Living just down the road in Denshaw at the time i remember the long queues of tankers next to Booth Wood Reservoir next to the M62 during the drought of 1995 and the huge expanse of tarmac they laid to get tankers near to Scammonden Reservoir just off the A640.
For those unfamiliar with the event here’s a press release from November 1995…
Yorkshire Water yesterday doubled its efforts to bring water to the region’s drought-hit cities by road.
The facts are that reservoirs in West Yorkshire are to small and there is not system in place to easily transfer water from the East, where supplies are plentiful, to the West where they are desperately needed .
Up to 600 road tankers will move millions of gallons a day, an operation unprecedented for a British water company. New slip roads, lorry parks and gantries carrying hoses have had to be installed.
Although some rain is forecast we’re not out of the woods said a spokesman. ‘‘If people think we’re crying wolf, they should come and look at the reservoirs.’’
The emptiest of these are now 13 per cent full, slightly up on a week ago. But normally at this time of year they would be 80 per cent full, or 33 per cent in a bad year.
For the past 10 weeks a growing number of tankers have been taking water from Loftsome Bridge water treatment works, near Selby, more than 40 miles to Halifax and Huddersfield, the worst affected areas.
Yesterday two new tankering operations began. One will be bringing up to 25,000 tons of water a day from Long Newton reservoir, on Teesside, to reservoirs serving Leeds, using up to 300 tankers.
They will work 24 hours a day, making several of the 130-mile round trips.
Much of the water they are bringing comes ultimately from Kielder Water, in Northumberland, the largest man-made reservoir in Europe, having first moved by pipeline, then the river Tees, then another pipeline to the reservoir.
The other operation is bringing water from the mains of York to Leeds, using 50 tankers.
All the tankers have to be steam cleaned before they can carry water, and the total operation is costing the company about £3m a week.
Tankers are running 24/7 between Kielder Dam in Northumberland and Eccup Reservoir to ensure Leeds’ taps dont run dry and every water tanker in the country is committed to run for Yorkshire Water.
Yorkshire Water has brought in one of Britain’s largest road freight firms, Exel Logistics, to run the entire operation from next Monday. But the owners of some small haulage firms whose tankers and drivers have been sub-contracted are warning that their pay and conditions will deteriorate sharply under the new regime.
‘‘If this new system goes ahead it means I and many others drivers will pack up,’’ said one company owner, who has hired 10 tankers and taken on drivers who were on the dole. He claimed the vehicles would have to be driven dangerously fast if they were to make any money from their contracts. Yorkshire Water said talks between sub-contractors and Exel Logistics were continuing and it would not compromise on road safety.
Last week the Government held a public inquiry into Yorkshire Water’s request for an emergency drought order which would allow it to cut off households for 24 hours at a time.
Have a few pictures to add to the thread if you have any comments or stories from the time lets hear about them i remember that at the time you could not hire a single tanker from anywhere in the country …
Loading water destination Halifax.
This was one of the locations for loading up Longnewton Reservoir near Darlington in 1995. "Form a queue driver"
The scene on the A672 Oldham Road adjacent to Boothwood Reservoir. Under the temporary gantry at Boothwood Reservoir you can see the M62 in the background which also became an unloading point with the hard shoulder used for tanker parking while they emptied their tanks.
Installing the pipework to pump water into the almost empty Scammonden Dam in the background
The scene at Booth Wood Reservoir when a water supply pipe broke loose.