A Typically Wet English Spring Does Little to Alleviate a Drought

The cracks at the bottom of the Bewl Reservoir in Lamberhurst, England, are stark evidence of Britain's driest period since 1995. May's heavy rains have done little to help the groundwater shortage causing the drought. (By Daniel Berehulak -- Getty Images)

LONDON, May 27 -- Ah, springtime in England.

Rivers swell and burble, grass is luxuriantly green, and the wet country muck on the bottom of Wellington boots is as thick as marmalade. The sun appears less often than the queen. About the only dry things in England are the sense of humor and the gin.

The English do droughts differently.

Starting this weekend, hundreds of thousands of people in homes and businesses across southeastern England risk criminal prosecution and fines of about $9,000 or more for any nonessential use of water, including filling private swimming pools or watering playing fields, parks or golf courses. More than 13 million people in London and southeastern England are already under a residential ban on using hoses or sprinklers to wash cars or water lawns; violators face fines of up to about $1,800.

British officials have declared this country's first drought emergency in 11 years, and they warn that an epic water shortage looms in parts of the country, perhaps including London.

"If we get a hot, dry summer, then it could possibly be the worst drought in the past hundred years," said Lisa Beechey of the Environment Agency. She said there is a "small but real risk" that officials will have to shut off water to homes in parts of southeastern England this summer, forcing people to collect drinking water in buckets from emergency spigots set up in their neighborhoods. This last happened in 1976.

The problem is so acute that water company officials have publicly discussed the possibility of shipping in fresh water from Scandinavia in converted oil tankers -- and even towing an iceberg to England. Officials at Thames Water, which supplies London, have also proposed addressing the problem for the long term by building a desalinization plant to transform the Thames's murky contents into drinking water, but city officials oppose the idea.

Through all the alarming talk, slashing May rains continued to pummel England on Saturday during what smart-aleck commentators are calling the "wettest drought in history."

"I know it's strange to look out the window and see rain" in the middle of a drought, said Beechey, a native of Australia, where deserts and droughts are a way of life. "But the problem is with the groundwater, and you can't see groundwater."

The crux of the matter is that Britain has had 18 months of below-average rainfall, which has brought underground aquifers to dangerous lows. Worse, rainfall has been lowest during what are known as the winter "recharging" months -- rain that falls in December largely seeps into the ground; rainfall in spring and summer tends to evaporate or be sucked up by thirsty and blooming trees, plants and flowers.

Stuart Hyslop, a spokesman for Sutton and East Surrey Water, which imposed the ban on its 650,000 customers starting Saturday, said that since October 2004 rainfall has been only about 70 percent of the average in his region, the lowest since the 1930s.

In much of England, particularly in the southeast, water suppliers rely almost exclusively on underground aquifers. London and other regions rely more heavily on reservoirs, which tend to be better collectors of rainwater; reservoirs serving Thames Water are more than 90 percent full, spokesman Ross Edwards said.

Still, he said, total water levels are precarious, necessitating the emergency restrictions.

Edwards said his company had not prosecuted any violators, preferring to emphasize education about water conservation. Hyslop's company is running ads in movie theaters asking people to turn off the tap while they are brushing their teeth.

During the last official drought, in 1995, an attempt to educate by example backfired on Trevor Newton, then chief executive of Yorkshire Water, when he explained how he and his wife were conserving water at home. "I personally haven't had a bath or a shower now for three months, and no one has noticed," said Newton, who was quickly fired.

Appeals for better conservation have also been met with derisive howls by critics who note that Britain's water companies lose 951 million gallons of water a day from old pipes that leak. Thames Water has 20,000 miles of pipes, some of which are more than 150 years old.

Edwards said some people are dubious about the drought because of what he called a misperception about England and rain. "There are a lot of people who have the perception that London is a wet place," Edwards said, as a light rain fell from the thick clouds that hang over this country and drip like a saturated sponge. "But we're actually drier than Dallas."

According to the World Almanac, London receives an average of 29.7 inches of rain per year -- about the same as Minneapolis or Omaha -- compared with 34.7 in Dallas and 39.3 in Washington. One possible difference seems to be that Dallas and Washington receive heavy bursts of rain and days of uninterrupted sunshine, while the threatening clouds of London seem never far away.

"The rain doesn't bother me," said George Lewis, 74, a Londoner. "But I do hate being in the rain and at the same time being told there is no water."

Especially heavy rainfall all month has made the drought even harder to understand for many people.

"All this rain is no use? You can't believe that, can you?" said Alan Cox, 48, who runs a car-washing service in Sutton, southwest of London. "You'd think that this rain must fill up something."

Cox said he would continue his business by using rainwater he captures himself. "What am I supposed to do for a living?" he said. "How can they stop us working?"

In London, Rebecca McVeigh, 24, was clothes-shopping while wearing bright green "wellies" with a pink floral pattern on them -- she said it had been pouring rain when she left home Friday morning.

"I guess a couple of heavy days of rain doesn't make that much difference when the ground is so parched," McVeigh said. "It's bizarre, but I guess all this rain is needed."