Clause 7 - Rights of navigation, harbour
Water Bill [Lords]
2:45 pm
Ms Sue Doughty (Guildford, Liberal Democrat)
At this stage we are talking about the reasons why we need some regulation in this matter. If it is possible to exempt locks and lock gates I would be happy to hear about that. There are wider environmental considerations. Moving water from one place to another in the normal course of events probably involves moving like to like—hard water within a hard water area and, when one is looking at holistic river systems, soft water through soft water areas—but if we use navigation systems as a grid, we will increasingly move hard water to soft water areas and soft water to hard water areas. That brings problems. Joints are weakened: in a hard water area they can be calcified, and running soft water through will weaken them and cause bursts and leaks.