Greg's idea is note worthy so my gob is some what smacked at those who poo poo his idea.

So what if some dwellings are too small to accommodate a tank, and some people are a bit wary of rain water - I've lived in Adelaide so what ever falls from he sky can't be worse than what flows from a tap - the only thing Adelaide's water has going for it is that the solids provide some nutrition and you can see what you are drinking.

Plenty of rain falls on this harsh land - we just need a few ideas and Greg's is one of them to harvest it more succesfully.

I spent a good while on Tasmanias West Coast - places like Zeehan and Queenstown are serviced with in excess of 2 metres of rain a year - once the less than 5000 people in the entire region have a drink the rest pretty much just flows to the sea - we 'll soon be sending wind generated power from the same region across Bass Strait - why not some water?

Part of the water problem is that Australians, much as we might like to think of ourselves as tough and laconic, are so fastidious. We want to flush away everything we can't wash. If every Australian male urinated on his lemon tree twice a day, I estimate it would save 20,000 megalitres of water every year, as well as improving the domestic lemon harvest.

Perseus,

I won’t quibble over 300 litres. There are wide discrepancies either side of averages. Notice what the average wage is these days?

I didn’t say 1kl per day, I said 1kl per week, and .5kl is half 1kl, not 1/10th. I don’t for one minute doubt your consumption. Many are the times I’ve had properties investigated because they were not using “enough” water – suspected water theft or bung meter etc. – but many were OK, so there are differences in use confounding all the theories and assumptions, but there is a yardstick to use, and that is as accurate as you can get.

Rainwater might still be OK (as it was in happier, pollution-free times) but there is no guarantee as there is with reticulated water which must be potable, no ifs or buts. The increased use of rainwater would also see an increase in dental caries, and if you are going to be unlucky enough to get crook drinking it, you have to wait 20 years to find out.

It will be compulsory for all new houses in SA to have, at a minimum, a 1,000-litre/1kilolitre rainwater tank. That’s the dinky little 3-module job. These will be bone dry most of the year. The Government suggests only that the tank be plumbed into the toilet, hot water service or cold laundry tap. Nothing about drinking the stuff. They cannot guarantee the quality or safety as they can with reticulated water.

Added to everything else, are the findings I read the other day intimating that the cost of tank/s and plumbing will never be recovered by any “savings”.

Of course, there would be advantages in country areas where more room means larger tanks; but in metropolitan areas, the tank theory is a furphy

Water that is sourced from a rainwater tank causes the same amount of water to remain in the dams. Even during drought, rainfall occurs along the coast, due to convection, when it does not occur in the (mainly inland) dam catchment areas. Most buildings in Australia therefore receive highly reliable rainfall. But when the dam catchments are saturated with water and good runoff into the dams is occurring, rainwater tanks allows this water to be stored for later use. Rainwater tanks therefore optimise water harvesting in the dam catchments. Before proceeding with my idea, however, it is essential to establish some legal facts. The state governments of Australia are reluctant to answer these questions--

Is the right to collect water from roofs for rainwater tanks vested in the building owner?

Is the right to use water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks vested in the building owner?

Is ownership of water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks vested in the building owner?

A 4 500 litre capacity rainwater supply system costs around $3500 to supply and install. When it is financed at the point of sale, this is about 1% of an average house’s value. This is the easiest, cheapest and most affordable way for every house owner, and every building owner, having their own, private, source of water supply. It will secure the nation’s drinking water supply.

Greg Cameron
www.urbanrainwater.com

Please, please can someone tell me why we go through all these convolutions to create more water, but cannot do what most of the world's great cities do and recycle sewage. Particularly as I gather that Goulburn Council currently recycles its sewage water, and puts it into Warragamba Dam, so we're drinking it already. There is a real smell (no pun intended) about this whole water business. First we have a desalination plant imposed on us, then it is withdrawn (but at a cost of $120 million), we have people employed as inspectors but can't prosecute offenders unless they are caught in the act, etc., etc.

What we need is:

1. A method of saving water that does not employ anyone because it is automatic.

2. Recycling of sewage as per London, Paris, etc.

3. A way of stopping politicians exploiting the situation to extract more tax. Remember item 2 of the australian political bible:

"No taxation with or without representation, with any deficiency in government spending being made up from the sale of politicians assets".

The best method to implement item 1 is to require all users to cut consumption by say 15%, but not to impose any specific restrictions. The cut would be encouraged by a tariff that reduced bills significantly for those who cut, and which would be financed by a very heavy levy on those who did not reduce consumption. There would be provision for hardship cases to be exempted, and this would also be financed from the levy.

Recycling of sewage should be left to the private sector, who would sell the purified water back to Sydney Water.

The third object could be achieved by capping the dividends that the governemnt can take from Sydney Water.

On a side note... Where I live in Melbourne, I regularly go for evening walks and see water flooding into the street from garden watering systems. The same systems are often run even when it has just rained - or is just about to rain.

Seems to me that those households that use more than a reasonable (or even a generous) share of drinking/washing water should be paying a higher per-litre fee. Ultimately, that would force greater considerations of various other options.