The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Pure water wasted > Comments

Pure water wasted : Comments

By Patrick Troy, published 23/2/2007

Households and businesses should harvest and treat much of their own water.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All
“The ultimate goal is decentralised water supply and sewerage networks that would be vastly more sustainable and secure than the systems that are failing us now.”

No this is not the ULTIMATE goal. The ultimate bottom line has got be a secure water supply where the demand is easily met by the resource and its supply infrastructure, with a very large safety margin built in to cater for the worst drought conditions.

Pat Troy, like so many others who have written water articles on this forum, thinks at a level well below this.

His biggest flaw is the complete lack of consideration of the rapidly growing number of people that are drawing on severely stressed water resources, in Sydney, SEQ, Perth, etc. This continuous unending growth places enormous pressure on domestic, industrial and agricultural water supplies, and works very strongly against any improvements we can make in the average per-capita consumption of water.

We can install greywater recycling systems, rainwater capture, and implement progressively tighter restrictions and higher costs associated with the public system. And we can build desalination plants and pipelines from the far north. But if we progressively reduce per-capita consumption and increase supply, where will it really get us, if we just sit back and accept continuous rapid growth in the number of consumers?

If the overall scale of human activities was stable or close to it, then fine, we could make real gains. But with the rapid expansion of all things human, it is ultimately just going to lead to the same old problems on an even larger scale!

For goodness sake, all those that are concerned with our water crisis simply MUST put a large portion of their energies into stabilizing the overall scale of activities, so that we can achieve genuine sustainability.
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 23 February 2007 9:22:31 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Professor Troy’s criticism of big fixes proposed by increasingly gormless politicians is correct. But are his ‘solutions’ any better?

Composting toilets. Grey water. On-site treatment. Also costly or impractical. Grey water, for instance, is a joke unless you go in for costly plumbing, and there's a limit to how much water you can get from the weekly wash.

How politically popular would it be to make householders responsible for ‘harvesting and treatment of their own water’? We all know the answer to that one.

Allowing households 20kls per person per year is a beauty, given that one person uses 1 kilolitre per week now. What sort of ‘harvesting’ and ‘treatment’ gear would be needed to find the rest? Totally unworkable and naïve!

Another dreamer.

We still have to rely on rainfall, which money cannot buy. All we can do now is hope that the predictions that the drought will break in March are true. We cannot rely on politicians and academics for answers.

Remember, these are the same people who have pushed for high immigrant intake which has seen Australia’s population double its sustainable limits.

Lack of foresight in the storage of water, and too many people, will be seen as the real problems by future generations.
Posted by Leigh, Friday, 23 February 2007 9:49:33 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Good post, Pat. The average household uses slightly more shower and bathroom sink water than they use flushing the toilet. And these volumes are used consistently and in the same proportions. And this enables the capture of only one days shower water in a very small (120 litre) tank for re-use the next day for flushing the toilet. This will cut the average household consumption by 25%.

An additional 120 litre tank/drum can be put, either on the roof or bolted to a wall, above cistern height and a small, $30 aquarium style pump is all that would be needed to shift the water from the tank/drum below the shower to the top tank.

And over a year these two little tanks would save the average household about 44,000 litres. The secret to their efficiency is that, unlike conventional tanks that capture rain water, these little guys will fill and empty 365 times each year. A dam, in contrast, fills and empties once every 8 years.

But a combination of rainwater tanks and bathroom recycling can achieve full self sufficiency in every capital city at 80% of mean annual rainfall.

And by adding one smaller tank that is fed from the mains system, the limited supply of 20Kl of potable kitchen water could be delivered on a continuous, low pressure, drip supply by pipe systems that are so small, and light weight, that they could be attached to your overhead internet cable.

The plumbers wouldn't like it because they do very well out of digging very expensive holes in the ground to install and maintain a pipe system that uses technology that was state of the art in 1905.

I understand that one form of this sort of system has already been implemented on a housing development at Beaudesert.
Posted by Perseus, Friday, 23 February 2007 9:54:43 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Where are the costings?

It makes little sense to suggest that doubling the price of water could have a significant impact on low earners, but then to propose alternative solutions that have an even greater impact on the real cost of the water. The effect on cost exists even if it's not shown in a water usage bill, but instead appears in increased mortage interest or rent as a result of a higher capital cost of housing.

The cost of retrofitting existing housing stock with rainwater tanks and grey water recylcing systems would surely exceed the cost of building a large scale desalinator or potable water recylcing system with the same effective yield. Accordingly the large scale systems are the way to go.

Raising equity issues here is a furphy anyway. The solution that is adopted should be the one with the lowest cost commensurate with the whatever environmental goals are agreed on. If the result is an untenable increase in cost for some section of the community, then that equity issue should be addressed directly, with cash. It should not be used as an input into the decision on which solution to adopt.

Sylvia.
Posted by Sylvia Else, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:44:45 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Perseus, nice to see someone putting some numbers to a practical solution.

My solution runs along a slighly different track, although it could be used in conjunction with yours to water the garden.

Asssuming a household of four people, a roof area of 23 squares and and average rainfall of forty inches per year, an average amount of one thousand litres per person per week would be available. Assuming a typical Melbourne eastern suburbs rainfall distribution, this would require a total of ten thousand gallons (forty thousand litres) of tanks). Cost about four thousand dollars plus pump and plumbing of about another thousand dollars.

If the twenty thousand litres was added to the system each summer, there would be no water running to waste.

If recycling was added, you would be laughing.
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:09:53 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Apart from the effects of a long term drought, it has been the growth of cities, particularly coastal cities, that now see urban populations always accustomed to abundant supplies of water, finally experience some of the deprivation normally encountered by country people during droughts.
This growth of city populations is only partly related to immigrants moving to Australia. For over 50 years the country towns and districts have been losing their population to the cities. If Australians prefer to live in the city, so will immigrants.
Why do country towns and country farms have empty houses? Answer, because there are not enough jobs, sealed roads, services available in rural areas. As a result, people are placing a strain on areas where these facilities are readily available.
Country people have always provided their own rainwater tanks, grey water storage and sewerage facilities. They have to be responsible for telephone lines and electricity lines across their land. They often have to drive their children many miles to school, or send them away to boarding school at great cost.
Mothers have to go to cities weeks ahead of their baby's birth to ensure medical assistance, leaving younger children and other family members to cope without them.
Fix the problems of the country so that people want to live there, thus reducing the demand for city accommodation, super highways etc. and issues like a shortage of potable water will quickly vanish.
Posted by Country girl, Friday, 23 February 2007 11:32:52 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Don't hold your breath Country Girl.

There aren't enough votes out in the country any longer and since the Country Party changed their name to the National Party you can see where their preferences lie.
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:06:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
New water sources being debated by governments to deal with increasing demands are centralised options operated ny utilities and they all come at high cost to the community, so the oppositions currently being expressed from different groups having opposing views is therefore not surprising. These include those persons who philosophically oppose being forced to drink recycled sewage regardless of what so-called public opinion is saying (including myself), those who believe the high costs for the centralised options would be better spent on decentralised options and those who are concerned about environmental impacts.
Water conservation by decentralised solutions (such as use of rainater tanks & greywater for gardens or toilets) will not increase the volume of water supply we have access to but it will reduce the demand on existing supplies. Ultimately, water conservation and identification of new water sources both will play an intergral part in helping to solve the future water shortage issues faced.
Our political leaders are briefed primarily by advisers operating from the centralised water solution perspective via major water utilities with clout to be heard, whereas advocates of the decentralised water solutions are individuals and have trouble being heard other than through these forums.
Success of decentralised solutions to give water savings is dependant on householders taking action which is easier said than done, and likewise its success is dependant on suitable government commitment and regulatory frameworks being in place so it may be readily adapted by householders. For example: in regard to domestic greywater reuse several Australian states have attempted to encourage domestic greywater reuse by giving generous cash rebates to help householders install greywater systems but have not removed red-tape regulatory frameworks that have effectively handicapped any potential for uptake by householders unless that householder was particularly tenacious. Fortunately, some state regulators are starting to think outside the square but much still needs to be rectified in SA, Qld & WA.
Posted by greywatersaver, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:08:58 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
But I ask: "why bother?"

Anyway I've just placed my order for some shares in Bunnings. Is the water tank/pump/plumbing going to be the 21st century equivalent of the 70's V8 and the 90's shed? All these blokey types standing around at suburban bar-be-ques boasting about the size of their apparatus.

Look, I think Pat's solutions are probably cute and sexy for those who want to splash around in used water before changing the oil in their cars. But I'm just not interested. And then there are the growing millions who live twenty or more feet in the air in places called home units or, if you're an estate agent, apartments.

Because of the current drought(s) and probably climate change we, the population, don't have sufficient security of supply of potable water. As a response governments the nation over, aided and abetted by 'conservationsts', have suggested that it's now our (as in the householders) problem instead of admitting a failure of public policy and getting on to rectify the problem. They say, 'all you suburbanites go out and spend several thousand dollars (each) on tanks, and re-cycling systems'. But if we add up the capital cost of thousands of these individual systems the suggested de-sal plants offering a continuous supply begin to look cheap, as do public infrastructure projects which use economies of scale to collect and recycle water.

I'm happy for home hobbyists to have their systems (and water too) but I'd really prefer that pollies stop passing the muck.
Posted by PeterJH, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:37:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Most of the solutions offered to fix Sydney's water crisis suffer from the usual disadvantages. The ideal solution should:

1. Not cost any more money.

2. Employ as few people as possible.

3. Provide other fringe benefits.

My solution is first to stabilise Sydney's population, as more people are going to use more water. You do this by issuing a permit to reside in Sydney to all current inhabitants, which can then be traded on the Stock Exchange. Once current residents have been issued permits, no further ones will be issued. If someone wants to move to Sydney, they must buy the right from someone who is leaving.

The residence permit would be made effective by making posession of it mandatory to buy land, work, register cars, rent property for more than 30 days, etc. Singapore has a similar system to limit the number of cars on its roads.

The second thing to do is to downgrade the quality of water supplied through the current reticulation system to greywater standard. The addition of a tannin coloured dye would be useful to remind people not to drink the water. This would be accompanied by the provision by the water authority of free bottles of drinking water through supermarkets. This would kill the commercial bottled water industry and save many people a lot of money. Just as in Adelaide, people could also choose to drink the rainwater from their tanks if they have one.

With a stabilised population and a ready supply of water, the people of Sydney could look forward to the 21st century on a sustainable basis.
Posted by plerdsus, Friday, 23 February 2007 4:29:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think you may be overestimating tank size and cost, VK3AUU. 40 inches is 1000mm of rain and 23 squares is 230m2 of roof which comes to 230Kl of runoff. My understanding is that Melbourne's rainfall is fairly evenly distributed with slightly more in winter. So they could get by with a 13,500L tank at much lower cost.

I agree with Country Gal, this is all self inflicted. We have a political structure that was only ever going to concentrate wealth, jobs and people in a single large metropolis in each state. People like John Dunmore Lang warned of this back in the 1860's when he campaigned for three colonies in Queensland. But as each new colony gained its independence from NSW the political interests in the new capitals did all they could to stiffle new state formation.

And now the urban elites spend all their time complaining about the scale, complexity and cost of their infrastructure problems but still do absolutely nothing towards meaningful decentralisation.

This is highlighted by our clown of a Premier in Queensland who is quite willing to build dams on the Tully for supplying southern needs but had already vetoed the same dam when it was proposed for the needs of the local community.

I actually have water tanks on my houses in the country but don't have one on my Brisbane house because it would only help these turkeys who created the problem in the first place. I actually like using mains water because it makes their job harder. Thats a lot of satisfaction for 95 cents a tonne.
Posted by Perseus, Saturday, 24 February 2007 12:11:59 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
“And now the urban elites spend all their time complaining about the scale, complexity and cost of their infrastructure problems but still do absolutely nothing towards meaningful decentralisation.”

Perseus, don’t you mean; ‘…..but do absolutely nothing towards stopping the scale and complexity from ever-increasing’?

Decentralisation without an overall plan to limit the scale of human activities is not the answer. It might alleviate pressure in some areas for a while, but it will certainly just spread the problems around if it is conducted to any significant extent outside of a national sustainability strategy.

.
The whole notion of wasting pure water on uses that don’t need it to be pure is flawed. Yes we can recycle greywater to some extent. But surely the key is to have a pure water supply that is sufficient for all uses for the entire populace, under which we don’t have to worry about such things as greywater recycling.

We have had this in past decades. But of course now we don’t due first and foremost to the rapid and massive increase in the number of consumers drawing from the same supplies, with a distant second causal factor being the decline in rainfall.

Gross mismanagement has led to this situation, not an unforeseen drop in precipitation. So what do our various governments at all levels do? Address anything and everything except the number one factor!!

The gross mismanagement continues unabated.

I repeat from my last post;

‘For goodness sake, all those that are concerned with our water crisis simply MUST put a large portion of their energies into stabilizing the overall scale of activities….’, so that we can at least have a chance of achieving genuine sustainability and the maintenance of a half-decent quality of life and social cohesion.’
Posted by Ludwig, Saturday, 24 February 2007 10:19:08 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This is a thread about water, Ludwig. And enough water still lands on the roofs of every urban household to supply all their needs and then some. Enough rain still falls on shopping centre roofs and warehouse roofs to supply all the needs of apartment dwellers.

Yes, population growth is excessive in the metropolitan centres and needs to be stabilised but to apply that policy accross the board to country towns that have too little growth is not "sustainable", it is silly. We have already had a gutfull of "what the city wants, the bush gets too" policies.

The bush needs more people, the bush wants more people and the bush has the capacity to have more people. The cities don't need any more people, the city dwellers don't want more people and the cities don't have the capacity to have more people.

And self governing regions will maintain economic growth for the entire nation while limiting growth in the cities. They are in everyone's interest.
Posted by Perseus, Sunday, 25 February 2007 10:08:00 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
We have a lot of agreement here Perseus.

Small towns that have declined or are declining in population may not be sustainable. Many of them could do with a bit of a population boost. But only to a limited extent.

“The bush needs more people, the bush wants more people and the bush has the capacity for more people.”

Generally true. But of course, people just generally don’t want to go to the bush! How would you implement a program that would decentralise people from water-stressed cities to country towns that could do with the extra people, on a scale that would significantly alleviate population pressure in those cities and significantly help rural communities across the country?

If things get really ugly in SEQ or Sydney, etc, people will move to smaller growth centres along the coast, not to Hughenden or Longreach.

If we were to implement the Bradfield Scheme and open up the western plains of Qld, it would attract a lot of people. But that would only help a small number of existing towns, and would be done at huge environmental cost and indeed at huge and unviable economic expense.

A reshuffling of government from the three-tier system to a two-tier system with Federal and regional governments is in itself not going to achieve anything.

As much as I like the idea of a two-tiered system, it won’t be the answer. A fundamental shift in policy is needed, and that can happen within the current governmental setup just as easily as it could within some large-scale (and very disruptive and expensive) reshuffling of the system.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 26 February 2007 5:34:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Perseus, what do think of my comments on water tanks:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=437#860
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 26 February 2007 5:42:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Interesting thread. A tank at about three feet above the toilet could
be filled by the washing machine and the shower as suggested by Persius
could be saved and pumpted up. The washing machine would not need an
extra pump as its own would do nicely.
A rainwater tank could divert into the toilet tank when it was full.
The biggest cost would be getting at the underfloor pipes of the shower.
I can't understand what the objection to desalination is all about.
After all if the rainfall supply gets that low then it has to be a lot cheaper than moving Sydney or Brisbane.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 26 February 2007 5:43:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Desalination is about three times as costly in terms of power usage as reusing waste water.
Posted by VK3AUU, Monday, 26 February 2007 6:03:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ahh yes VK3AUU but first catch your water to recycle.
The cost difference may not be that great after all like desal recycled
water has to be pumpted also.
How much would it cost to move Sydney ?
That is what would have to be done if we keep on as it is at present.

de Bazza
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 26 February 2007 6:17:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The key to shifting population from the unsustainable metropolitan centres to regional centres that can deliver the basic infrastructure for a fraction of the cost is interest rate differentials.

See my post at "workers flee Sydney's unaffordable housing" above.

We know that housing markets seem to follow each other. First sydney and Melbourne take off, followed in turn by Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and then the regions. But at the moment we have a "one size fits all" monetary policy that sees interest rates rise to take the heat out of the Sydney and Melbourne housing markets but which also cuts off any price rises in regional centres before they even start.

But if we had a number of new regional states and the existing city states then the Reserve Bank would be able to implement a proper system of differential interest rates that actually fit the economic circumstances in each.

This would ensure that each housing market gets the brakes applied as and when it begins to overheat but leaves lower rates in those markets that have not overheated. The existing metropolitan markets would lose some of their volatility as excessive growth would be slowed when needed and the depths of recession would be more quickly responded to with lower rates.

Some regions would experience lower rates on a continual basis which would compound the attraction to those who had been priced out of metropolitan markets. And in the long term population would shift and be more evenly distributed. And much less of the compounding cost of metropolitan infrastructure would be built into the entire country's cost structure.
Posted by Perseus, Monday, 26 February 2007 10:32:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Professor Troy ,
I just wish all the learned academics who know so much about how to save water and the environment would be brave enough to say to Governments in a block, "We must curb our Population and Economic Growth ", to save not only Australia's but the world's natural environment and the future for our childrens' children.
Posted by kartiya jim, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 12:26:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I wrote this several days ago, came up against that confowwwnded 2-post-in-24-hours limit and couldn’t post it before I went bush.

Perseus, I would love to think that interest rates would be sufficient to get people to move where they are best suited to the resource base and environment. But I can’t see it. Afterall, there are pretty huge differentials in real estate prices, rents, rates and other expenses between declining country towns and in-demand growth centres. People continue to live where it is expensive, and understandably so when all the services and quality of life factors are considered.

Also, if it was as simple as interest rates, or a wider implementation of monetary policy, then why wouldn’t have governments implemented it, given the outcry about the rural decline across the country?

Unfortunately, the incentive regime would need to be a whole lot stronger.

Qld Premier Peter Beatty is considering regulating the rental market to stop auction-like bidding between applicants and to strive to have rents reflect the true value of properties. This is something new. I think it is a notion that should be developed widely.

Governments should be regulating the whole property market much more effectively. So to this end, I agree that monetary policy should be adjusted as part of an incentive package towards decentralisation.

But only within a genuine sustainability policy framework that must include a cap to the overall population and to various cities and regions that are under population growth stress.

This sort of stuff, ie the population growth and distribution factors, really does need to be considered with a least as much vigour as the issues of pure water use, greywater recycling, water restrictions, tanks, dams, pipelines, desal plants, etc combined!
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 5 March 2007 7:56:34 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Another thread hijacked by Ludvig's population hobby-horse.

I've discontinued email alerts for this thread accordingly.

Sylvia.
Posted by Sylvia Else, Monday, 5 March 2007 8:28:36 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Oh dear Sylvia

Can I suggest you either debate the issues or stay out of the discussion, but for goodness sake don't knock people who wish to raise and debate vital aspects of the relevant subject!

Would you like to address this statement from my last post;

“This sort of stuff, ie the population growth and distribution factors, really does need to be considered with a least as much vigour as the issues of pure water use, greywater recycling, water restrictions, tanks, dams, pipelines, desal plants, etc combined!”

By the way, my “hobby horse” is sustainability, not population. The only reason I have anything to say about population because it is the big factor that gets left out all the time… and yet it is intimately related to the water issue and most other environmental issues.

Surely you are not one of those narrow-minded people who thinks that it is just fine for everyone to be under tighter and tighter restrictions, to feel compelled to recycle their greywater etc, due to a severely stressed water resource, while the number of people drawing on that resource continues to increase with no limit and no objection!

By the way, you and I have had entirely amicable exchanges on this forum. Have you forgotten who you get along with and who you don’t? Or doesn't it matter?
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 5 March 2007 3:02:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What crisis? Haven't you noticed the rain, have you looked at a weather map lately? Have you noted the Bureau of Met's long term forecast?

The only crisis I see is that of governments creating fear and panic in order to increase taxes by both hiking water prices and creating a demand for water tanks.

Nobody has raised the issue of dengue fever plus other mosquito borne diseases. Does anybody here have any idea how to treat stagnant water? Have any of you actually seen what this does to the top of the water you propose to drink? Does anyone actually know how to treat this water?

I suspect not. The reason we got rid of these antiquated water collection methods is simple. Health. Why recreate that problem without thinking?

Again the answer is simple. Panic and fear. I have to have my water in case. I must have more water than any of my neighbours. It's just another keeping up with the Jones's situation and so many are being sucked in.
Posted by Betty, Sunday, 11 March 2007 3:56:20 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
No Betty, you cannot dismiss the issue in this manner. This water crisis is very real.

But you are right; there are health issues associated with tanks water. I have raised this matter on other threads on this forum but have not received anything like satisfactory responses from those who strongly advocate the mass implementation of tanks.

One of the major factors here, which I keep harping on, and which many people agree with but few seem too concerned about – is the massive increase in population that we have experienced in these water-stressed areas, and which continues to increase despite the grave situation!

This basically means that even with normal rainfall and a much-reduced per-capita level of usage, we would still have serious problems with this whole business in some areas, and in the near future in others.

Governments are not trying to create an unrealistic environment of fear. Just the opposite in my view – they are (at last) getting serious about the magnitude of the water issue after having been blasé for far too long. The next major step is for them to past this awful duplicity of asking everyone to reduce their level of usage while at the same time promoting ever-more users drawing from the same stressed supplies!

They are not being realistic (nor anywhere near it) with us about the depth of various other issues pertaining to the sustainability of a decent quality of life and environment in this country
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 11 March 2007 8:18:34 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy