Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

A close-up photograph of a chalybeate spring in a forested area. Water flows over a bank of reddish-brown, orange, and rust-coloured mineral deposits, which are characteristic of iron oxidation. The water then trickles into a small stream or runnel at the bottom of the image, where it has a slight foamy appearance. The surrounding ground is covered in low-lying vegetation, including clumps of bright green and straw-colored grasses and sedges, dark green mosses, and brown leaf litter. The background shows a slope leading up into a conifer plantation.

Chalybeate Dreams and Murky Realities

The orange colouring of this stream is a clear sign of iron salts in abundance. This is known as chalybeate or ferruginous water, a substance once held in high esteem in the 17th century when mineral waters were treated as a cure for most known ailments and several imaginary ones besides. People drank it with conviction and smeared the orange mud on their faces in the belief that good health could be rubbed on like boot polish. Entire towns prospered on this faith. Royal Tunbridge Wells and Harrogate built reputations, fortunes, and polite promenades around it. Even the young Princess Victoria drank the water daily, which did her no obvious harm and possibly improved her patience. This stream feeds into Cod Beck Reservoir, operated by Yorkshire Water, although the treatment works closed in 2006 after Cryptosporidium appeared, rather rudely, in the supply1Cod Beck Reservoir. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Beck_Reservoir#:~:text=The%20treatment%20works%20was%20closed%20down%20in%202006%20after%20the%20deterioration%20of%20the%20quality%20of%20the%20water%20from%20the%20moorland%20and%20the%20presence%20of%20Cryptosporidium; [Accessed 15 December 2025.

Perhaps a trick has been missed here by Yorkshire Water, privatised in 1989 and rarely out of the headlines since. Its business model appears to favour shareholder returns and heroic levels of debt over such trifles as infrastructure and public service. Nearly £7 billion has been amassed in debt, dividends have flowed, rivers have suffered, and customers have been asked to pay more so that long-delayed repairs can finally be contemplated2Yorkshire Water: it’s time to end the rip-off. John Hall. 7 November 2025. https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/region/yorkshire-water-its-time-to-end-the-rip-off/ [Accessed 15 December 2025]. Tangerine mud face packs might yet be a marketing triumph, especially in America. Drinking the water, however, would be optimism of the highest order.

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2 responses to “Chalybeate Dreams and Murky Realities”

  1. Paul M Buckingham avatar
    Paul M Buckingham

    This an FB post I put out last year.

    I’ve just heard that obscenely high price rises have been approved for water supply from our privately owned water companies. The original justification for selling off our utilities was to give the public more choice and whilst there are a plethora of gas and electricity suppliers to choose from, this does not apply to water companies. Where you live dictates who supplies your water, no consumer choice involved. There never was a valid justification for privatisation of water.
    Now we have to pay massive increases to pay for the incompetence of management to plan for the future. After all, the changes arising from global warming have been evident for a long time.
    Huge payouts have been made to shareholders despite the deplorable pollution of our streams, rivers and sea by these companies. Who are these shareholders? Our local supplier,Yorkshire Water, is over half owned by Hong Kong investment firms and over a third owned by the Singapore government. I’m sure these entities have no real concern for the water quality in the rivers and seas of Yorkshire, only the continuity of profits and dividends to line their pockets.
    I realise that re~privatisation would be fiendishly expensive and difficult but there must be sanctions that OFWAT can levy beyond the fines already publicised. I would suggest much higher fines and a block on dividends to the faceless owners until the companies have stopped destroying our environment as a minimum.

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  2. Fhithich avatar
    Fhithich

    🤔

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