contacted C&RT when he was at Middlewich 2 days ago and was told there was no planned stoppage on the Cheshire locks. 

Although the levels are down a bit they are not critical and a more acceptable plan might have been to allow those on the flight to escape while not allowing and more boats on. 

 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

9 hours ago, BoatingLifeUpNorth2 said:

1970’s a few years ago. Pumping station taking water from the Don unless that station is also fed from the mine?

The pumping station and pipeline was built in 1911, so a long time back. The old cast iron pipe was replaced a few years ago with plastic, after it blew out several times. I too have been told there was supplentary water from the coal mines, but they closed a long time back. The original feed, when built, was from the river Sheaf, but that was lost, perhaps when Sheffield Midland railway station was built on top of the river.

[brianthesnail96]

I know Minworth was closed last year due to lack of water, the finger was pointed at abstraction- has anyone been through recently who can report on the levels? Hoping to have another attempt at the Black Country Ring on our holidays next week, after being foiled by the Minworth stoppage last year (and a blown cill on the Stourbridge flight scuppering our Plan B to come into Birmingham that way). 

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

19 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The pumping station and pipeline was built in 1911, so a long time back. The old cast iron pipe was replaced a few years ago with plastic, after it blew out several times. I too have been told there was supplentary water from the coal mines, but they closed a long time back. The original feed, when built, was from the river Sheaf, but that was lost, perhaps when Sheffield Midland railway station was built on top of the river.

There’s several Chinese Whispers doing the rounds about the pumps and the water level problem.

 The bore of the new pipework is smaller than the old, so the pumps are working harder to push the water, this is causing overheating issues in this heat. So CaRT are dropping the official level of the Sheffield stretch by 30mm to try and solve the problem and not have the pumps on so much.

 Also as you mentioned, the river is low for extraction. So debris and air is being sucked into the pumps causing them issues.

 The water level is rising daily and as I said there’s overspill on the lock gates.

 It’s about 5” lower than it was a month or so ago this morning. But quite normal over the year and the flight is usually open at this level.

 I think with only one lock keeper working, who doesn’t do weekends often, they’re struggling to man it, so it’s easier to let the stoppage ride over till Tuesday. 
 I’ll be surprised if the stoppage notice isn’t lifted on Monday as there’s enough water going down the flight to water the pounds from what I’m seeing. But who knows what CaRT will do.

 But you have to worry about the canal system nationwide with this hot weather and the lack of rain. It’s not just local.☹️

[stagedamager]

on the Erewash we have 3 separate water supplies, within 6 miles of each other..... there is total water mis management, its a lottery as to which pound they announce as being closed, no ashing of gates to help levels recover, water peeing in through the top and bottom gates of some locks. we have water over the gates at Langley Mill yet no one has been up to run any further down. and yet all in a time where they also want to put leases up to small businesses by 30%. 

[Cha5]

1 hour ago, stagedamager said:

on the Erewash we have 3 separate water supplies, within 6 miles of each other..... there is total water mis management, its a lottery as to which pound they announce as being closed, no ashing of gates to help levels recover, water peeing in through the top and bottom gates of some locks. we have water over the gates at Langley Mill yet no one has been up to run any further down. and yet all in a time where they also want to put leases up to small businesses by 30%. 

 

I'm looking at relocating my boat from Bedfordshire to t'Mill & have one eye on this nonsense. How exactly will they police this stoppage? I mean . . . What's to stop me just sailing thru ?

[IanD]

3 hours ago, Tonka said:

You can't blame CRT for the weather but you can blame them for selling the rights to the water. 

But you will put your head in the sand.

Chacewater is a prime example

You really are a master at putting words into other people's mouths, aren't you?

 

Yes of course selling off water rights was a bad idea, just like lots of other privatisations which looked like a good idea in the short-term (when there was more rain) but weren't in the long-term (now there's less rain) -- though since it brought in badly-needed short-term income to CRT you can understand why they did it, just like all the other privatisations which seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

However they did that many *many* years ago, and it didn't come back and bite them badly in the ar*e until last year and now this year, with unprecedented and widespread stoppages due to lack of water. Maybe if they hadn't sold the water rights the stoppages wouldn't have been quite so bad, but they would still have been widespread -- do you have any actual numbers for what fraction of reservoir capacity was really lost, or are you just griping about CRT again as usual?

 

Just coincidentally these happen to be the driest years springs/summers  since records began, and anyone who claims this isn't due to anthropogenic climate change has got their head stuck up their ar*e or in the sand... 😞 

Edited July 16 by IanD
driest spring/summer not year

[Cha5]

26 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

 

 

 

Just coincidentally these happen to be the driest years since records began, and anyone who claims this isn't due to anthropogenic climate change has got their head stuck up their ar*e or in the sand... 😞 

 

NO they aren't. In fact we enjoy more rainfall now than the past 3 decades. My head isn't up any ars€, we have NEVER enjoyed a stable climate.

[IanD]

7 minutes ago, Cha5 said:

 

NO they aren't. In fact we enjoy more rainfall now than the past 3 decades. My head isn't up any ars€, we have NEVER enjoyed a stable climate.

Driest spring/summer then -- my mistake, now corrected. For 2025:

 

The outstanding feature of the weather of June was its abnormal dryness. … The fall for the month amounted to less than 6% of the average over the whole of England and Wales if parts of the extreme north and eastern counties from the Wash to Beachy Head were excepted. … In many districts in the south and south-west of England and in the south of Wales the month was rainless.

 

Your last sentence rather gives your motives away though -- see pictures below... 😉 

 

Edited July 16 by IanD

[Hudds Lad]

59 minutes ago, Cha5 said:

 

I'm looking at relocating my boat from Bedfordshire to t'Mill & have one eye on this nonsense. How exactly will they police this stoppage? I mean . . . What's to stop me just sailing thru ?

Usually chains and padlocks on the infrastructure.

[Arthur Marshall]

You can't argue that CRT needs to monetise anything they can and then complain about the results. Selling water rights brought in some cash to keep things going for a while, and if done on a licence basis, a continuing source . Turning towpaths into thousands more moorings will annoy leisure boaters but would bring in substantial income.

With longstanding and permanent government underfunding, CRT can only go for short term, stopgap solutions to keep us afloat for a few more years. It is impossible to plan for the future apart from planning the decline. Some of us  have regretfully been pointing this out for twenty years. It's an old system, falling apart at the seams, getting more expensive to maintain as the decline accelerates and climate change starts to hit hard. 

Either a new commercial use is found or it'll return to being the shopping trolley and old sofa repository a lot of it once was. It'll last my lifetime ok, I'm not so sure about that of our younger members.

[IanD]

4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

You can't argue that CRT needs to monetise anything they can and then complain about the results. Selling water rights brought in some cash to keep things going for a while, and if done on a licence basis, a continuing source . Turning towpaths into thousands more moorings will annoy leisure boaters but would bring in substantial income.

With longstanding and permanent government underfunding, CRT can only go for short term, stopgap solutions to keep us afloat for a few more years. It is impossible to plan for the future apart from planning the decline. Some of us  have regretfully been pointing this out for twenty years. It's an old system, falling apart at the seams, getting more expensive to maintain as the decline accelerates and climate change starts to hit hard. 

Either a new commercial use is found or it'll return to being the shopping trolley and old sofa repository a lot of it once was. It'll last my lifetime ok, I'm not so sure about that of our younger members.

You can if you're a serial CRT-hater... 😉 

[Cha5]

2 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Either a new commercial use is found or it'll return to being the shopping trolley and old sofa repository a lot of it once was. It'll last my lifetime ok, I'm not so sure about that of our younger members.

 

There was a time in the 70's / 80's that canals were being restored at a faster rate than they were built in the 1800's. All over the country bands of dedicated volunteers raised the £cash to clear out those shopping trolleys & I remember watching my dad help with the restoration of the Erewash canal as a 5yr old. And there wasn't even a fraction of the leisure users there is today.

 

It happened back then & it can happen again. God knows how anyone can moan about the C&RT & not be actively involved . . . 

[NB Thistle]

49 minutes ago, Cha5 said:

 

NO they aren't. In fact we enjoy more rainfall now than the past 3 decades. My head isn't up any ars€, we have NEVER enjoyed a stable climate.

Rainfall seems to be increasingly concentrated in big lumps, so the annual total may look good but we lose more to runoff when it comes and get longer periods without. Unfortunately our water infrastructure was designed for the traditional British climate of rain spread through the year.

[Cha5]

4 minutes ago, NB Thistle said:

Rainfall seems to be increasingly concentrated in big lumps, so the annual total may look good but we lose more to runoff when it comes and get longer periods without. Unfortunately our water infrastructure was designed for the traditional British climate of rain spread through the year.

 

Almost everything you know about climate change & the way it affects us is wrong.

 

The VAST majority of your drinking water comes from aquifers . . . 

[Slim]

4 minutes ago, Cha5 said:

 

Almost everything you know about climate change & the way it affects us is wrong.

 

The VAST majority of your drinking water comes from aquifers . . . 

Oh dear, perhaps you should look at the way ground water fills up ( or try boating on a river after heavy rainfall.

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, Cha5 said:

 

Almost everything you know about climate change & the way it affects us is wrong.

 

The VAST majority of your drinking water comes from aquifers . . . 

And you know better, do you?

 

Claims like "we have never enjoyed a stable climate" rather suggests that you're the one who doesn't understand climate change -- so go on, I'll challenge you, show us -- now's your chance to show us how you understand it better than we do... 😉 

 

P.S. With real verified data, not opinion or rhetoric or cherrypicking... 🙂 

[NB Thistle]

24 minutes ago, Cha5 said:

 

Almost everything you know about climate change & the way it affects us is wrong.

 

The VAST majority of your drinking water comes from aquifers . . . 

And how do aquifers refill? Oh yes, by water soaking down through the ground. Which it can't do if so much rain comes down in big chunks that a lot just runs off.

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

You really are a master at putting words into other people's mouths, aren't you?

 

Yes of course selling off water rights was a bad idea, just like lots of other privatisations which looked like a good idea in the short-term (when there was more rain) but weren't in the long-term (now there's less rain) -- though since it brought in badly-needed short-term income to CRT you can understand why they did it, just like all the other privatisations which seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

However they did that many *many* years ago, and it didn't come back and bite them badly in the ar*e until last year and now this year, with unprecedented and widespread stoppages due to lack of water. Maybe if they hadn't sold the water rights the stoppages wouldn't have been quite so bad, but they would still have been widespread -- do you have any actual numbers for what fraction of reservoir capacity was really lost, or are you just griping about CRT again as usual?

 

Just coincidentally these happen to be the driest years springs/summers  since records began, and anyone who claims this isn't due to anthropogenic climate change has got their head stuck up their ar*e or in the sand... 😞 

And water abstraction rights which the original canal companies, and BW and CRT as their successors, had through the original enabling legislation have been superseded by more recent legislation which limits the quantity of water they can take, and/or increases the charge payable, none of which helps keep the canals in water!

Edited July 16 by David Mack

[Arthur Marshall]

17 minutes ago, IanD said:

And you know better, do you?

 

Claims like "we have never enjoyed a stable climate" rather suggests that you're the one who doesn't understand climate change -- so go on, I'll challenge you, show us -- now's your chance to show us how you understand it better than we do... 😉 

 

P.S. With real verified data, not opinion or rhetoric or cherrypicking... 🙂 

Well, he's right in a way. Only, the instability used to be measured in centuries and millenia, not decades. That's the trouble with idiots, sorry, conspiracy theorists, they just cherry pick their data and leave out all the qualifiers.

[emm]

Camp Hill - Knowle open until 3rd August 

[alias]

1 hour ago, Cha5 said:

The VAST majority of your drinking water comes from aquifers . . . 

 

The majority (around 70%) comes from aquifers only in south eastern England.  Nationally aquifers provide around 30% of supply. (According to British Geological Survey, Drinking Water Inspectorate and Environment Agency). 

[IanD]

Now add Bosley *and* Marple... 😞 

[Arthur Marshall]

18 minutes ago, IanD said:

Now add Bosley *and* Marple... 😞 

And the Caldon, Hazlehurst to Cheddleton

[PeterF]

20 hours ago, agg221 said:

We are supposed to be setting off from Streethay on Monday to get back to our mooring. Question 1 is going to be can we get afloat off the mooring at Streethay...

Alec

We are currently on the Streethay pound heading towards Fradley and it is fine, not down noticeably. Came off the Ashby a few days ago and that was perhaps 6" down, a few very low pounds going down Atherstone and 6" down from Atherstone to Glascote yesterday .

Edited July 16 by PeterF