Damming the Aberfeldy River

[Hymie]

I heard on the news this morning that the Victorian Liberal Party will go to the next election with a policy to Dam the Aberfeldy River to help boost Melbourne's water supply.
This would totally ruin a sensational recreational 4WD area and devastate the remaining environmental flows of the Thomson river downstream of the Thomson Dam.
I don't care about the Party politics of such a move, I'm more worried about the Environment on this one, it's almost enough to tip me over the edge of becoming a radical greenie:eek::eek::eek::eek:

[mox]

Damming the Aberfeldy River is obviously an option that has to be considered for improving Melbourne's water supply. Regarding environmental flows, dams can allow better outcomes than totally natural conditions. They can act as a buffer against damaging flood peaks. Timing and amounts of flow can sometimes adjusted to serve the environment better than some rain events. Especially allowing increased flows in droughts.

Apparently only a relatively short tunnel would be required to allow water from the Aberfeldy River to supplement the Thomson system.

In normal seasons the percentage of river flow held back in a dam need not necessarily be high. However, major flood events, as has occurred recently in Gippsland can save a lot of water that would run to waste, often causing damage in the process. This water can then allow increased supply during drier periods.

Human needs for water have to be balanced against those for the environment. Unfortunately Labor Party policy on it seems to be designed to catch so called "green" votes in the city rather than responsible environmental management. Look at the idiotic costly and environmentally disasterous schemes thay are pursuing! With the pipe taking water from the Goulburn River to Melbourne, when Melbourne storages are low, usually there is a more severe shortage north of the dividing range. See www.plugthepipe.com (http://www.plugthepipe.com).

It is also morally despicable implementing a "quick fix solutions for Melbourne's water shortage by taking water that rightfully belongs to communities and the environment in the Murray Darling Basin.

A desalination plant as the Victorian State Govt is proposing at Wonthaggi will be very expensive to build. Also very costly to run for the water produced by it and the environmental resources required and damage done. Would be far better and cheaper to further clean up and reuse a similar amount of water from Melbourne that goes through the south east treatment plant and is then piped to the ocean rather than getting salt and other impurities out of sea water.

The Liberal Party as the possible Government after the next election has to carefully consider options for improving water supplies. This includes possible new dams on the Gellibrand River in the Otways, the Mitchell in East Gippsland, the Buffalo River in North East Victoria and probably others as well as one on the Aberfeldy River.

Mick

[Tank]

And what Liberal seat are you running for, what a load of crap, one of the richest gold areas in Australia, one of the most historic areas, what about the 4WD and buswalking community, what about the total destruction of wildlife habitat. It really worries me when the Libs start talking about the environment, course you know they are going to stuff it well and truly up, because Big Business that owns and runs the Libs only get keen on something that is going to line their pockets, Regards Frank.

[101RRS]

We do not seem to learn from our mistakes - issues with the Murray and the Snowy have shown that the natural flows and flood/drought patterns are important to the health of our rivers.

Damage caused by floods is a human issue only - the rich soils of the coastal areas are a result of floods and bringing soil and nutrients to the flood plains - I feel sorry for people who do get flooded but maybe if we took into account the flood cycles and built accordingly I am sure the environment and people would be better off.

However, balancing that is the need for water for the cities and I certainly do not have the answers for that - all I know is that we have to be smarter in what we grow, how we manage water supplies and how we do manage the environment.

I am not a greenie by any means - but we cannot continue to exploit our` resources and not give much back.

Garry

[Hymie]

It is also morally despicable implementing a "quick fix solutions for Melbourne's water shortage by taking water that rightfully belongs to communities and the environment in the Murray Darling Basin.

A desalination plant as the Victorian State Govt is proposing at Wonthaggi will be very expensive to build. Also very costly to run for the water produced by it and the environmental resources required and damage done. Would be far better and cheaper to further clean up and reuse a similar amount of water from Melbourne that goes through the south east treatment plant and is then piped to the ocean rather than getting salt and other impurities out of sea water.
Mick


Let me tell you one thing Mox.
Gippslanders, (me being one of them) are absolutely fed up with Melbourne raping our resources and getting stuff all in return.
Build the Desal plant and let Melburnians pay for it I say. Drinking recycled turds is too good for the would be Pollies who would vote for this. they probably only drink Perrier with a twist of Lemon anyhow.
I would love to start a Political movement to get Gippsland to Cede from Victoria. Then Melbournians could pay for their Oil, Water and Electricity and Gippslanders would be living like Saudis, Paying for Victorians to come and do the work. Awww crap, now I have to take a chill pill.

[amtravic1]

Melbourne would have plenty of water if there was less people. I for one do not want another 1 million people in Melbourne as per the current goverments 20-20 plan.
I say no more dams, no desal, less people.

Ian

[bussy1963]

Hi everyone
What a interesting topic. As a ex Gippslander living in melbourne. Still consider Gippsland home thou. About 30 years ago the government of the day decided to dam the Mitchell river at angusvale. a beautiful big access road was designed and built. Fencing was in place for the guy who had 2 km's of private land near the road. The government changed after election and you guessed it no more dam project. by the way the government that stopped the dam consruction was LABOR.

Poor old Gippsland and the Goulburn regions always cop one in the clacker by the government and the do gooders.

The Thomson river downstream from the dam and below Cowwar weir is dead. Years ago we could go fishing for redfin or trout now we are hard pushed to get carp. (not that we want them).

Best solution is limit the number of people coming into Australia and more so the Melbourne area. Best solution is to say to the people we have x amount of water once thats gone bad luck you will need to deal with it.

I have always said if a country was to invade Australia from the south all they need to do is to knock out the oil rigs, gas plant and power stations the people of melbourne would kill each other not having services.

As for a desal plant great idea. even recycled black or grey water wouldnt hurt.

Basically the idiots in powerand the do gooders need to wake up to themselves

This has been a paid policital announcement on behalf of the anti tree huggers and born and bred white aussies.

[Chucaro]

Typical do-gooders trying to improve the ecosystem :mad:
They have so much arrogance that they think that know better than Mother Nature :mad:

Bugger here is going my blood pressure up again :(

[Tank]

Want more water? Install water tanks for every roof in Melbourne with first flush facilities and you wouldn't have a water problem, Regards Frank.

[Chucaro]

It would be interesting to know which is the average water comsumtion per household in Melbourne and Sydney.
In out farm in Childers we have 2 5000 gal rain water tanks and was enough for the 2 of us for the full year.
The young will learn very quickly about not to have a 20 minutes shower ;)

[fclandy]

Tanks for every house has a few attractive features:

Water is captured over a much larger area, so low rainfall in one pocket is less of an issue
People can choose how they use their water
Diversity of supply and storage - if a tank fails, the whole city is not crippled
Smoothly progressive cost structure - adding 10% to the population will require 10% extra tanks, not suddenly a massive new dam
Terrorists would have great difficulty poisoning every tank in town
Furthermore, rather than stupid rules about what you can and can't do, we should have a set amount of water we are allowed from the community (mains) supply. That amount can be varied during times of drought. For example at present, I would think 100 litres per person per day might work. And, importantly, people can do what they like with their 100 litres. If you want to wash your car more and yourself less, fine, providing you stay within your 100 litres. The current restrictions mean you can't water the garden much, can't wash your car, and so on, but there is absolutely no penalty for having a one-hour shower, filling a 200l spa bath, or running a full cycle in the washing machine for 3 pairs of jocks. I prefer to have a limit and let me choose how to use it. And rather than fining offenders, fit restrictors to their water supply (at the offenders cost) to limit flow to 2 litres/minute, to remain in place until under-usage of water matches the extent of their prior over-usage.
Encourage re-use: fresh rainwater to drink and wash, used wash water to flush and water gardens or wash cars.

[willem]

I like the comments about using rainwater tanks. To me its blindingly obvious - and the beauty of it is that you can start doing it yourself without having to wait for the pollies to act! With a very modest investment you can make yourself independent of mains water, and take that bit of stress off the dam system. Here is an opportunity to act and remove the need to complain about the system.

But this itself does not address the larger matter of water supply for our cities. Aiming for a reduction in population is a bit like ****ing upwind - it isn't going to work real well! Populations will increase, and in a place as under-populated as Australia, perhaps should increase substantially. But that's another debate. Australia actually has plenty of water. Its just not always where we want it! While Victoria was burning a month or two back half of Queensland was under water! There is more water in the Ord River Dam near Kununnurra in WA than there is in Sydney Harbour! The problem is that its not in the right place!

This was the problem faced in WA more than 100 years ago, when Kalgoorlie was in desperate need of water. A brilliant and courageous engineer named CY O'Connor (http://australianstory.net.au/TIA/node/16), and a forward thinking pollie named John Forrest (http://australianstory.net.au/TIA/node/16), designed and built the Mundaring Weir to Kalgoorlie pipeline, which is still in use today.

What's wrong with attempting an ambitious project like that now? Why not run a pipeline from the Ord River Dam to meet the Perth Kalgoorlie line halfway and supply both Perth and Kalgoorlie and all the towns between. We could make the desert bloom on the way!

And a pipeline from the flood prone areas of Queensland to Sydney? The Northern Territory has that much rain falling on it that they have an entire season called the 'runoff'! Why not capture some of that and pipe it to Adelaide and Melbourne? And in the process water the desert? Perhaps the dream of opening up Australia's interior could begin to happen!

Maybe you think 'that's just dreaming, Willem!'. Maybe it is, but it is dreaming of what could be that made the Kalgoorlie pipeline possible one hundred years ago! They dreamed, and it happened! What we need now is some pollies like John Forrest and engineers like CY O'Connor so that things can happen again!

Willem

[Sleepy]

I would love to start a Political movement to get Gippsland to Cede from Victoria.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo. :o Where would I get my mocassins from?

[Hymie]

Nooooooooooooooooooooo. :o Where would I get my mocassins from?

Gippsland First Party Policy#1

Moccasins will be free to all Naturalised Gippslanders.
They will be hand crafted in Gippsland using Gippsland sourced materials. Anybody entering Gippsland with Non Gippsland manufactured Moccassins will have to pay a levy.
Ugg boots are included in this scheme.

[AndyRevill]

I like the comments about using rainwater tanks. To me its blindingly obvious - and the beauty of it is that you can start doing it yourself without having to wait for the pollies to act! With a very modest investment you can make yourself independent of mains water, and take that bit of stress off the dam system. Here is an opportunity to act and remove the need to complain about the system.

But this itself does not address the larger matter of water supply for our cities. Aiming for a reduction in population is a bit like ****ing upwind - it isn't going to work real well! Populations will increase, and in a place as under-populated as Australia, perhaps should increase substantially. But that's another debate. Australia actually has plenty of water. Its just not always where we want it! While Victoria was burning a month or two back half of Queensland was under water! There is more water in the Ord River Dam near Kununnurra in WA than there is in Sydney Harbour! The problem is that its not in the right place!

This was the problem faced in WA more than 100 years ago, when Kalgoorlie was in desperate need of water. A brilliant and courageous engineer named CY O'Connor (http://australianstory.net.au/TIA/node/16), and a forward thinking pollie named John Forrest (http://australianstory.net.au/TIA/node/16), designed and built the Mundaring Weir to Kalgoorlie pipeline, which is still in use today.

What's wrong with attempting an ambitious project like that now? Why not run a pipeline from the Ord River Dam to meet the Perth Kalgoorlie line halfway and supply both Perth and Kalgoorlie and all the towns between. We could make the desert bloom on the way!

And a pipeline from the flood prone areas of Queensland to Sydney? The Northern Territory has that much rain falling on it that they have an entire season called the 'runoff'! Why not capture some of that and pipe it to Adelaide and Melbourne? And in the process water the desert? Perhaps the dream of opening up Australia's interior could begin to happen!

Maybe you think 'that's just dreaming, Willem!'. Maybe it is, but it is dreaming of what could be that made the Kalgoorlie pipeline possible one hundred years ago! They dreamed, and it happened! What we need now is some pollies like John Forrest and engineers like CY O'Connor so that things can happen again!

Willem

I don't often buy into arguments like this one but I couldn't help myself :)

most of Australia's water problems arise from how it's used or more, how it's wasted and a complete disregard for how much of the country is interdependent on other parts. yes plenty of water falls in Queensland and a lot of it should flow down the darling, into the murray and on to the Coorong, but it doesn't, why? because we choose to use it for rice and cotton in QLD, apples and the like at menindee lakes and the rest by irrigators along the murray. So, the Coorong slowly turns into a dead sea :mad:

Lake Argyle is massive but actually only holds enough water for about a 3 year buffer - 3 years of no wet season and the Argyle mine runs out of power and the irrigation scheme dries up - are they good uses for our water?
The tropical rivers that we all like to see in the Kimberley rely on a boom and bust cycle. In the dry they stop flowing, becoming a series of pools. in the wet they get flushed and much of the ecology is re-set for the next year. this happens to varying degrees within decadal time frames, sometimes a big flood but maybe 5 years of small floods/elevated flows. We don't really understand the importance of the different magnitude of these but I'll guarantee they're important.
The ord is dammed and it's "environmental flows" mean water flows all year round - undoubtedly this has meant people catch more fish more often but it never gets the intermediate floods - it's quite possibly silting up :mad:

we're heading into a period of dramatic climate change, I'd suggest we need to get smarter about how we use our water. If we try to move it from one place to another we might just be moving the problem

just my 2c worth :)

Andy

[Chucaro]

Well said Andy and also with the water we will moving seed and fauna that could affect the ecosystem on destination.
Work with Nature and not against it is the key to resolve the problems.