Damming the Aberfeldy River

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.

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, and a forward thinking pollie named John Forrest, 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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hymie

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sleepy

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

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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, and a forward thinking pollie named John Forrest, 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

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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

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.