Farmers count cost of drought in parts of England

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Parts of England are still in the grip of a drought, which has cost some farmers thousands of pounds and led to restrictions on water use...

[Schneibster]

Sounds like a minor disruption of the Gulf Stream to me.

I recall going up to Washington State from California in the '70s when they had the first of the series of really big droughts they've had over the last 40 years, and everyone was going, "Drought?"



I of course had dealt with it for years at home and was able to tell them why there were all these irritating regulations.

Now it's regular stuff up there; you can't even buy the stuff that doesn't have flow restrictors on it. You'll get used to the water restrictions.

[JimC]

Melbourne has been in that situation for years, although in the last year or so we've had floods instead... No doubt the droughts will come again...

We have installed rainwater tanks which take care of the toilet and the garden, so water restrictions in future years will not stop us growing our own food...

[Schneibster]

We don't have to go that far. If I lived in American Water Company territory I might. They're harsh. But we got our own municipal water company here and we pay for it and we don't want no furriners from up in SF or down in LA "privatizin'" our shit and then rampin' the price on us. Bastards.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I was fairly surprised that we didn't have so much as a hosepipe ban in Kent this year given the lack of rainfall back in spring. I didn't notice any real drop in the level of the River Darent throughout the year, but on the other hand crops in fields hereabouts were noticeably stunted, and the soil appeared like dust.

Here's hoping for a wet winter.

[Schneibster]

I won't chance jinxing mine. We were a bit dry last year but this year La Niña is back. We've had two nice storms come through so far.