Water in Scotland Isn’t Awesome

Today is World Water Day and I’m currently sitting in on a live online all day-er with Scotland’s premier league of water experts. And I have to say, so far so disappointing.

I mean no disrespect to the organisers, because I know how hard they work to make a huge event like this happen. But we’ve been served a serious amount of back-patting, a significant chunk of ‘make individuals accountable for their actions’, and a ginormous slice of Scotland-is-heading-up-COP26-arent-we-brilliant pie.

With the exception of hearing about some beach cleans and some fish passes in Dufftown, there has been little talk of actual action. Where is the clean water revolution? Where is the step-change that we need to truly value our most valuable of resources?

There has been no news at all about actual innovations, game changers, and legislative changes that would herald Scotland truly taking a giant leap into world water leadership.

Why do we need a change in attitude about Scottish water? Because water in Scotland isn’t as awesome as everyone thinks!

1. The quantity of our water is under threat and the way we currently manage droughts isn’t sustainable: There is a huge, dangerous assumption in Scotland that we’re OK because it rains a lot. Yet Scotland is getting drier, and we are predicted to experience increasingly warmer and drier summers. The population is increasing, particularly across the east of the country and in the Central Belt, and yet these areas are some of the driest. The way we currently manage droughts isn’t sustainable – we can’t continue tanker trucking in water or pallets of single use plastic bottles to areas when they’re experiencing drought, like we did during the summer of 2018.
2. Untreated and poorly treated sewage going into our rivers and seas is a major problem: Most wastewater treatment plants in Scotland aren’t equipped to remove pharma, yet our population is growing and pharma use is increasing… but our wastewater treatment plants (especially smaller, more rural ones) aren’t being upgraded. The impact on our environment and the risk of these pollutants ending back in the food chain is significant. We need to reduce the amount of pharmaceuticals and other emerging pollutants in our wastewater; so we can improve the state of our seas, protect our food chain, and improve conditions for aquatic beings – including swimmers – Surfers Against Sewage’s research estimates that regular surfers in UK waters have 4x the amount of resistance to antibiotics than a non-ocean swimmer, indicating that our seas are really brilliant receptacles of our medicines and superb breeding grounds for antimicrobial resistance. Medicines we take are excreted through our urine and poo, and medicines from hospitals and veterinary applications also end up in our water supplies. Additionally, creams and personal care products may contain toxic chemicals, and sometimes people dispose of medicines down the loo (a HUGE no no!!!). We could be world leaders right here! What an opportunity!
3. Rural private supplies aren’t up to scratch: Rural Scots with poor quality water risk being left behind, and that is not good enough. Once-yearly checks on drinking water quality for PWS aren’t good enough. Leaving communities to make their own minds up about complex water quality issues and a multitude of infrastructure options isn’t good enough. We know this, and the Scottish Government and the Citizens Advice Scotland have carried out research over the past 3 years to confirm what many of us already knew. So do something about it! We can’t talk confidently of addressing Sustainable Development Goal 6 internationally if we can’t address SDG6 domestically too.