JERSEY needs to fundamentally change its relationship with water, according to Jersey Water’s head of resilience and emergency planning, as the Island emerges from one of the hottest, driest summers on record.
Mark Bowden said that the Island look towards countries like Australia, where prolonged water scarcity has prompted a cultural and technological shift.
Although rain has now arrived after weeks without, Mr Bowden said that there remained a real concern that this winter would be drier on average, with groundwater levels not fully recharging.
He said: “We have to regard our water in Jersey as a unified resource, and even if you are watering a municipal sports ground or lawn from a private borehole, you are still influencing the overall hydrology of the Island. We need to consider everything in the round, which includes overall policy.
“Rivers like the Danube, Rhine and Loire have been at their lowest levels ever, and competing demands for water from these vital sources is an emerging political issue in Europe.
“We know that climate change is going to bring an increase in the extremes: wetter winters and drier, hotter summers. You might hope, to some degree, that one offsets the other but we only have limited storage in Jersey, at 120 days’ worth of capacity.”
He added: “One of the real challenges in Jersey is coping with a dry winter off the back of a dry summer, which would mean the system failing to recharge. That is why we have prioritised the desalination plant as being the right solution to move forward with.”
Mr Bowden said that he would like to see more homes in Jersey installing rainwater butts, and Jersey Water would soon be repeating a campaign to encourage households to fit them.
He added: “Drier places like Australia have a more embedded water-saving culture. It is absolutely ingrained into everything they do and is part of their national conversation. I don’t think we are in that place yet; it is only when we get into a drought circumstance that people start to think about it a bit more, and we have to ramp up our communications.”
Standard free-standing water butts do not need planning permission in Jersey, but more extensive systems involving underground storage do need permission due to the volume of excavation.
Recently, the JEP reported that an application to build an indoor cricket training centre at Grainville Playing Fields included a 20,000-litre underground tank to collect rainwater from the roof for irrigation.
The Bridging Island Plan does include a policy on the ‘supply and use of water’ but it is only more specific for buildings over 200 m2 or five or more dwellings, when a ‘water conservation statement’ is required as part of the planning application.
More homes in Jersey are being fitted with greywater recycling systems, which capture rainwater to be used, for example, to flush toilets and clean dishes but not for drinking.
Some larger projects also include schemes to capture rainwater in ponds and ‘bioswales’.
