There should be no fair Lady in this scorched earth to stop the manly march of Progress.

Was it not Comrade Stalin who chose a few volunteers to dig a few wee canals to reverse the flow of major rivers in the Motherland? *

This Final Solution would solve Unemployment, repel Illegal Boatpeople (who would row back quickly) and eradicate Adelaide in world record time.

* For a User Guide see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Construction_Projects_of_Communism Abbott's or even The Poodle's kind of 5 Year Plan.

Pete

Cobber you don't have to be a cotton, or any other type of farmer, to see that supplying eastern water to a water sky/sailing park in South Australia is very stupid.

It is also easy to see any supply to Melbourne or Sydney, of other peoples water is counter productive. Tell the over population to find somewhere they can be accommodated & supplied. Definitely do not allow any more housing to be built in these places. To spend taxpayer money on building public housing, & attracting more hangers on to these places can only be the action of fools.

Max T, I'm sorry but you are wrong, or illiterate or both.

The new Dutch (green) technology produces potable water, repeat, potable water and indeed, some Melbourne residents are already drinking it!

And for less than quarter of the price of conventional desal!

Which makes it also practical for some farming operations, were it is supplied as an underground application, via tapes laid directly under the seed beds of various crops.

And able to use around quarter of the water of topside applications for double the yield or harvest; or considerably less, if biodegradable plastic film is used topside!

Which by the way also allows planting to proceed as much as a month early, given retained heat assists normal germination.

And given much earlier planting, earlier harvesting becomes equally possible!

Moreover, given the application is below ground, recycled water is fine, and moreover, loaded with useful nutrients!

We're really lucky that solar activity seems to be waning at this point, (since the mid seventies) otherwise we might well and truly crossed the tipping point from which there could be no return, from where most life on earth would be extinguished.

The intractable greens just don't help with their blanket ban on dams, desalination and carbon free nuclear energy.

Perhaps when there's no food on the supermarket shelves they may start to sing a different tune, but it will be far too late by then!

I mean and think, dams allow the additional storage of irrigation water, and irrigation produces green cover, which in turn helps to cool things down a little; and exactly what mother nature tries to achieve with her greenhouse response!

And cheaper than coal thorium reactors connected to micro grids/half price power, make desal and all other energy reliant applications, vastly more economical/affordable.

Even so, as Has contends, there's more merit in moving the people to where we still have water; (the less costly option) than moving water to the people, and mostly to satisfy the needs of developers/Foreign nationals?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty, Thank you for the compliment that I am "wrong, or illiterate or both". Was that intended as a thoughtful premise for reasoned discussion on such an important topic? I'm retired now but proud of my contribution to recycled water use over many decades, long before it became fashionable. You might be surprised to learn that I and others had to work very hard to counter 'green' opposition to some 'pioneering' water recycling schemes. I think we can agree that intractability is not conducive to progress. I would add, however, that it may not be exclusive to 'Greens' and it certainly isn't compatible with scientific method.

I may have misinterpreted your original statement: "And only doable due to the recent advances in desalinating water for a fraction of what it once cost; and at 97 recovery rates as fresh water; thanks to the innovative Dutch!" I took that to mean 97% of the salt was removed in the desalination process you mentioned. I will leave others to decide how that 'monument to literacy' should be understood.

Clearly, you have little understanding of irrigated agronomics. The chemistry of recycled water and the soils to which it is applied have to be properly understood and managed. The salt-tolerance and nutrient requirements of crops also influence the rate and timing of irrigation. With recycled water, these parameters may be quite different to 'conventional' irrigation. For instance, recycled water "loaded with useful nutrients" may be applied at the vegetative growth stage but may be very counterproductive later. I can suggest some very good study material if want to develop your interest further.