Weather due to improve over coming days, forecasters predict
British
prime minister David Cameron meets soldiers from the Royal Gurkha
Rifles, at a military command centre in Chertsey, southern England.
Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters
The
military could have been brought in earlier to help deal with the
winter storms that have been wracking Britain, a Government minister has
admitted.
As the weather finally gave the country
a respite, defence secretary Philip Hammond defended the government’s
handling of the crisis. He said Royal Engineers were now being tasked to
carry out a high-speed assessment of “serious” to damage the UK’s flood
defence infrastructure.
But Mr Hammond conceded
that in future the Government would involve the military earlier in the
process, and be more “aggressive” in urging local authorities to use
troops. Swathes of the UK remain on high alert as people battle to
protect their homes and communities from the floodwaters, which are
still expected to rise in places despite the break in the storms.
The
Environment Agency (EA) has 16 severe flood warnings in place for the
South West and the Thames Valley, with almost 150 flood warnings and 230
Lake Eucumbene in Old
Adaminaby, Australia. Rainwater collection played a key role in getting
several Australian cities through their recent 'millenium drought'.
Photo: Mark Nolan/Getty Images
Texas voters last night approved the creation of a water
bank expected to fund nearly $30bn in water infrastructure projects in
the coming decades. The passage of Proposition 6 means the state will
begin putting its 2012 State Water Plan – which calls for more than $50b
in spending on new water infrastructure by 2060 – into action.
The
project list is heavy on big new pipelines and reservoirs (including a
controversial $3.3bn reservoir in East Texas to service the Dallas-Fort
Worth metroplex 170 miles away), and also features agricultural
conservation and municipal water reuse projects.
But advocates of
rainwater collection say a key tool for water security is missing from
the plan. "Rainwater harvesting was not recommended as a water
management strategy to meet needs since the volume of water may not be
available during drought conditions," the plan states.
Rainwater
harvesting – one of the most efficient ways of reducing water demand and
related infrastructure costs, according to Tamim Younos, president of
Virginia's Cabell Brand Center – has gained popularity in recent years.
To protect themselves from water shortage or price increases, some of
the world's largest companies – such as Walmart, Home Depot, and TD
Ameritrade – have been installing their own projects.
While Texas
offers a number of incentives for rainwater harvesting, including
allowing governmental districts to exempt such systems from property
taxes, inclusion of the practice in the State Water Plan would have
certainly accelerated the trend.
Rainwater collection played a key role in getting several Australian cities through their recent "millennium drought". But the practice routinely gets overlooked in the United States, as underlined by the Texas plan.
David
Crawford, founder of Virginia-based Rainwater Management Solutions,
attributes the limited US rollout to resistant utilities, relatively low
water costs, a confusing melange of local codes and ignorance about the
practice.
"There's these municipalities that say, 'Oh, no, we
don't want you to flush our toilets with rainwater because we'll lose
budget money on it,'" Crawford said. "The reality of it is they don't
have the water to sell in many cases."
Corporate rainwater collection rises
In May, online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation consolidated five offices in Omaha, Nebraska, into a single $250m, 12-story tower expected to receive the LEED Platinum certification.
Along
with an abundance of natural lighting, solar-heated hot water, and
wind-powered parking lot lights, the building boasts a rainwater
harvesting system that waters the landscaping and flushes the toilets.
All together, the green measures cut building maintenance costs in half,
claims spokesperson Kim Hillyer.
"Anytime you move 2,000 people
into one location you worry about how many natural resources you're
going to drain, and if we can limit that then we've done our job in
being a good community partner," Hillyer said.
Box stores with
large roofs and significant landscaping also appear to be a natural fit
for rainwater harvesting, which typically involves collecting rainwater
from rooftops, storage in large tanks, and filtration and pumping for
non-potable needs. The American Water Works Association estimates that
80% of the typical commercial building's water use goes to non-potable
uses, such as flushing toilets, watering landscaping, and for cooling
and processing water.
