Once again, the canals are drying up faster than the beer
supply at a WRG Reunion dig, and the Inland Waterways Association is in danger
of having to rename itself the 'Inland Ways Association' owing to a shortage of
water, so I thought it would be timely to bring you the latest on what is being
done, and what can be done, to help the canal system to survive the continuing
drought...
Firstly, there are many simple but surprisingly effective
precautions that boaters can take to reduce wastage. We all know about sharing
locks and 'working turns', but have you ever considered the amount of water you
pour into the canal every time you have a shower, or do the washing-up?
Multiply that by the number of boats on the canal system and you have a
considerable quantity of water.
"So what?" I hear you ask.
Well, next time the dirty dishes are starting to pile up
like bicycles in a BCN bridgehole, or the crew are starting to smell like
they've just been dragging bicycles from a BCN bridgehole, think about where
you are. If you're already on the summit level of the canal, fine. If not,
order a take-away in tinfoil trays, apply clothes pegs to noses and whatever
you do, don't throw any water away until you've made it through those last few
locks up to the summit level! That way your waste water goes where it's really
needed.
Similarly, it is not unknown for gentlemen crew members to
avail themselves of a suitable long dark tunnel, rather than risk over-filling
the 'Elsan'. This is all very well, and although probably against the byelaws,
BW don't seem to be planning to do anything to stop it. (After all, taking the
p*** out of the canals is my job, not theirs.) But just think, what a great
relief it would be if -for example - all those gentlemen boaters could remain
cross-legged through Braunston or Saddington tunnels and last out till Crick or
Husbands Bosworth on the summit level.
But even after all these basic precautions have been taken,
the supply may still be inadequate, and my spies in the Canal Boatbuilders
Association tell me that the next generation of narrow boats will incorporate a
number of water-saving features.
Firstly, the pressure-sensitive bilge pump. Like the
altimeter on an aircraft, this uses atmospheric pressure to detect height above
sea level and automatically pumps the bilges as soon as the boat gets above
400ft, thereby returning the water to the highest level. Of course, the leakier
the boat, the more the canal system benefits from this 'in-board backpump';
licence reductions for wooden boats over 50 years old are therefore being
negotiated. However, so that the latest leak-proof steel and GRP-hulled craft
can also play their part, a refined version of the system is under development:
if the pressure sensor detects that the boat is below 50ft above sea level, a
valve opens and automatically lets some canal water back into the bilges. The
inevitable sinking of a few Fenland-based craft is seen as a small price to pay
for a major contribution to water conservation.
Water-cooled engines that use raw canal water for cooling
have become less common in recent years, but a revival may be on the way. It is
a well-known scientific fact that water expands as it gets warmer; cooling
water being returned to the canal after going through an engine and being
warmed-up will therefore occupy a much larger volume than it did when it
entered through the inlet. One single boat may not make a great difference, but
if all the boats on a long summit level were so equipped, it would soon add up.
Just think how many extra lockfuls that would make if we could raise the
temperature of the Oxford summit by even one single degree centigrade!
Meanwhile, attention is turning to the type of fuel used.
Hydrogen has long been suggested as a clean alternative to petrol or diesel,
but what happens when you burn it? That's right, the hydrogen (H2)
combines with Oxygen (O2) in the air, producing - you guessed it -
H2O! Hey Presto - a canal boat that produces its own canal water as
it goes along.
But what are the waterway authorities doing to help? Well,
my mole at Watford tells me that - whatever you may hear to the contrary - BW
have not been idle. Of course, we have all heard about their programme of
installation and restoration of back-pumps, especially the so-called 'Northern
Engines' on the GU from Tring to Milton Keynes. (That's right, 'Northern
Engines'. They're north of Watford, you see.) But this is only part of a larger
system that will in due course cover the entire canal system, enabling water to
be pumped the length and breadth of the country. Eventually the Northern
Engines will be joined by the Southern Engines, the Eastern Engines and the
Western Engines. (RMG of Latton Bypass fame are tendering for this contract -
they call it "playing Cowboys and Engines".) Water supplies will be pumped in
any direction, or in all directions at once. Bedford will benefit Basingstoke;
Rushall will replenish Rochdale. From Brewery Wharf to Brewery Gut; from
Baldwins Knob to Itchington Bottom. The Llangollen might even supply the Mont.
At a flick of the switch, water from Audrey Smith's garden pond in Lancashire
will be able to refill the Black Lake on the BCN, and vice versa. If you're
strolling along Regent Street, looking at the tourist shops, and you notice
that in a lot of the postcards of Tower Bridge the Thames seems to have taken
on an orange-ish tint, it's not just poor quality printing, more likely the
Thames gets its water from Harecastle or Worsley these days.
Further afield, the twinning arrangement between the Grand
Union and the Grand Canal of Ireland should see some of the Emerald Isle's most
plentiful asset helping our canal system. (And if there isn't enough Guinness
to spare, we could always use some of their water.) Ultimately, Venice and
Little Venice will be part of the same hydrological system. Po water will be
entering our canals in more ways than one...
It has been suggested in some quarters that such grandiose
pumping projects are unnecessary when an alternative is already in existence,
and requires only minor restoration work to return it to use. I refer, of
course, to the side-ponds or economiser ponds that were built adjacent to many
of our locks. These consist of one or more chambers excavated alongside the
lock and connected to it by paddles. The idea is that instead of emptying a
lock straight through the bottom gate paddles into the canal below, one empties
as much of it as possible into the side pond first. When the lock needs to be
filled again water is first taken from the side-pond, so in effect some of the
water is used twice. By building two, three or even more side ponds at
different heights, the water can be used over and over again until it is
completely and utterly exhausted and has to be given a nice lie-down and left
in the recovery position for some time (the Water Recovery Group often look
after this duty) until it has sufficiently recovered to be used again at the
next lock down.
Just to make things even more complicated, where locks were
duplicated side by side on busy sections such as the Cheshire Locks on the
Trent and Mersey, connecting paddles used to be fitted between the locks, so
that each lock could act as side pond for the other one. It has also been
suggested that a popular Saturday afternoon occupation for experienced boaters
with a sense of humour was to empty their lock chamber through the side paddle,
to the bafflement of the novice hireboat crew who were wondering why the
adjacent lock was taking so long to empty. I will treat this story with the
contempt that it deserves.
Unfortunately, most side-ponds have fallen into disuse,
apparently because boaters don't know how to work them any more. (I understand
that the main reason boaters don't know how to work them any more is because
most of them have fallen into disuse.) On various occasions volunteer groups
have offered to put them back into service, only to be told by the canal
authority that nobody would know how to work them because etc. etc. ("You're
the tenth canal society we've told this year, there's no call for side-ponds
these days!")
Anyway, a recent study has shown another reason for not
reinstating side ponds - apparently it is actually more expensive to maintain a
brick chamber and one paddle than to pay the running and maintenance costs of
an equivalent back-pump. If this is so - and it comes from a (usually) reliable
source - then it leads one to a logical conclusion: if pumps are cheaper than
paddles, why not do away with the top and bottom gate-paddles and
ground-paddles altogether and replace them with top and bottom gate-pumps and
ground-pumps? That way every time the lock was used, instead of sending a
lockful of water down the canal, it could send it uphill. Not only would no
water at all be used by lockage, supplies would actually improve the more the
locks were used, until the reservoir was full. To prevent the reservoirs
becoming dangerously over-full, perhaps 'side-pumps' could be used to pump
water in and out of the side-ponds, to reduce the amount of water sent uphill.
Alternatively, the reservoirs could be equipped with hydro-electric power
stations to use the water to help to generate electricity supplies to power the
pumps.
My friends involved in canal restoration tell me that water
conservation is becoming more important to them these days than it was in the
early years. (Those with long memories will remember the 1976 drought and the
"Bath with a friend" slogan, but would there have been the same necessity to
share Bath Lock if it had not been rebuilt so deep?) As canal restorations
approach completion, the worry these days is not that a bunch of nature
conservationists who have been sitting on the sidelines watching through their
binoculars will suddenly leap in and declare that the restored canal is to be
preserved as an 'important habitat for wetland flora and fauna', but
that the same crowd will leap in and declare that it is to be preserved as an
'important habitat for desert flora and fauna'. Down on the Basingstoke,
my contacts in the Surrey & Hants Canal Society tell me of clandestine
night-time trials of camel-haulage of the 'John Pinkerton'. Elsewhere, I have
recently heard it suggested that the credibility of many restoration schemes
with local authorities is being improved by promoting them not as restored
navigations, but primarily as back-pumping systems with a secondary navigation
function. In many locations the apparently permanently-installed WRG pumps
(some of them already listed by English Heritage - and their operators by
English Nature) give credence to this theory.
Obviously, no amount of backpumping and economising is any
use unless you have some of the precious fluid to start with. In the past it
has always been assumed that that fluid would be water, but nowadays its
scarcity means that is not necessarily the first choice. On the Oxford Canal, a
brewery sponsorship deal has been struck, as the names Boddington Reservoir and
Marston Doles indicate, while down in London they are looking forward to Fuller
canals in the future. (This fills them with pride!) Meanwhile, thanks to a
link-up between London Distilleries and the old Gordons Pleasure Boats, we are
hoping to see some genuine floating gin-palaces before long. A tie-up with the
West Country Pig-Farmers' Slurry Co-operative should see restoration work
starting soon on the Tamar Manure Navigation, ICI are paying to restore the BCN
Chemical Arm, and the Halesowen Sewage Works are looking into the Dudley Number
Two Canal.
While on the subject of sponsorship (not to mention bodily
functions), following the success of the 'Hippo in your cistern' scheme
for saving water used in lavatories, Regents Park Zoo are proposing a similar
scheme to enable under-sized boats to use the Regents Canal locks more
economically.
And finally, a few words on the National Waterways Festival.
It has been claimed by some that large amounts of water are wasted every year
by boaters attending this event, who would otherwise spend their summers at
home mowing the lawn, playing with the kids and washing the car, with their
boat securely tied up in a marina somewhere and not using any water at all. My
only contribution to this debate (other than to point out that the hot air
generated by the arguments would be enough to power a 1.73 megalitre/day
backpump at Napton) concerns the actual siting of the event in future years to
address these concerns, real or imagined, by avoiding anything that might be
construed as encouragement of craft to waste water by over-use of the
vulnerable summit levels. Accordingly, it has been decided that the 'National'
in 2001 will be held on the lowest level on the entire system - the Middle
Level Drains, at a location that is actually several feet below sea level.
Already, however, concern has been raised in some quarters that this is likely
to result in a serious depletion of the stocks available in the North Sea.
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