Long-term planning keeps Jersey Water ahead of UK

Long-term planning keeps Jersey Water ahead of UK

Despite an official drought last month, and a prolonged period of warm and dry weather from June until last week which caused problems for farmers, Jersey’s water supplies are almost ¾-full and just 40 million litres – two days of the Island’s total consumption – lower than this time last year.

‘We aim to maintain 120 days worth of water in storage and over the past 20 years we have invested in a raw water transfer system between our reservoirs and water catchment pumps on key streams,’ Jersey Water’s chief executive Helier Smith said.

‘This means when it rains we can capture the rainfall and transfer it to where it is needed or where there is capacity to store it rather than letting it run out to sea.’

The overall capacity of the Island’s six reservoirs is currently 74 per cent, topped up by 12 million litres resulting from rain that fell on 8 and 9 August.

Mr Smith says Jersey Water manages its resources according to 25-year plans and by learning from the problems other water authorities face. This strategy, he adds, places the company in a far healthier position than its counterparts in the UK who had to introduce restrictions such as hosepipe bans when supplies ran low this summer. The last hosepipe ban was imposed in Jersey in 2003.

In addition to coping with reduced supplies and increased consumption as temperatures in parts of the UK consistently exceeded 30°C and drought conditions persisted for weeks, it was reported that three billion litres of water was being lost every day through leaks.

‘In July we lost 2.5 million litres of water a day due to leaks but we are constantly working to reduce those levels,’ Mr Smith said.

‘Last year we managed to reduce the levels of leaks by 16 per cent and we achieved a 14 per cent reduction over the course of the previous year.

‘By introducing compulsory metering [whereby people pay for every litre of water they consume] and with a yearly programme of replacing 2.5 km of mains, we have made massive inroads in reducing leakages.

‘We have to do our best to conserve our resources as we are such a small island and every drop of water is very precious.’

In addition, a team dedicated to monitoring for leaks start work every day of the year at 4 am, and the company also operates an automated detection system across the mains network.

In the event of drought so severe that it becomes impossible to maintain 120 days supply, Jersey Water has a desalination plant at La Moye which can process ten millions litres of sea water a day. It was last used in 2011.

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