Drought?

On a rather grey day, we walked up the glen of the Abhainn Chro Bheinn yesterday, which is the burn which usually provides Kilchoan's water supply. This picture looks west down the glen towards Beinn na Seilg, with the water holding tanks to the right.

Scottish Water are facing a problem. With rainfall totals over the last month being low, the level of water in the burn has fallen, so....

 ....a limited supply is currently held behind the intake sluice, particularly bearing in mind that the burn downstream mustn't be allowed to dry up.

Upstream, the exceptionally low water levels are very evident. The burn has dropped to the point where it is easy to walk up its bed.

It was perhaps significant that, despite it being a bank holiday, someone from Scottish Water was at the site, perhaps turning on the second source of water. This is a recent and very expensive addition to our water supply system, and involves pumping water uphill to the works from the burn which meets the Abhainn Chro Bheinn....

....just by the fire station. This burn hasn't got a name on the OS map, but it drains two lochans, Lochan na Crannaig and Lochan nan Ealachan.

We had 8mm of rain last night and there's more forecast for today, so we may not face a drought, but looking at this picture it may be just as well that modern water processing is so thorough - the burn passes Hughie's increasingly extensive pig farm. On the other had, modern water smells of chlorine and we look back with nostalgia to the times before the new water works when our supply was whisky-brown with peat and tasted lovely.