Abstract
THE presidential address of Mr. Edwin Thompson, at the annual general meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry at Glasgow on July 2, dealt with the question of water supply in Great Britain and covered a wide range of topics in that connexion. Mr. Thompson considered the problem of a national water policy to call for immediate investigation. He deplored the spirit of localism which still manifests itself in connexion with every water supply scheme of magnitude, despite the recommendation made nearly seventy years ago by the Royal Commission of 1868 “that no town should be allowed to appropriate a source of supply which naturally and geographically belongs to a town or district nearer to such source, unless under special circumstances which justify the appropriation”. He said there is too much selfishness among water undertakings, and that they could do much to relieve the needs of those who have no water supply. He went on to discuss a number of difficulties and problems which are associated with questions of supply: water pollution, rural requirements, misuse and waste of water, the increase during recent years of the per capita consumption, diversion of supplies for canals, storage reservoirs, biological factors of storage, sewage effluents into rivers, compensation water, etc. He alluded to and endorsed the necessity for a survey of the water resources of Great Britain and instanced from the report of the British Association Committee the example set in this respect by other nations. The idea of a water grid was dismissed. The valuation of waterworks for rating purposes has a serious financial bearing on the administration and working expenses of an undertaking. The formation of a Select Committee of the Houses of Parliament to go fully into the question of national water supplies made him confident that the anxieties and hardships of the past year will never be repeated.
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Chemical Industry and Water Problems. Nature 136, 17 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136017a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136017a0