"Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote in message
.. .

"Sean Mcdonald" wrote in message
...

"Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote in message
.. .

Alan, I have a vague memory, presumably from 1997, of the Ver
drying up all the way down to St Albans, ruining the watercress
beds. Is that right, or is it an older memory intruding?


Not too sure about '97 but certainly '95 and '90 however water
abstraction
at Friars Wash was much higher then. Incidently I seem to remember
that
the
lower levels of abstraction were due to the diversion of water from
the
Lea
catchment around Luton. I could be wrong on this but if it were the
case
it
would smack of robbing Peter to pay Paul given the drying out of the
Lea.

Ah, now things are beginning to fall into place. That would explain a
lot.
It can be argued that it's no great loss as far as Luton is concerned.
Such
a
large part of the town was built in the catchment in the last 100
years or
so,
with so many houses in the flood-plain, but during the period when
artesian abstraction was at its highest, so I guess there were few
concerns
about flooding. After 2000-01 it was clear that hundreds of houses,
dozens of businesses, parts of the A6 and the inner ring road, were
all at
risk from flooding resulting from a combination of a rising water
table and
an extremely 'flashy' catchment. The one big loser in all this is the
big
lake in the rather attractive Wardown Park which has comprised
extensive
mudflats since August.

Philip Eden

I think that the water abstraction at Friars Wash was reduced by taking
more water to Luton from Grafham Water so it should not have had any
local effect in the Luton area.

Alan

In uk.sci.weather on Sat, 8 Nov 2003 at 08:44:09, Paul Hyett wrote :

This is a good indicator of how far the water table in the chalk of the
Chiltern Hills must have dropped ... especially notable because it
follows the unprecedentedly high water table of 2001, and also
bearing in mind that much less water is extracted from the chalk via
artesian wells these days compared with 30 or 40 years ago.

Tiny though it is, the river Chelt never seems to completely dry up, not
even in 1976.

One thing that *has* dried up though, according to the local paper, is
our Spa water!
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham

Email to pahyett[AT]activist[DOT]demon[DOT]co[DOT]uk