Parched City (33 page)

Indoor fountains –particularly in London’s temperate climate –are pragmatic because they provide plumbing, shelter and, hopefully, maintenance staff. If the managers of publicly used buildings, and architects of the future, emulate the principles of the British Library fountain model to any degree, there may be hope that widespread, high quality facilities in public buildings could stimulate a change in the perception of drinking fountains
and, consequently, behaviour. On a practical basis, indoor facilities potentially provide a more stable environment and infrastructure to support drinking fountains. Yet that comfort has not stopped some optimists from the challenges of outdoor spaces.

The Great Outdoors

Another researcher has, helpfully, spent some time observing public fountains from the perspective of urban design. Could they, he asked, ‘reduce the city’s carbon footprint’ by reducing the use and consequent waste of bottled water?
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In June 2011, Roberto Cantu’s first case study was on Trafalgar Square. This fountain was bequeathed to the square in 1960 by the Drinking Fountain Association and retrofitted to working order by the Greater London Authority. The amenity is a low-key mural design, only slightly ruffling the smooth lines of Trafalgar Square’s eastern wall. The mural fountain is practically camouflaged in comparison to the way this world heritage site’s bombastic ornamental fountains flaunt themselves. Visually, there is little to draw thirsty people to the free water source, instead of opting for the plethora of packaged water brands in nearby newsagents. Over three hours, Cantu counted a mere thirty drinkers on a mid-summer’s day. One of those drinkers was a local street cleaner.
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The snapshot in Cantu’s report of that fountain user reminds me of Charles Melly’s claim about urban labourers before his fountain was installed on Liverpool Docks: ‘It was almost impossible for anyone to procure a glass of water without going into a shop and buying something — spending, in fact, what he might otherwise have economised’ (1858).
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Whilst his point is uncannily resonant today, the street cleaner’s sup from the fountain is further layered with the irony that Westminster City Council’s street cleansing team, some of who we met in chapter nine, are employees of the sub-contractor Veolia Environmental Services, in turn a subsidiary of French-owned multinational Veolia Environnement which is one of the
largest water management operators on the planet.
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Aside from the question of who is controlling and managing the civic provision of ‘free’ water, those who work outdoors are an important user group to consider in the public drinking fountain equation. At least this street cleaner did know about the resource but others may not have realised it was available. Over time, it is likely that word-of-mouth would play a role in promoting the use of clean, functioning fountains such as this one.

Cantu concluded that one reason for the Trafalgar Square fountain’s low level of usage was a lack of signposting to the facility, compounded by its poor visibility. The researcher also noted that the proximity of an open rubbish bin to the fountain was unappealing. However, he rated the device’s automatic sensor highly on his ‘usability’ register, encompassing a range of differently enabled users, whilst pointing out that the 1960s design did not account for the needs of wheelchair users in terms of access.
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Left: Trafalgar Square drinking fountain, 2011. Photograph by
Right: Carter Lane Gardens drinking fountain, City of London, 2011.
Both photographs by Roberto Cantu, reproduced with kind permission.

At the designer’s next observation post, the bottle-refill fountain on Carter Lane Gardens — which we attended the
inauguration of in chapter nine — access standards were better. Cantu chalked up 191 drinkers on his chart. Unsurprisingly, it was the hottest day of 2011.
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His data affirms that an attractive, functional fountain will be used given the right weather conditions and the visibility of the amenity, as long as the user has a vessel handy to refill. At the City of London Corporation, there is no lack of investment in maintaining the appearance and cleanliness of the public realm of global finance’s mise en scène. Many local authorities do not have this wealth. Even so, the money potentially saved by eliminating the cost of clearing up and processing water bottles as waste or recycling is one avenue for arguing the financial sense of installing and maintaining some strategically-located fountains. Routine maintenance, of a high standard, is critical to promoting the use of facilities, if built, and therefore potentially stimulating behaviour to change from bottle to tap water consumption. A conventional promotion campaign could also raise the profile of the modest fountain as a topic for public debate.

Funding-wise, Thames Water’s shareholders might be convinced to part with some of their profits for public fountains as part of a corporate social responsibility strategy? In the financial year 2010–11, Thames Water Utilities Limited made a profit of £225.2 million and in 2011–2012 the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer, Martin Baggs, earned almost £900,000 in salary and bonuses combined.
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The cost of a few, or many, drinking fountains is clearly a drop in the ocean of Thames Water’s profit margins. It would certainly be an appropriately civic gesture from the company’s shareholders to Londoners, not to mention being a positive endorsement of its excellent product. Another incentive for the water industry to engage with drinking fountains is, perhaps counter-intuitively, to promote water conservation.

Just Enough

With good designers, materials and maintenance, drinking fountains should play an important role in rising to the twenty-first century’s climate change and freshwater challenges. The fact that we only drink what we need from a fountain makes it sustainable
both
in terms of reducing bottled water waste and freshwater use. A well-designed, well-located, well-maintained drinking fountain gives appropriate access to ‘little water’, to invert Zoe Safoulis’s term for the inhumane scale, and socially detached stance, of ‘big water’ engineering.
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The social historian John Burnett reminds us in
Liquid Pleasures
(1999): ‘Water remains the principle liquid drunk in Britain, although this takes a very small proportion of total water usage of 135 litres per person per day.’ (Large uses are activities such as toilet flushing, bathing or showering).
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The 1995 survey that Burnett quotes found that average tap water use was 1.14 litres. This figure was not broken down into water used in the home or outdoors but, even so, we know that the quantity of public drinking water that we need to counter bottled water is small fry in the bigger freshwater demand equation. More problematic is the promotion of unnecessary levels of hydration to rationalise the pallet-loads of bottled water that are shifted from juggernaut, to warehouse and newsagent fridges daily.

In a seriously water-stressed place like London, the idea of providing a resource where people can drink just
enough
for their hydration needs fits with forward-looking strategies of organisations such as Waterwise. Bottled water-sized packages are prescribed portions of water, but, when using a well-designed fountain, we can have agency over the quantity water we consume with the simple push of a button. Freshwater resources sucked out of the ground into bottles hundreds of miles away can be saved, as can the energy to transport them to us and for refrigeration. Water is heavy, as so many people around the world well know. Whilst refilling and carting around water is not a problem
for some, for others who are already cycling with heavy loads, walking with luggage, or dealing with pushchairs and associated baby paraphernalia, water is an extra burden for the pedestrian and not an inconsiderable one. It is also easy to forget to bring water out, hence many impulse sales of bottled water (these add up over the years). But in order to make these choices, we have to know that drinking water is widely available and accessible,
everywhere
beyond our kitchens.

A hydration lottery will not work, as people will simply revert to bottled water. The bottled water market relies on our instinctive craving for water, often in favour of any other hydration product. For public water resources to change London’s consumption and waste habits significantly, and those of other cities or towns in Europe and beyond, fountains are not only needed as amenities in parks, they need to be provided in indoor, or at least sheltered, locations in the city and beyond; such as motorway service stations, shopping centres, supermarkets and train stations to name but a few places. Where is free drinking water to be found in the vast swathes of space owned by Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco or Westfield? With decent budgets from such wealthy corporations, a whole new fountain, public tap, or refill station lexicon could be unleashed (I have a particular fantasy about rain-water harvesting drinking fountains that, somehow, purify in situ). Through planning legislation, the Community Infrastructure Levy could certainly be another fountain funding stream, which all developers of publicly used buildings must pay towards civic infrastructure (at a fee per square metre). Section 106 fees that property developers must pay to local authorities are also a source of cash for this much-needed ‘social infrastructure’.
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How that need is translated successfully into the built environment for the benefit of users and the managers of buildings and public spaces does need further analysis and research to ensure sustainable solutions. Legislation may well be the only way to force those owners of
our most frequently used daily spaces to actively promote the de-commodification of drinking water and make one healthy contribution to a more sustainable city. Similarly to the hospital example in terms of scale, supermarkets or shopping malls would need to install a highly visible fountain in order to distract any consumers from bottled water.

Drinking water ethics

Through whatever combination of fountains, refill stations, or water transported by individuals from their own homes, a permanent public drinking water revolution for London could actually eliminate the need for bottled water. A perpetual flow of piped tap water and bottled water into the city is simply not necessary. Of course, this mirrors the story of many packaged, highly profitable consumables but the difference with water is that we really do need some of it, if not in those quantities or through those modes of production.

A mirror of the overlap between this city’s public and private space interests was seen in the planning for the 2012 Olympic Games, particularly because of its public-private funding partnership. Some eco ambitions were thwarted by Coca-Cola’s sponsorship which dictated that its product had to be supplied alongside free tap water. Tales from inside the Olympic Park recounted impossibly long queues for the free water sources, with one of my interviewees explaining how her mother had given up the wait and bought a bottle of Schweppes Abbey Well, in order to make it to the next event (tickets were hard fought for).
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Culturally, there is a certain resignation to parting with £1.60 for a bottle of water, simply because the products are so ubiquitous and it is hard to imagine a time when they were not available, like so many disposable consumables. Positively, ticket holders at London 2012 were permitted to bring empty plastic bottles into the Park. Also, at the temporary hydration stations, no cups were provided to help combat unnecessary waste
production. The efforts of the sustainability people working inside the Games can be felt in these important, intelligent choices. My inside observers concurred that demand for the free water well exceeded what was available during busy spells. If bottled water had not been available, more free drinking water sources would have been essential, particularly in the light of the airport-style security preventing ticket holders from bringing their own tap water into the venues. The strain between sustain-ability rhetoric and the stake of, some, sponsors is evident in the twin drinking water arrangements.

Coca-Cola met potential accusations of hypocrisy head on, in a now-familiar style of corporations acknowledging inherently unsustainable practices. A form of reverse psychology is employed to green-wash what is really un-green-washable. Take this statement in one of London 2012’s sustainability reports: ‘Millions of drinks will be consumed during the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the company recognises that their product packaging will contribute significantly to the recyclable waste stream. The Coca-Cola Company is therefore working in partnership with LOCOG to develop a compelling campaign to encourage visitors to recycle.’
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The corporation certainly seemed confident from this statement that the tap water choice would not dent its sales at the Games. This paradigm shows how ludicrously profitable drinking water has become in London, and globally. One persistent defence from bottled water manufacturers is that their product is essential in emergencies, which is unfortunately true for places such as Haiti. There, the 2010 earthquake led to an outbreak of cholera which is reported to have caused more than 7,000 deaths and has been mired in controversy about where responsibility for the cause and cure for the disease should lie. The United Nations itself has been accused of causing the spread of cholera.
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It is immoral and unacceptable that such a poor nation has to rely on bottled water for an assured supply of safe drinking water. Like many places
where water quality cannot be guaranteed, the poorest people are forced to buy bottled water or use the services of water ‘vendors’, who profit from these endemic infrastructural malaises. Those are political and environmental failures that most developed world nations are extremely fortunate
not
to confront.