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The Forum > Article Comments > Damn the dams > Comments

Damn the dams : Comments

By Harriet Smith, published 2/10/2015

Many of the droughts that Australia faces aren't really water droughts, but more infrastructure droughts, or dam droughts.

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Too right!
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 2 October 2015 10:18:48 AM
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Wow more straw-man and still no real solutions. Welcome to the real world our Pollies will always think short term when we set the KPI's full of short term goals.

Five year terms and no more then three terms would be a great start.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Friday, 2 October 2015 10:20:21 AM
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There are certainly places where we should build more dams (along with some where we definitely shouldn't).

However, this article is nothing more than an ill informed rant, rehashing flimsy arguments that have already been posted by commenters!

Climate change and climate variability are very different things.

The problem was NEVER that the dams would NEVER fill again; it was that there was a significant risk that with insufficient rain filling them, they'd run dry. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that they didn't, but we didn't have the benefit of hindsight so it would've been grossly irresponsible to fail to plan for that eventuality. Building more dams may be the most efficient way of expanding capacity, but it's certainly NOT the most reliable; new dams suffer from the same problems as the old ones, but with the added handicap of being empty to start with.
Posted by Aidan, Friday, 2 October 2015 10:59:58 AM
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That essay is someone’s rant about everything and nothing to the point. Wasn’t Abbott a dam man. It has got to be hard to build a dam in a desert. Besides that how do you calculate a drought.

How long is a drought, and how big or how many dams would you like. At least Desal; plants use sea water for replenishment, what makes you think it is going to continue to rain.

Dams are only good while they have water in them, what would the strategy be if the dam water was used up and we are still in drought.

I think you are trying to fix the wrong problem.
Australia is full of droughts, whatever you do it will not solve all problems everywhere, and using ground water will cause more problems than you fix.

Dams stop water from places that would normally have water, so you are chasing your tail.

You are stuck with what rainfall you get, and farm accordingly. Unless you desal; and pipe water dams will only be a short time solution.

This state is dry now, with summer still to come, we would not expect anything significant until next april, If then.
Posted by doog, Friday, 2 October 2015 11:16:17 AM
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You're right of course Harriet, but you'll have a huge fight with the ratbag greens, [Hi Cobber & Aidan], to get any sensible policy in place. It is only when this scum can see their own comfort effected that they agree to dams.

Here in Queensland that were quite happy to see the Mary dammed at Gympie, when Brisbane's restrictions started to bite. Not a complaint, protest or rally to be seen, with that one, although it was probably the worst choice of site possible.

Then even if you got some intelligence into water policy, you would have these same people beavering away in the dark, trying to destroy it.

Just look at the new releases from the snowy scheme demanded by greenies, now rushing uselessly down the Snowy to the sea. Then we have desperate farmers forced to watch as good water flows past to be wasted in so called environmental flows, to fill that water sky park in South Australia. You know the one, behind the one damn we should never have built, across the Murray mouth.

Keep up the good work, & try not to get tired too quickly, of talking to idiots
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 2 October 2015 11:32:31 AM
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Has been is on the wrong tram. To feed a city with water is different than feeding a state with water.

What does the sensible policy consist of.
Posted by doog, Friday, 2 October 2015 2:17:28 PM
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