Excellent article, Ian, and I do hope more people read it. My water bill would be twice yours, and just me, my three hens, the wild birds as well as my garden use it, the piped stuff. We pay for delivery plus water, two separate accounts. Our rainfall would be much less than Brisbane, which gets its water from a wide catchment, plus our government has made in harder on the farmers to build dams on their own freehold property, as well as forbid many to use ground water.

I see the sense in Permaculture Methods in farming & gardening by makeing the best use of the water you have on your patch. Same principle could be applied by City Businesses who wish to have show case gardens & use lots of water in conducting their business, that is save their roof water.

Ahhh.... So brilliant a concept that many people just cannot see the trees for the forest - or is that the forest for the trees?

How many homes had their own water tanks until they were banned by various councils under the guise of health and safety - but replaced good and usually pure wter with foul tasting chlorine or poisoned it with flouride?

Why has Coca Cola Amatil now the largest supplier of the so called "pure spring" waters in Australia? Why has the government sold them the peppercorn rated rights to plunder our natural resources?

As is often said many things are not right in our society and our right to good clean and uncontaminated water has been sold off without our consent - not only in Brisbane - but the whole of Australia, so do we need the WHO, under the guise of "improving" our water supply to rape our resources as was done in Peruagainst the WHO and Bechtel ....
- http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/water/bolivia.html
and Bolivia?- http://www2.irc.nl/source/item.php/533
and Mexico? - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4818332.stm

Would Australian have the same courage to fight back? I doubt it so many are so ensconced in their own private little world to care about anyone else and they have mostly turned into compliant little whelps, whimpering at any discomfort, but only rolling over and showing their bellies in defeat!.

It is interesting that the proponents of megafix options like desalination and effluent recycling for human consumption all base their projects on a presumed major increase in the price of water. But if more people use water tanks then the price of the tanks will actually come down in real terms. And this will operate as a classic competition based ceiling on the price that can be charged for water from the grandiose water mafiosi.

These people are setting the public up for a price/tax sting but the key to their defeat lies in the self interest of ordinary Australians. You can have the innocent pleasure of putting these spivs permanently out of business by investing for your own profit. Enjoy.

A very interesting and well thought-out article. I don't have a water tank myself but have looked into it.

I guess one thing to consider is where you live. Most people in Australia live in subtropical areas where rainfall, although divided into 'wet' and 'dry' seasons, is scattered nicely through the year. People in the wet tropics, on the other hand, would have a bit more trouble getting a tank to suit. Living in Townsville, I would have to have a pretty huge tank to capture the rain in January and February (Both averaging close to 300mm in the month) if I were to be able to use the water in the other months when the rain is generally nowhere to be seen.

That said, if I had a tank, and if that tank was dry for nine months of the year, I would still be saving money (and a precious resource) for the three months I could use it.

The value of water tanks is not to be underestimated. Even those of us with more 'difficult' climates can gain from them and, surely, they will pay themselves off over time.

Living within the 'Smart State', we are politically and administratively humbled.

To comply with its stated environmental policy, the Smart State excised my community from Ergon's distribution authority.

I live in a very wet part of Queensland; five metres so far this year and hydro-power is the most reliable and renewable source of electricity.

By the Smart State’s own reckoning, our costs of generating electricity are twenty to thirty times higher than equalised tariffs.

In January, the Smart State advised that diversion of water by gravity would be charged an additional $900/year:

“…to fulfil the federal, state and territory governments’ commitment, under the National Water Initiative agreement, to recover a proportion of the cost of water planning and management from water users; and to encourage people to use this water resource more efficiently.”

From an electricity generating perspective, rain has fallen more abundantly this year than sunshine and we wonder when the Smart State is going to start charging $900/year for the privilege of generating power through solar panels.

The author has written the most useful article to appear on On Line Opinion since...the Flood (?). Watching the Queensland Government run around like a chook with its head cut off over water in SE Qld may not be edifying, but it sure makes Mr Motts sanity look pretty dam good to me.

The so-called "drought" in Brisbane is the biggest con I've ever heard of. Just walking around this lush, subtropical city is proof that water still falls from the sky. My lawn hasn't been watered in 4 months and is still emerald-green - so where is the water coming from, then? While other Australian capitals have the typical dry, scrubby "Australian bush" look, Brisbane is so green.

This "drought" is nothing other than a government beat-up to divert attention from poor planning and maintenance of water infrastructure. One million more people have entered SEQ in the past 15 or so years - no wonder Wivenhoe Dam is draining. The Brisbane city council and state government have raked in loads more rates and taxes from these new residents but have not reinvested adequately in water infrastructure. So when all else fails, blame Mother Nature.
What is more amazing, the usually cynical and suspicious Australian electorate have swallowed the government's propaganda hook, line and sinker. It's like they've suddenly turned into antipodean North Koreans - outdoing each other in slashing water usage to meet Dear Leader's targets, informing on neighbours who break the rules and condemning "gardening thought-criminals" who dare question whether they want to plant a patriotic dry cactus garden. All of this to give show loyalty and devotion to a government that has failed us in the delivery of an essential service. The lack of questioning is pathetic.

Luckily Brisbane will never turn into a parched-looking bush capital like Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra or Perth because no matter what the government wants to believe it still rains way enough here to water all our lush subtropical greenery. They are just too miserly to spend the money to catch and distribute it to homes through the water pipes. Probably their plan is to run the water service right down, sell it off cheaply to a private operator who will then charge us through the nose for a proper water supply. Let's wait and see...and in the meantime, I'm NOT going to plant a "loyal" cactus and gravel garden in MY front yard.

Good article, thanks. Once you've got your tank, you need to look after it and the water it collects. The following link points to a largish document that provides guidance on the use of rainwater tanks. http://enhealth.nphp.gov.au/council/pubs/pdf/rainwater_tanks.pdf

cheers

Control of dengue epidemics should involve attempts to geographically contain the spread of infection, use of house screening, and the removal of mosquito breeding sites such as water tanks.

Dengue mosquito is now near Bundaberg and its spread has been linked to water tanks.

Steve Madden, your claim that water tanks are a source of dengue fever is an inexcusable part-truth. Three of my four houses have no mains water and have a mix of tanks. The only time that mosquito larvae have been present in my weekender's tank has been when the tank was left brim full for a few weeks so the mossies could dip their butt through the intake gauze and lay their eggs in the water just beneath it.

In the rental houses there is no such problem because the water level drops from use by the residents and even an extra centimetre of clearance is all that is needed to stop the "problem".

Please refrain from making ill-considered statements that have only a tenuous link with the facts.

Restricting the availability of potential breeding habitats for Ae. aegypti will help to reduce mosquito densities and therefore reduce the possibility of disease transmission. All containers capable of holding water in the domestic environment can provide habitat for the larval stage of the mosquito and this includes water-barrels, rainwater tanks, wells.

Further Reading

Boughton, C.R. (1996). Australian Arboviruses of Medical Importance. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Melbourne, pp 67.

Gubler, D.J. (1988). Dengue. in Monath, T. (ed). The Arboviruses: Epidemiology and Ecology, Volume II. CRC Press, Florida, pg: 233-261.

Gubler, D.J. and Kuno, G. (eds). (1997). Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. CAB International. Cambridge.

Sorry, Steve, you are still only part right. The containers must be accessible to the mosquito to lay eggs in. If they cannot drop their butt into the water they do not lay eggs in the vessel. Both the inlet and overflow vents have gauze covering which severely restricts the utility of the tank water to mosquitoes.

And if you were looking for a major source of egg laying sites in the tropics and sub-tropics one would be bound to nominate the numerous small pools formed where the branches join large senescent (old growth) trees in forests. There can be more than 10 to 15 of these little nooks in a single old growth tree and a typical piece of old growth that has never been logged would have 20 to 30 such trees per hectare.

So a single hectare of national park could deliver more breeding places for mosquitoes than 450 water tanks (without gauze). Think about it, if SE Queensland has 2.5 million people at 2.7 people per house it is just over 900,000 houses which, if each had a water tank, be as much risk as only 2000 hectares of old growth national park.

Can I respectfully suggest you find a web site to download some common sense.

Perseus

The incidence of disease results from the interaction of vector and host. So one faulty tank in a densely populated area can potentially be of greater risk than thousands of unpopulated and mosquito infested hectares of old growth forest.

I agree with Ian Mott - there is no drought in SEQ.

So why should people be required to be tighter and tighter with water usage? One overriding reason – because there is a very rapidly increasing number of water-users, drawing on the same supply capability.

Imploring people to install water tanks and councils to facilitate it is all well and good. But it is not the answer. It could be a good part of the answer if done on a wide scale, in conjunction with strong action to limit overall demand, but let’s be careful about it.

We will still need a public supply capability that is able to handle something in the order of current the maximum demand, to cover the community in really dry times when the tanks are empty. Okay, so let’s all get really big tanks that drought-proof us. Nice idea, but it would just not be practical for a large portion of households, for space and cost reasons.

Ian Mott writes; “Clearly, there is a crisis of management competence, not a water crisis.”

YES. But he makes no mention of the very rapidly increasing demand on water in SEQ, or the fact that there is no end in sight to this growth. This is surely the overriding issue, which sits right at the core of management competence.

We need limits to growth in SEQ and a government that plans for it, with a vengeance. This is an ESSENTIAL aspect in the management of this issue. It is time for rapid population growth with no end in sight, which is rapidly exerting ever-increasing pressure on water and many other resources, to be CURTAILED.

We cannot meaningfully discuss the water issue without addressing this aspect of it

Great article, Ian Mott, although I believe that Ludwig is correct. In order to address this problem we must do something to stop the relentless grow in population, which is STILL being encouraged by the Beattie Government (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4591#44914).

Ludwig is correct. Many new houses, townhouses and units on smaller blocks may not be suitable for rainwater tanks. I suggest that people read a truly bizarre article ("Getting a Slice of the Action") in Friday's Brisbane Courier Mail, in which the Real Estate Institute of Queensland tells of its plans for South East Queensland. The article states:

"The current water crisis will mean natures’s drop will be rare, ensuring most houses will have minimal lawns and garden.

…

"A session in entertainment rooms will replace the smell of fresh air and a potter around in the vege patch. Besides most workers won’t be bothered about gardening at the end of a long day at the office."

I have transcribed more of it here : http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/06/05/against-the-doomsayers/#comment-54955

--

Also of interst may be an excellent Radio National Background Briefing program, "Water in India" to be repeated on Tuesday Evening at 7.10PM (see http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2006/1668948.htm - transcript should be made available in a few days.)

It’s about India’s water crisis - falling water tables, dry and and contaminated rivers and lakes - and attempts by the World Bank to ’solve’ the problem by forcing the Indians to privatise their water utilities.

Ludwig, you are dead right about population growth, its got to be stopped,in SEQ, before it consumes the entire state wealth. However, you are dead wrong on water tanks. There is no reason for the rest of the state to subsidies the cost of water to Brisbane.

The only large employer of large numbers left is government. Lets start by decentralising our public servants.
We had the one vote one value, now lets have one vote one public servant. The same number of public servants to be employed in each electorate, but with no increase in numbers. That gets them out of the CBD to start with, & probably solves 30% of Brisbane's traffic problems at the same time. Done over 15 years, it would go almost unnoticed by the staff.
When the people, & businesses that earn their living off the public service follow, Brisbanes growth will become manageable.

With growth reduced, we can stop trying to jam more people into confined spaces. The only reason for the SEQ Regional Plan is to try to reduce the cost of services, so lets take water out of the picture, over 15 years.
All new housing must have 35000 L of tankage.
Every house transfered to new ownership must have 35000 L tankage.
All housing to have 35000 L tankage, by 2015.
All water charges to increase by 20% each year to 2015, then doubled.
Subsidies to be phased out by 2100, but must be applied to all state residents , not just those currently getting cheep "Town" water.
The industry developed building, & installing tanks, would give employment to many thousands more than dam building, & spread it over much of the state, & probably at a lower cost to the tax payer. The money would go into small, rather than large, pockets.

Most of the people who are soon to watch their dreams drowned to supply more water to Brisbane, will be currently providing their own water, by water tank. Ironic, isn't it?

Hell I live in a part of Oz were on a good year we get 250mm not 300mm a month! I've got a water tank.

Well you’ve got me Hasbeen. I can’t figure out what you think I am wrong about re water tanks, or how you associate the notion of the rest of the state subsidising water in Brisbane with anything that I have written.

Re mossies: A "defective tank" ie, one that allows mossies to breed in has only a very limited window of dysfunction. If, for some reason a small breach occurs in the gauze covering the intake or overflow then the sequence of response is very predictable.
1. wriggler shows up in glass of water or coffee cup,
2. wife or teenage daughter goes "eeeuuuww!"
3. dominant household male is hounded to drop absolutely everything he was doing and inspect the gauzes.
4. no longer dominant male accepts full responsibility for the fault.
5. male fixes gauze immediately and buys a stock of bottled water for female members of household who require eight weeks of un-sullied tank water before they will even consider using it again.
6. male resolves to regularly maintain gauze to ensure that he never has to put up with such incredible histrionics again.
7. mossie larvae hatch in tank but are unable to escape and infect anyone. They die and eventually are incorporated into the water supply at a density in the order of 0.00128 parts per million (ie, with fewer suspended particulates than a single breath of air you take at work).

Ludwig, you deliberately missed the point for the sake of your population fetish. That point is that with a 13,500 litre tank, any newly arrived family can cover 87% of their water needs in an average year, at a lower cost than the water that can be provided by the public sector water mafia.

And if every house had such a tank then the existing infrastructure could cope with a population that is seven times greater. That is not an argument for a seven fold population increse. It is simply to point out that water supply is only a population issue if water remains a public sector monopoly.

Ludwig, my point was, that there is no reason why the rest of us should have to supply the water, used to keep the costs down for Brisbane residents.
I can see no reason why Brisbane residents should not make the investment in supplying their own water, rather than the tax payer making it for them.
Such an investment, all in micro scale, will offer nothing to interest the investment bankers, who will ultimately invest in, & control, any large dams the taxpayer may build.

I agree totally Hasbeen

The taxpayer should not be subsidising water infrastructure for SEQ, especially as it is some mongrel SEQ local governments and the State Government that are responsible for the atrocious management that has led to the demand and supply capability blowing right out of proportion. You can also apportion part of the blame to residents who have not cried foul anywhere near loudly enough, and no doubt the manically pro-growth federal government is partly to blame as well.

But residents outside of SEQ aren’t to blame and they should not have to contribute one red cent.

Perseus, you inadvertently make a critical point. If we become really successful in implementing water tanks without addressing the population growth issue, then we will effectively be facilitating an ever-larger population, which will mean that in really dry times the magnitude of the crisis could be much greater, and it will also mean continued increases in pressure on all sorts of other resources, and indeed on the SEQ quality of life and even viability and as coherent and well-functioning society.

Thus, addressing water-consumption and water-provision issues without addressing the overall increasing demand issue will not win the day. In fact, it will exacerbate the whole nasty situation.

I fully support the large-scale implementation of water tanks, but only as part of an overall strategy of balancing supply and demand.

So I strongly disagree with your statement; “…water supply is only a population issue if water remains a public sector monopoly.”

Many would be intrigued to learn that the rest of Queensland has not only paid for the existing SEQ infrastructure but have also had their share sold off in a classic "asset stripping" operation.

Wivenhoe Dam cost about $400 million in 1985 and each Queenslander owned a portion of it. But the state government then sold off all but 10% of it to Brisbane City Council and the adjoining LGAs in 2000. And the price that the city paid for this asset owned by all Queenslanders was the same $400 million it cost in 1985.

This price was calculated on the basis of profits being earned on this investment, as determined by the Department of Natural Resources. But the moment Lord Jim Soorley gained control of the entity the wholesale price that was charged to the council customers (also the new owners) was increased from $120 per megalitre to $170/ML

And all of this price increase was added to the net profit figure and this meant that the value of the entity was closer to $1 billion rather than the historical $400 million.

The public officers who did the original valuations were closely involved in the running of the water system before the sale and, should have been aware that there had been no wholesale price increases for many years. And the potential for future price increases should have been a major factor in determining a fair price to pay Queenslanders outside Brisbane for their share of their dam.

So each non-Brisbane Queenslander got paid only $117 for their share in the dam that was really worth $295 while each of the 1.5 million residents of greater Brisbane now have an asset worth $666 (the devil's own number)that they only paid $266 for.

And one can't help wondering if the current lack of rain in the Dam catchment is the revenge of the gods.

Perseus,
I have taken the liberty of quoting your post re: the asset stripping operation - Wivenhoe dam, to a forum regarding the damming of the Mary River. Your post (and the original excellent article by Ian Mott) are very relevant to discussions on that forum.
I don't know the site rules here re: hyperlinks, so here is a non-hyperlink address: dubya dubya dubya dot travestonswamp.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2311&highlight=#2311

Firstly, I would like to invite you, ludwig, Ian Mott and any other interested parties to join the above forum - your participation would be most welcome.

Secondly, perseus, I want to know if you can provide references or calculations re: the $ figures you quote for the Wivenhoe sale.

Thanks,
Darren E

Havs will have tanks and be irresponsible for all the illness this construction eventuates in a long time by leaving medical problems for a state to fix up at the end.

Non-havs, that is a part of population in public housing and condominiums, has been simply omitted as non-existing as usual.

It seems, engineering the fools is a very duty of too many allowed being employed in this country which makes reading a US article of some reasonable interest to locals definitely:

How Americans can harness their brain power
By Tom Vilsack

Published: June 29 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 29 2006 03:00

No matter how they feel about it, most Americans recognise they are participants in a global economy that increasingly affects their own lives and the strength of their country. While some businesses in my own state of Iowa are excited at the opportunity to export their products to new markets, powerful new competitors are challenging US economic leadership, threatening the nation's growth and exposing Americans to a new kind of insecurity.
Full story:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f57e5e84-070b-11db-81d7-0000779e2340.html

Sure, Darren E. Go to SEQ Water's web site at www.seqwco.com.au and check out the 2001/2002 Annual Report. An area for particular investigation is the role of Mr Thomas David Fenwick, a former Director General of DNR (the previous responsible department) who became the government's representative on the board of SEQWater AFTER the sale took place.

I have since checked with Ian who advised that the real value of the Dam system, if the flood mitigation capacity was properly charged to CBD businesses and flood prone houses, would be closer to $1.5 billion. And this works out at a neat $1,000 for each Brisbane resident. Nice work if you can get it. See Ian's blog at www.ianmott.blogspot.co

The state government has caved in to mounting public pressure and announced a more generous rebate scheme for southeast Queenslanders who install water tanks and will also legalise above-ground greywater systems. More than 60 plumbers will be hired to advise residents how to reduce their water consumption and install water-saving devices, for only $20 a visit. [Courier Mail 1 July].

Residents will now be able to claim significant rebates for tanks, pumps, installation, above and below-ground greywater systems, water-efficient washing machines, shower heads, dual-flush toilets and pool covers.

Well okay. This sounds pretty reasonable.

Peter Beatty also mentions the population density of SEQ as being one on the main problems (as well as the purported drought).

He also today directly connected population growth with pressures on the health system.

So, when is he going to take the next step and admit publicly that the continuous rapid population growth in SEQ is something that must be dealt with by his government?

Rebates and associated measures are fine, but not in isolation. If the population-pressure side of the equation is not addressed, extra demand for water created by population growth will very quickly cancel out and overwhelm even the most optimistic success of his rebates and general water-conservation measures.

It is time for Beatty to bite the bullet and go for sustainability, by addressing head-on the continuous growth issue

Ludwig, Beattie is just doing the "dead cat bounce". He will grab any excuse that is even vaguely plausible. But it is all a bit rich claiming population density in the SE corner is a problem when the turkey has just passed legislation that rules out just about any development at all on the Gulf Rivers where there is plenty of space and even more water.

Rebates are OK in a case of reasonable levels of water consumption established.

No point for a rebate if equipment is being installed for rebates only.

Perseus deplores the fact that Peter 'turkey' Beattie "has just passed legislation that rules out just about any development at all on the Gulf Rivers where there is plenty of space and even more water".

This legislation will be overturned when the pressure for land increases enough to make its release worthwhile to professional land speculators if we don't halt population increase.

The posts of Ludwig and Hasbeen complement Ian Mott's excellent article. Ludwig shows that population growth drives the politics and costs of water, and Hasbeen uses the tank idea to demonstrate the logistics of planning population locally by limiting new housing and infrastructure to water catchment, neatly measured in household tanks.

Whilst acknowledging Ludwig's point about population and catchment, Perseus points out that the catchment would in theory support more people if they relied on household tanks instead of community dams and pipelines. I think it was Hasbeen who then suggests that catchment be defined by the driest of droughts and looming climate change. Water is necessary for other sectors besides households and catchment-referenced population planning needs to factor in the greater needs of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors every community depends on if it is composed of households which are not totally self supporting.

Water catchment defines economies and they way water catchment is managed either empowers constituents or dictates to consumers. Apart from being essential for life, of course.

As for dengue fever, another catchment for the dengue organism is the human bloodstream. Perseus is, however, right that education plays the major role in mitigating the place of pooled water in nurturing mosquito lavae. Mosquito lavae will however collect anywhere that water pools, particularly around new estates where bush has recently been destroyed, destroying natural mosquito egg-nurseries. Long thick sleeves and insect repellent during the day helps in these cases, but, let's face it, more humans = less biodiversity = more mosquitos and other vectors specialising in humans = more diseases for us.

"Yesterday, I was chatting to a lady who with her husband own a home at Gympie, South East Queensland, Australia. Not on the Mary River, but still concerned regard the damage, and worthless flooding of Mary River at Traveston Crossing, rendering so much farmland usless, that is under water!

That is besides, killing off the lung-fish, and destroying the ecology of the Mouth of the Mary River, near Hervey Bay, as well as ruining their fishing industry.

Then, most if not all these old farm sited had a dip, an ARSENIC DIP! What does happen when 'arsenic,' enter the water ways, used in drinking both by man an animals?

Water Crisis that Mr Mott says you do not have, continues to deepen with lower levels of most dams in the South East Districts of Queensland.
Why not take advantage of the easily accessed vast dam floor to excavate soil & sell as filling to compensate the cost of increasing the depth of the rather shallow storage space. This could be done to any number of these almost empty storage facilities.

As long as watering their parks and enjoying private pools at their palaces-on-the-hill pay the same rate for a water consumption as any other less fortunate Australians, being de-facto as usual subsidised by Mr&Mrs Below-Averages (it is a way pricing has been structured in Melbourne-and, probably, round Australia)- no water crisis to be seen by them yet.