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Water flow in Hampshire’s River Test has risen following considerable amounts of rain this month, meaning drought measures were avoided.
Southern Water has not had to utilise the drought permit it applied for in July as river flow remained above 355 megalitres per day.
In late June the River Test water flow was reduced to below the 60-day trigger level (the point at which river flow will fall below abstraction limits in 60 days should environmental conditions continue) and approached the 35-day trigger warning in July.
At that point the company applied for permission from the Environment Agency to amend its licence to allow abstraction from the river until flow reached 265 million litres each day.
Nigel Hepworth, water resources and policy manager at Southern Water, said public response to the company’s appeal for reducing water usage was “enormously positive” with customers in the area served by the Test using up to 10 million fewer litres a day.
He added that levels in the Test are still hovering near the levels where the permit must be activated so customers must not become complacent in their water usage.
The company sought the amendment to its abstraction licence while it implements longer term solutions to reduce reliance on the River Test, which has been identified as an ecologically significant waterway.
The first phase of its plans to bolster alternative sources will see added supplies easing the reliance on the Test from 2024.
The company said it expects to regularly rely on drought permits until then.
Southern was ordered by the Environment Agency in 2017 to reduce abstraction from the river from 136 million to 80 million litres of water each day and restrictions in place if river flow drops below 355 million litres per day.
Southern had previously been to source almost half of south Hampshire’s public water from the Test, but stated it drew significantly less from the river, with the rest coming from groundwater and the nearby River Itchen, which is subject to similar abstraction restrictions.
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