LONDON (Reuters) - A performance artist whose latest work, a running tap, aims to highlight water loss has been told to turn it off -- and stop wasting water.
Mark Mcgowen was planning to leave the tap running in a gallery in South London for a year, graphically wasting 15 million litres of water in the process.
Since he turned it on six days ago, tens of thousands of litres have already gone down the drain.
But the local utility, Thames Water, has taken a dim view.
"We are looking at our legal options," said a spokesman. "He can do everybody a favour by turning his tap off now."
Mcgowen, 37, hit the headlines two years ago when he pushed a nut with his nose seven miles across London pavements to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street residence to highlight the problem of student debt.
He says of his latest project: "Water is the elixir of life, we are all made of it and without it we are in trouble -- so stop wasting it."
But the tap exhibit has been switched on just as water companies in the south of England are looking at emergency measures to preserve supplies after Britain's second-driest winter for 100 years.
Whether Thames Water can force him to switch it off was not immediately clear but Mcgowen was in fighting mood on Monday.
"They want to start to prosecute themselves," he told Reuters. "They are wasting water when their profits are going up."
The German-owned company, which made profits of 182 million pounds last year, admits that around a third of London's water supply is lost in leaks from the city's 20,000 miles of pipes. It is in the process of repairing the damage and replacing the ageing pipes.
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