It's a tad simplistic to argue that "We are building a very large recycling plant, a fine idea, but for this to work you have to have water to recycle. Recycling plants are not a lot of help if the dams are dry. Desalination is new water, recycled water is not, a distinction none to clear in everyone's heads yet, it seems."

If you have no water supply, it's true of course that recylcling serves no purpose. However, unless no rain at all is falling in the catchment areas, Brisbane does have a water supply. The problem is that the supply is not sufficient to meet demand.

Recylcing can be seen as a mechanism to reduce net demand so that it matches the supply. In addition, in the shorter term, it extends the life of the existing contents of the reservoirs until other options, such as desalination can be implemented. My only concern here is that with only 18 months supply left, can even a recycling scheme be constructed in time?

Governments seem to want to leave water solutions until the last possible moment. The problem is that determination of that moment depends on assumptions about rainfall. If you reach that moment, and then rainfall deteriorates, then the last moment shifts to an earlier point in time, meaning that the solution is too late.

Governments are basically adminstrators. For some reason, risk management seems to be beyond administrators of all kinds, whether they're working for the water company, or for NASA.

Sylvia.

Why is it that when it's already nearly too late everyone is starting to panic about water? As Australians we 'waste' far too much water in our need to have acres of lush green lawns out the front of our homes and absolutely no requirement for our residents or industries to recycle water. Piping water from the Burdekin is fine, when it's full, but its only two years since it was almost empty and that would not have helped south east Queensland at all. South east Queensland receives the majority of all Queensland government funding, and perhaps it may just have been misdirected into cross-city tunnels etc. when modification of water infrastructure, a public education campaign and the instigation of a programme of fines for any non-compliance with permanent restrictions on water use, would have been more pertinent.
All through my childhood we caught our own water (living in the country) and we always used the bath and shower water on the garden. We managed to have a huge vegetable garden, a green lawn, big gardens and maintain a backyard swimming pool and a family of 8 on one 40,000 litre tank.

If this is true that Brisbane could run out of water in 8 months then this is serious. It is doubtful you can construct much in that timeframe. Have they banned swimming pools yet on the gold coast? I mean, many of those residents don't use them anyway, they are just ornamental value.

The idea of the Norther Rivers could work if the Howard Plan cuts some red tape between the States. That haggling over borders is childish when such serious consequences are in the balance.

In the meantime, it sounds like the desalination plan for the Gold Coast is waranted. You can't recycle water you don't have it in the fistplace. Brisbane is also building the recyling project. Will it be completed too late? They also need to keep looking for aquifers.

It is astonishing that Las Vegas in the desert of the US is the fastest growing city, and in the Middle east, Dubai is the fastest growing city, full of water and wealth. Dubai never thought twice about desalinated water. Yes, it is in the Sahara, but no, in Australia, this continent has a lack of aquifers. We can't follow Las Vegas for that simple reason.

What a dry continent we live on. We went without planning for too long.

What a classic bit of metrocentric drivel. Dudes wont even fund a decent road to the burdekin for the use of real Queenslanders but the moment the urban punters get a sniff of dry weather they want to build a pipeline that will cost stacks more than the recent price rises.

The South East doesn't know how to get by with less water because they haven't even tried yet. You could ask any farmer but, of course, farmers don't know anything, do they?

There are some really good solutions that have yet to make it into the urban mind. But as long as they keep voting for people who protect mass murderers then they can just wallow in the problems of their own making. Why should rural people lift a finger to help people who continually vote for people who treat us with contempt?

And by the way, all the experts who think they can just wave a wand and take someone elses water from the Burdekin or Northern NSW have left out a major part of the costing. That is the cost of repairing the constant damage from sabotage by people who have had their water stolen.

Ravenscroft is absolutely correct - about 18 months' worth of water left for Brisbane unless we get good rain. That means, having now moved into autumn, that we have only one more shot left - the summer of '07/'08. Desperate times do call for desperate measures. Long term solutions, unfortunately are no longer of any use - nor are recriminations. We need something which gets us water, and lots of it, within 18 months.

While Russ was certainly a big man, the eponymous dam is not of similar stature. Sufficient only for the Gold Coast. Piping water from the Hinze dam to Brisbane probably only gets us a few months, and the Hinze catchment hasn't been getting a lot of rain either.

The Burdekin storage is much larger, and is much more regularly replenished by reasonably reliable rain. (No shortage of alliteration here today!). It has the potential to supply Brisbane, but at a huge cost. I fear that inertia will reign (puns abound as well) and there will be much sitting on hands, while our politicians find the most useful thing they can do is to lead us in prayer. Please select your preferred deity here: http://www.godchecker.com/

Perhaps we'll get lucky and we'll have a good cyclone season next year and there'll be water coming over the spillway. It seems to be the only solution on the horizon.

To suggest that any Queenslander should have needed to lobby for security of water supply is downright insulting. This was an accepted basic responsibility of all Australian State governments throughout the last century. Attention to it was effectively a duty of care for all elected to government over those years. Some fulfilled that duty; others, more recently, would seem to have acted in dereliction of it. That dereliction was an outright betrayal of the fundamental interests of those whom governments are sworn to represent. Queenslanders have every right to call for political blood! To have the political heirs of the duty-derelictors continue to set the course of the ship of State in water policy without any accountability is not merely fatuous, it may well be downright dangerous.

"In Queensland we should stop squabbling about which politicians should have done what and get on and solve this problem once and for all." Are you a front man for the present Queensland government, Peter? Or a front man for a prospective private water supply consortium wanting to build a pipeline into the State Treasury and a reverse-reticulation network into every taxpayer's pocket? It looks like you are trying to bum-rush everyone into a panicked approval of government action that is only going to solve the wrong problem, and in the process surrender control over water to foreign interests.

It is looking like a major cause of the prolonged drought in the existing dam catchments has been the waste water disposal practices of metropolitan conurbations. KAEP's posts in this forum explain various aspects of these practices. Use the forum tools: find and read these posts!

More to the point, it seems the Queensland government has long known this, but has chosen not to tell the public that drinking its own sewage is a necessary corollary to the conversion of a public management cost into a secret profit opportunity for foreign utility corporations. It is to be hoped the State Governor is up with the game. A biography of Sir Philip Game, that is. Things could be that serious.

“To suggest that any Queenslander should have needed to lobby for security of water supply is downright insulting. This was an accepted basic responsibility of all Australian State governments throughout the last century. Attention to it was effectively a duty of care for all elected to government over those years.”

Forrest, this most definitely has always been a basic responsibility of governments, which they have widely shirked. But you can’t confine the responsibility to governments. The community has a duty of care as well, and where things were pretty obviously going astray with government in terms of water-supply security, there should have been widespread lobbying.

We haven’t learnt much from this. We should be thinking of the bigger issue of overall sustainability in just the same way. Governments are steering us strongly away from sustainability, and the general community is having very little so say about it.
.

I don’t have a feeling for the cost of a pipeline from the Burdekin Dam to SEQ or whether the volume of water and rate of supply will address the problems. But I’m inclined to think that it is a reasonable idea, given the urgency of the situation.

I certainly don’t agree with Perseus that this water would be “stolen” from north Queensland. It is a public resource of all Queenslanders and indeed all Australians and it should be used where it is most needed.

A reminder that 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilogram. It is ludicrous to push hundreds of kilo's of water 1,600km just to have a shower. There will never be a pipeline from North Queensland, not in my lifetime, not in yours. It is far cheaper to desalinate water than pipe it up & down dale for large distances. Only in situations where water originates from high mountains can it be gravity fed long distances.
It should also be pointed out that over 75% of water is used by industry and agriculture. Demand from startup industry is hard to forecast and it is a brave politician that says no to jobs. The problems in SEQ are just a symptom of over expansion of both population and industry. The solution is simple, reduce both. If industry wants land and water it should move to Townsville.

Ludwig, you say ".... But you can’t confine the responsibility to governments. The community has a duty of care as well, and where things were pretty obviously going astray with government in terms of water-supply security, there should have been widespread lobbying. We haven’t learnt much from this."

If we haven't learnt much from this it is because the lesson is not yet over. As another contributor on this forum, CountryGal, has said in another water related thread, "it's probably best to just let it run out". The issue of domestic water supply management has been effectively addressed over the years by thousands of Australians. Contributors like Perseus, Hasbeen, CountryGal, Greg Cameron, and many others give pointers to exactly how this has been and can be done.

The Premier, before the recent State elections, gave an assurance that a plebiscite would be held in SE Queensland as to whether or not recycled water would be returned to the reticulated supply storage. Now, his government having been declared elected, he says that there will be no plebiscite and that recycled sewage will be mixed with the reticulated supply. The only opportunity for the community to have exercised any duty of care would have been at that plebiscite. Their likely predictable vote would have forced government disclosure and ensured much wider debate and community input.

When governments became major players in domestic water supply, accurate information as to risk management and reserve storage levels was placed out of the reach of the now dependent consumers. It was never necessarily obvious to the public that things were going astray in terms of water supply security, see Selwyn Johnston's OLO article and thread http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477 . A duty of care, as you acknowledge, had long ago been taken on board by governments, and a public trust created. It is that public trust that has been betrayed, and it is, I suggest, unsafe to allow those who now appear linked to that betrayal to remain in charge of water management.

Let the lesson continue.

I am wondering what the water crisis would look like if we had no government involvement in the business of water supply.

Miketrees,

If governments were not involved in the supply of water, then the situation would be worse. The problem revolves around the significant variation in rainfall. Private enterprise has no incentive to invest enough to protect against drought. It would simply put the price up, a lot, when water became scarce. It could do this because no investors would put capital into competing infrastructure such as desalinators because they can only compete during drought - their marginal costs are too high at other times. For a private investor there's the risk that today's investment will be wiped out tomorrow in a flash flood.

Water supply is a natural monopoly. Accordingly, it can only be performed by governments, or by a private company functioning as a regulated monopoly.

Sylvia.

Well if we are stuck with having governments supply water, we need a way to remove politics from the decision making.
Do all other countries have governments supplying water?
And is there anything wrong with water becoming more expensive when its in short supply?
I know I have to pay more for water when its in short supply

“A reminder that 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilogram. It is ludicrous to push hundreds of kilo's of water 1,600km just to have a shower.”

Seaweed, it would indeed be hugely expensive. It has been enormously expensive to pump water from the Burdekin Dam to Townsville in dry times, a distance of ~160 km.

But as Peter Ravenscroft says, a pipeline (and pumping stations) could be built far more quickly than a desalination plant of the same magnitude. And time is of the essence.

This water would not be “just to have a shower”. It could be a matter of the coherence of society in SEQ. Without it there could be massive civil upheaval and an exodus of desperate people. Let’s not brush over the seriousness of the situation.

“The problems in SEQ are just a symptom of over expansion of both population and industry.”

Absolutely! This factor is at least as much to blame as the decline in rainfall.

“The solution is simple, reduce both.”

We can’t do that quickly. In the longer term yes perhaps some reduction would be advisable. A moratorium on population growth in SEQ should have been implemented some years ago, or at the very least a gearing down of the growth rate. It is ludicrous beyond all words for this rapid population growth to have continued unabated throughout the period when governments knew that there were serious water problems.

“If industry wants land and water it should move to Townsville.”

Aaaaaarrgh no! We don’t want to just spread the problems around. Townsville’s growth rate is tooo big as it is. And it is in a dry belt, having had numerous failed wet seasons in recent years and serious water problems for just the same reasons as SEQ – too much development and population growth for the water resource to comfortably and confidently support.

Some relocation might be sensible, within a stable population regime. But to just accept that the rapid influx into Queensland will continue and that Townsville, Cairns, Mackay, etc will cop the brunt of it is just not on.

It's interesting to observe our community react to the latest round of pressures. Global warming & water supply. Which might even be the same topic actually. There is no less water on the planet than usual. Short term - we should all get tanks, and continue to modify our attitudes and behaviour. I don't think we have done enough of either yet. Then we need to recognise that what water we do have is probably "occurring" in the "wrong" place. That means we might just have to "move" it ie from the Wet North to the Thirsty South (pipeline?) and also seriously consider the implications of a simple fact. Most of our cities are on the coast - the most reliable supply of water is right there - we just have to find a better way of taking the salt out. Is anyone working on that ? Whose job is it to pay attention to that ? Did someone say politicians and administrators ? Are they actually doing anything, and / or reporting back to us ? We are stuck in a blame game just now and should demand better. No-one is to blame for the drought, not even us. It was probably going to happen some time anyway, and we would not have thanked politicians who demanded big sums of money from us for infrastructure we could not see the need for. We must all act quietly and calmly to move this problem towards the best set of solutions - now !

Nostradamus! – where are you when we need you?
What lies ahead, weather or even climate- wise? (those scientists reading the entrails of our slaughtered atmosphere are so unbelievable!).
Without over-exercising the imagination by peeking around the future’s impenetrable corner, perhaps we should just accept that the climate record of the past 60,000 years indicates that our “droughts” are normal, and the wetter patches are exceptional. And harvesting 1890s, or 1974 Brisbane River flood events to even out the average has its difficulties.
My folks up around Townsville and further north have not had a decent wet season for yonks now. Most of the rain events have occurred on the coastal side of the high country from which the Herbert, the Tully, and the Burdekin rivers rise. Getting an assured supply for S.E. Queensland from up there really is a pipedream.
In some parts up there, it has been so dry that the muscle-bound cane toad has not even been able to weep, but has croaked. During the dry, the more svelte local-yokel frog has survived by applying thousands of years of experience. After return of rain, they have reappeared from sheltering in cracks in tree-trunks, soil, or whatever to ribbit, squawk and make hell of what used to be night-time silence.
The South-East Queensland human canetoads might be well advised to learn to accommodate themselves to the ecological niche they have occupied for so short a time. That, rather than attempt to continue business as usual by putting all their efforts exclusively into doing the reverse.
There can be no prospect of success for that desirable lifestyle for so many people at present in the long term. For a lesser-desirable one? Maybe. For an ever-escalating number of people? Never.
Tiddalick the giant frog might produce the goods for water once a century, but lifestyles for the locals could be miserable in between, and during, the events. How to tell?
Nostradamus, we need you!

Let there be absolutely no doubt that the only reason we have a water crisis is that we have ceded this part of our needs to the public sector. When tanks were phased out in the past it was under the belief that the public sector could manage this service more efficiently and deliver as much water as anyone could possibly need.

Since then the cost of a tank has more than halved, the average roof area has doubled and the cost of maintaining an ancient pipe system has multiplied. We now have more expensive mains water than a tank can supply and we can't use it for all the needs we were led to believe we could.

In a semi-privatised, deregulated, water market pensioners in big old queenslanders with lots of roof area and room underneath could install a few large tanks and sell their surplus to their neighbours.

Farmers could manage part of their property exclusively for water yield (still 5Ml/ha at Esk) and either capture it in their own dams or deliver it, via the river, to a down stream water market (called a dam).

Others closer to the city could install off-stream storages for capturing urban storm water for resale to industrial users, deliverd via small drip lines (attached to the optus cable) to on site water tanks.

And above all, with 13,500 litres of water tank capacity at each household, the average Brisbane home, even in the current drought, would only need to get 32,000 litres from other sources during September, October and November.

And the City Council would still be free to operate their recycling plant to supply industry and farmers up stream.

Given that we are getting a desalination plant and that quite a few households also have a swimming pool, I have recently suggested to Gold Coast Water the following idea that they are now investigating: that water tankers be allowed to tap into the filtered seawater just before it enters the reverse osmosis stage. Householders can then pay to have their new pools filled from scratch or have existing pools topped up, without having to draw down on dam-fed water. This is a practical idea worth serious consideration.

Sylvia says "Water supply is a natural monopoly. Accordingly, it can only be performed by governments, or by a private company functioning as a regulated monopoly."

While it appears to be a natural monopoly we have been able to get over the natural monopoly problem with electricity and communications.

The problem is in distributing the excess profits obtained by selling cheap water at high prices but not high enough to encourage desalination and recycling by other suppliers.

A solution we are promoting http://cscoxk.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/water-rewards-pilot-project/ includes the distribution of some of the profits in a way that requires them to be invested in the market for water sustainability infrastructure. The distribution of profits to consumers is done by a not for profit controlled by the water consumers.

Fickle Pickle

It is not true that the natural monopoly issues with communications and power have been overcome.

Power generation is not a natural monoply, and that part of the system has been privatised to a considerable extent.

Power distribution is a natural monopoly, and although some power distributors have been privatised, they operate as regulated monopolies, where the regulator essentially dictates prices to allow a reasonable return on investment, but prevents the monopolistic pricing that would otherwise occur.

Communications is a natural monopoly only in the 'last mile' consisting of the wire to you house. To some extent this natural monopoly has been eroded by mobile phones, and as a by product of the installation of pay-tv cables that can also carry phone services. However, access to the last mile is still regulated because of its natural monopoly characteristic.

Nor is it true that cheap water is being sold at excessive prices. The main component of the price of water in your tap is the cost of delivering it to you. The infrastructure used to do that wears out and has to be replaced, and the price you pay has to reflect that. If there's a problem with government control, it's that governments can be tempted to dip their hands into the til so that insufficient is spent, or saved, for infrastructure replacement when it's required.

In Sydney, the regulator has expressed concerns that Sydney Water's [*] revenue is insufficient to cover its long term infrastructure costs.

[*]Sydney Water is owned by the Government, but operates as if it were a privatised regulated monopoly.

The resolution for this problem, as is the case for many problems,
is for the Commonwealth to assume rsponsibility.
We then get past all this dopey states rights nonsense.
Either it will be cheaper to build piplines or it will be cheaper to
build desalination plants.

Which ever is cheaper; do it.

The electricity to run the pumps can be generated by dedicated wind
generators.
They can feed the grid and the credit built up can run the pumps.
Each water supply system along the pipes can be connected to the water grid.

If pipes are too dear then the desal plants could be built for each
water supply system.
Of course it will cost money, but will be cheaper than moving the
Gold Coast, Brisbane and Sydney to Townsville.

BTW, I have a pool and I seldom put water into it, I take more water
out than I put in. If I had a tank I could top it up from the pool.
Even in this time of lack of rainfall, we get enough to keep it full.
At present it is just 5 cm from the top which is too full for the
skimmer box to work, but I have left it too full in case we do not
get rain for a while.
So you see you should not consider swimming pools to be an unfriendly
enviromental waste, but in fact an asset.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Bazz, it's about speed.

Coothdrup, this is a technically complex society. The rain on the roof of Swanbank will run it for about two seconds.

Sylvia, switching automtically to risk management may hugely advance the Westminster system. How did we appointed Cromwell, I forget? Agreed, water management should stay public. Otherwise, some innovative board will let a few die of thirst occasionally as a marketing strategy. It can rain fairly heavily and nothing at all can get to the dams.

Perseus, re northern Ned Kelly's. We already have arsonists and other nutters, do we really need pipeline saboteurs? Loved your phrase, "metrocentric drivel." You are right, I am a very urban man. Across the creek I can see one house. I live in a caravan and have a small spring, a pump, dams and rainwater tanks - the limit of urban decadence. I learned my metrocentic views in the Namib Desert,up dry gullies on Queensland goldfields and watering food trees for 20 years. I hope "real Queenslanders" will make allowances.

Reynard, wow, someone agreed, and "Godchecker" is superb.

Forrest Gump. I believe Mr Beattie exists, as I have seen pictures of him on TV. But replies to my letters, though polite, have always come from others, and so do not really confirm his existence. Point is, no, I do not front for him. I tried to have the ICC lock up Howard for war crimes. He was not technically guilty, which I accept but which still infuriates. So I am not his man either. You may have to trust me that I'm not frontng for some pipe manufacturer.

I simply have friends in Brisbane, some of them old and infirm. My mail, my power and all the caviar comes through that town, so I have a soft spot for it. I've seen societies in chaos in Africa and prefer early action.

As I have admitted all, can we now play the ball? I hoped for comments on rapidly building a pipeline to the Burdekin. Could that perhaps be addressed first?
Hooroo,
Peter.

Always good to get a bit of feedback from an author.

I admire your frankness in the article with respect to the unsuccessful groundwater prospecting in the Nambour area.

I note your view that the issue, as you define it, the rapid building of a pipeline to the Burdekin, has been left largely unaddressed so far. As I frequently do after a thread acquires more than a few postings, I re-read the article. From it I get essentially two propositions: the first being to exploit a different catchment (the Burdekin), and the second to exploit a different catchment rapidly via a pipeline.

I accept that part of your definition of the problem that requires a different catchment to be exploited. I simply suggest, as do others, that it be the rooftops of Brisbane, upon which, as a number of contributors advise us, rainfall has not been too drastically reduced, and runoff, immediately it does rain, is virtually 100%.

I accept the requirement for rapidity. I simply suggest that the most rapid response possible within the foreseeable time available to be the large-scale production and installation of rainwater tanks in and around Brisbane. These, both collectively and individually, require very much shorter and cheaper pipelines. As to how this is best facilitated and implemented is a challenge to governmental leadership and government responsiveness to community inventiveness, a whole topic in itself. I do not suggest rainwater tanks are a complete solution. I do suggest that a Burdekin pipeline is a completely wrong solution, whether or not it could be built in time.

As Sylvia Else has so succinctly pointed out, the temptation is ever-present for governments to run down infrastructure and spend the water rates on other things in the meantime. Don't give them a fresh excuse to do so with a big expensive cash cow in the form of a Burdekin pipeline.

It's important the public learn the role appropriate waste water DISPOSAL should have played in the avoidance of this problem. See KAEP's posts http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5551

Forrest, I agree with the large-scale implementation of tanks. But I fear it won’t be enough to guarantee supply.

The public system needs to be up to the task of providing water to just the same extent it as would if there were no tanks, in order to get us by in really dry times when the tanks are empty. Besides, urban water consumption makes up only a relatively small fraction of total consumption. Even the most widespread implementation of tanks would only go so far.

Even with tanks, the best water conservation and efficiency strategies that can be quickly implemented and the best attempts to stop the overall number of consumers from constantly increasing, SEQ would still need a Burdekin pipeline or desalination plants.

I would like to see SEQ utilize NQ water, but on one big condition: along with the water, it absorbs the growth potential. In other words, any significant population growth that Qld has to have should stay in the southeast corner!

Any potential growth, especially in the area potentially serviced by the Burdekin Dam: Townsville and the lower Burdekin area - should be foregone, if massive quantities of Burdekin Dam water are going to be diverted.

The thing I fear most is a rapid escalation in the growth rate in north Queensland cities and indeed in towns all the way up the coast (and all the same old problems that would go with it that we have seen in SEQ), as people lose confidence that the quality of life will remain good in SEQ.

Sylvia I should have said water is no more a natural monopoly than is communications or electricity and we are gradually finding ways around those problems. Once the communications laws in Australia if interpreted literally made it unlawful for me to talk with my neighbour across my back fence.

The water regulations and legislation give a monopoly in the supply and delivery of cheap water. The difficulty is that more expensive supplies of water via recycling, desalination, rain water tanks cannot compete with this supply of cheap water. In Melbourne and Canberra the government today takes up to 50% of the money being paid for water as "dividends" or "abstraction charges" and it has not spent anywhere near this amount on water infrastructure. The fact is that the cost of supply from rainwater and dams when it rains is a lot lot less than recycling. Increasing the cost of water has not guaranteed those cities supply of water as the economists would have us believe would happen if the "price was right".

We have to overcome this problem in the cost of rain versus the cost of recycling. One way of doing it is to put a surcharge on rain water to fund recycling etc. Leaving it with the monopoly supplier does not work. We can however, give some or all back to the consumers but require it be spent on infrastructure such as recycling, or desalination, or water saving devices or community projects. This will allow a market in infrastructure to arise and will help prevent the government spending the money on other things. It turns out this is very simple and cheap to do and is likely to work.

I think all are agreed, household rainwater tanks are a very fine idea. For over a year, I've been pushing that 20,000 litre tanks be made both compulsory, whereever they can be fitted into gardens or yards, and "free." That is, the state or councils borrow the money on the capital market and recover it from the rates over 20 years, or sooner. The minimum rain here is about 500 mm pa, I think the average roof area is something like 200 square metres, so we can catch at least 100,000 litres annually and need about 40,000 litres storage per household (as the folk around Samford are all finding).

We use about 280 litres per person per day, so 100,000 litres per person annually, a world record. So we do have to learn to cut back. Houses here all approximate to small palaces. My Dad went to North Africa to argue with Rommel's men. They had two litres per day for quite a while. We can economise yet

But, there remain some problems. Someone has estimated that, when you consider all the cars and packets of chips, we use about a million litres per person, for this grand lifestyle of ours. Some of that water we of course import by buying goods from China made with their scarce water. But we are still probably using five to ten times what we can catch from the roofs. The total area covered by the roofs in SEQ is small, maybe five percent, probably less, I do not know. So it is better to catch the storm runoff via groundwater wells and weirs on the creeks. But where does that leave the wildlife, or the huge amount of life underground in the rocks, so often forgotten, but probably critical to the biosphere? That was partly why I suggested drilling near the shoreline.

We have a problem with under-city groundwater. You get a free sterilization program, from the xeno-estrogens, effective at parts per trillion and so unfilterable except by distillation. Never mind the asbestos from the roofs and the brakes.

Hence the Burdekin pipeline.

"My dad went to North Africa to argue with Rommel's men. They had two litres per day for quite a while. We can economise yet."
Yes, indeed we can:
Divide the current average individual's water useage by two litres, and we can multiply the present population by that same factor?
It will take time, but if the population keeps going continuously, they will get there eventually. One per cent growth rate has a doubling time of 70 years, two per cent about 35, --- make your choice for the arrival time of that two litres.
Don't disturb that sacred and everlasting growth. Bung in a Burdekin-Brisbane pipeline as a patch for present problems.
When the future residents complain about their two litres ration of water, let them all drink beer.

The cost of Burdekin piped water is $5-$6/Kl wholesale. But this is based on the continual use of the water from the pipe as prime supply. And that will destroy the economics of the existing Wivenhoe system ($400 million at 1975 prices).

If the Wivenhoe system continues to supply even half the market then the cost of the Burdekin water will go up even further. At the moment Wivenhoe water produces a profit when sold at $0.17/Kl wholesale and $0.96/Kl retail. It will produce even greater profits when the retail price goes up to $2.40/Kl as recently announced. That profit will completely disappear if the volume sold is halved.

So we will be left with a Wivenhoe system operating at a loss and paying $6 to $10/Kl for a Burdekin pipeline operating at half capacity. Toss in recycling and a stack of other high cost and long term supply options that are also costed on a full capacity assumption and the economics of water will be completely stuffed.

And Beattie will go down in history as one of the most incompetent morons to ever hold public office.

Yeah but Perseus no-one’s doubting that the economics don't stack up. That’s not the issue. The urgency of addressing the water crisis in SEQ is the issue.

Colinsett: Can we make “Let them drink beer” our joint motto? May I have your permission to print the tee shirts, if you do not want that for yourself?

I share your nightmare about unending growth and have frothed at the mouth about the current surfeit of manic-depressive monkeys since about '74, when FOE paid me to do. Take any six people, look around, guess which five will volunteer for euthanasia in the best interests of the environment? Not me, Jack. I’m alright I tell ya, back off with that thing!

Any growth economy is carcinogenic, seems to me, to all except the tumour cells. So, as a card-caeeying tumour cell myself, I am for winding it all down slowly, till the inevitable cuts in. Populations of animals that explode exponentially tend to plunge almost vertically, it is generally not a gentle Bell Curve descent, ecology repeatedly records. That lot seems to be able too care for itself.

Perseus: Thanks for the cost figures, they're a help. But, the dams may run dry in 18 months, did I mention?

So I am not overly desperate about how much who in SEQ has to pay for a kilolitre, or for the shot economics of the Wivenhoe project. Just want enough kilolitres to be here, so that most folks keep their jobs and can water their kids. And so the old age homes and hospitals and post offices and kindergartens and such can operate. Most folks and most industries are tightening their belts without whingeing, have you noticed?

But there are limits. My old man did not say 2 litres was much fun, just that they survived. Have run dry on long traverses, don’t recommend it, much. It gets difficult to think. As you see. On another trivial note, I used to sell trees from here, it was for a few years my main income. Down a bit now, made about 20 bucks, this last six months, Dunno why, I’m just getting slack. I guess. Not entirely academic, here.

We need the Burdekin popeline. And we need itt to start yesterday/

Peter.

Peter,
I view the Burdekin-Brisbane pipeline proposal as marginally better than digging a 3X3X3 hole in order to bury the dirt previously excavated from a 2X2X2 hole.
"Let them drink beer" is all yours. I have spent enough time north and west of the line which carries the old title "the OP Rum belt" to be able to get by with an alternative.
Colin

Peter,

Googling 'xeno estrogens' yielded the top listing of a Canadian site: http://www.georgiastrait.org/xenofacts.php , containing this quotation, for what it may be worth: "UK research has suggested that some male infertility problems in the London area may be linked to the drinking water supply, which contains sewage effluent and has been found to be contaminated with hormone- mimicking nonylphenols."

I noted your mention of xeno estrogens in the context of under-city groundwater contamination in your second post in this thread: it seems this contamination issue may also be a downside to the proposal to recycle reclaimed effluent into the existing reticulated water supply system, and consequently a powerfully good reason to segregate any future reclaimed water in a different distribution network to that of domestic supply.

The very sentence in which you point out the risk of xeno estrogens and other contaminants provides the signpost to another part of the solution. Your words: [xeno estrogens] ".....effective at parts per trillion and so unfilterable EXCEPT BY DISTILLATION."; my emphasis. What consideration has been given to desalination of seawater via the reduced pressure distillation pathway? A paper, "Large scale Solar Desalination using Multi Effect Humidification", by Dr Alan Williams, is the top listing of a google search using the terms 'reduced pressure desalination'. Here is the link:
http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.co.uk/large_scale_solar_desalination_using_multi_effect_humidification.htm
See also http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=134#4482

Note the projected cost of desalinated water of $0.28US/Kl in comparison with the $5-6AUS/Kl for Burdekin water given by Perseus. The modification of Dr Williams' proposal using solar pond heat accumulation may result in even lower costs.

As I understand it, both effluent recycling and reverse osmosis desalination require the availability of hi-tech membrane elements as an ongoing expendable input. It is very apparent that supply of these elements will be under conditions that ensure the customer remains over a barrel. Nip this prospective racket in the bud right now! Cut back, install tanks, reduced-pressure desalinate!

Ludwig, I completely agree with you that large-scale implementation of tanks wont be enough, of itself, to guarantee supply for SEQ. Assuming that rainfall around Brisbane approaches 80% of normal, and is spread reasonably evenly across the next 18 months, and that a 'war production regime' with respect to manufacture, allocation, and installation of tanks can actually be achieved, such will require to be accompanied by very carefully designed and overseen restrictions.

The conservation of existing reserves will need to be intensified immediately, if continuity of domestic supply is to be relatively assured for those residences and essential services for which tanks are simply not a feasible complement. Provision for the segregation of potable reticulated water from storm runoff or other reclaimed water will also have to be planned for very early on, in making existing reserves and anticipated rainwater collections JUST GET SE QUEENSLAND BY.

Undoubtedly the extreme political unpalatability of such measures is something the present, or for that matter any foreseeable alternative elected Queensland government would just love to avoid, as the heirs to the 'Goss-Palaszcuk effect' described by Selwyn Johnston in his OLO article http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477 . A very risky, very expensive project of the like of a Burdekin pipeline is just the sort of distraction a government could well seek in avoiding the opprobrium of being responsible for now unavoidable restrictions. You know how the reasoning may go: 'The water in the Burdekin dam is already there today. Forget about the security of future supplies. By the time the dumb public realize there's still a problem, we might have had ten more years in power. And there's always the lucrative consultancies afterwards'. That's why I had to ask those churlish questions about fronting for the government, Peter. Of course I accept that your are not.

Bear also in mind, at any time it might rain, heavily. Perhaps Peter Beattie is out 'doing a RECCE' right now! See http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5551#72818 as to what RECCE is.

Ludwig, I agree.

Forrest Gummp, you put a lot of excellent effort in, only to get bucketed.

But at times it seems you don't want a solution. It's only a steel pipe, it will not bankrupt us. And why is a water pipeline risky? They built one to Coolgardie in 1890 or so. It works yet. Alluvial gold miners made them of roof iron bashed flat and rolled, circa 1870. This is not fission power.

Your set of anyway essential half-measures will fail, if the rainfall declines as the data suggests is likely. You cannot run the industry of a city of 1.5 million off house roofs, will that not register? Given the inaction and the total inability here to both curb growth and to plan, sans rain there is time for only one thing. To lay this Burdekin pipeline and lay it fast.

You're advocating a committee to discuss re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Beattie is off in cloudland, trying to get some athletics event sent here in who knows what year. And says we are not going to run out (it's not official until it's denied). Yesterday's drop in the combined storage was 0.052 percent. Yesterday was not a Monday. Have you noticed?

By the way all, if recycled water comes through the taps and offends or you still want to have kids or something, unless you live in a cave or or a high rise, you can get your drinking and cooking water off your roof and filter it. Guano filters out fine, ask the scientists on Heron Island.

Order your new t-shirts in advance, at psraven@bigpond.net.au. Or use it to get back and argue privately, anyone. On the front they will say "Water, who needs it?" On the back, "Let them drink beer." Price unkown as yet. With the profits we will build the pipeline. Or at least, aggitate for it. Or print your own and go sell them and keep the money. It's the publicity we need. Thanks to Colinsett.

Peter.

Peter,
You say "But at times it seems you don't want a solution." I said in relation to SEQ water supply, at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477#70515 , "..... My post above strove to suggest something positive by way of possible solution, rather than just offering empty [albeit so very well deserved] criticism of now all too obvious policy failings. I now realize a solution to the shortage is not really wanted."

When I said 'not wanted', I meant by government. A solution is wanted by the public. Your proposal to take water from the Burdekin using conventional pipeline engineering appears to offer the sort of solution the public in the past has reasonably expected: uncontaminated water in sufficient quantity to meet present and projected requirements at historic rates of usage. One problem is that this time it will be very expensive to do, and may only offer a short-term fix if dry conditions come to prevail in the Burdekin catchment.

A long-term solution requires fundamental change to waste water disposal practices. Government appears to have known this for many years.

It appears the tactic was to have been to deliberately cancel planned dam construction, allow population growth to erode storage reserves, and at the end force the recycling of waste water into the reticulated supply during a time of seemingly natural shortage at top retail prices, in the process concealing the true cost of proper waste water disposal and past neglect. Due to the apparently deliberate delay instituted to help force recycling upon an unwilling public, in circumstances of continuing drought SEQ is now faced with running right out, even if recycling can be put in place in time! In short, in aggregate, recent successive governments have over-done it, and the State now faces potential disaster.

A dramatic change in management is required. As Ludwig has said, "It could be a matter of the coherence of society in SEQ." Fortunately, the Governor may appoint whomsoever she will to a ministry. Perhaps she should consider co-opting the best talent in the community.

Peter,

In your OLO article dated 16 March 2007 you say: "Based on the percentage presently left in the three main dams and the weekly decline, Brisbane seems to have about 18 months of water left, if it does not rain hard."

In your article to the Brisbane Institute dated 16 February 2006, see http://www.brisinst.org.au/resources/brisbane_institute_water_crisis.html , you made the following statement: "Nine months is not what the government is saying, but we do appear to be using one third of the total storage capacity each year. Thus we may only have about 25 percent of capacity available in reality and, even with water saving and sporadic rain, nine months seems a fair estimate."

In your post of Wednesday 21 March on this discussion thread you say: "Yesterday's drop in the combined storage was 0.052 percent." At that rate of consumption, without any replenishment more than is presently occurring, it would seem that there is notionally around 200 days supply left. Say eight months. So which is it, eight or eighteen? Has there been more rain between February 2006 and March 2007 than originally anticipated when you wrote the Brisbane Institute article, or do anticipated Level 5 or 6 restrictions buy the extra time?

When your illustration in the Brisbane Institute article, 'The Underlying Pattern', a graph of Brisbane rainfall 1840-2004, is taken into account, it seems hard to believe that government would not have been aware over the last 20 years of the apparent 'rolling wave' and Brisbane's present position in relation to it. It seems incredible that any government could have allowed reserves to have dropped to only around 8-9 months without having made plans to alleviate the shortage. I, for one, don't believe it. A contingency plan must have been in existence for quite some time that if it hasn't rained by, as you suggest, April 2007, the Burdekin pipeline will be built at breakneck speed. It seems the government may have deliberately intended to leave no alternative!

SunWater is the government owned corporation managing the Boyne River (primary storage for Tarong power station), North Pine, Somerset, and Wivenhoe dams. SunWater has also built the existing Burdekin pipeline network in NQ, the last sections of which are all but completed. Approval of a 1000 Km Burdekin - SEQ pipeline at this time would seem to dovetail nicely with SunWater's about-to-become-idle pipeline construction capabilities and expertise.

SunWater's interests, not the least of which is getting the best possible commercial return for its water, would seem well served by being able to divert Burdekin water, for which it cannot presently maximise its sales, to SEQ where it currently has insufficient water to meet demand, and prospects of running right out. It could profit from both the pipeline construction, and the sale of the water. All very good for SunWater.

Not so good for those in North Queensland for whose security of supply the Burdekin dam, completed in 1987, was built. The second post on this thread advises it is only two years since this storage was nearly empty.

Nor so good for the SEQ users of water, who under this proposal are faced with a price increase from $0.96/Kl to at least $2.40/Kl, if not to $6/Kl. With a Burdekin pipeline once approved, such high price will continue to have to be paid into the forseeable future even if, following heavy rains, SEQ does not need to use Burdekin water again, for the pipeline itself will still have to be paid for. Likewise if the Burdekin soon again runs dry, the pipeline payments will still have to continue. That's the risk.

A project of this nature is not planned and completed in only 18 months. The government, through SunWater, would have had a Burdekin pipeline contingency plan for SEQ supply for years. It probably simply wants it to look like the proposal came about as a result of an expression of public interest, and thereby escape blame for eighteen years of planned neglect.

There may be a better way.

Forrest Gumpp:

The nine months figure was wrong, I did it when the graph was diving and before there were any restrictions. Maybe that gross error helped bring on the restrictions sooner, so wait before you organise a lynching party. I published a retraction, probably on Indymedia Brisbane (now history). The SEQWater data did not make it clear the evaporation had already been taken out, so I took it out twice. Go get a more competent stirrer.

Check for yourself. One percent is dead water. Divide the percentage left in the dams, by the average daily percentage drop. The monthly releases don't cover the evaporation. The drop is currently 0.04 percent per day. Today's figure is now 16.22 months because the drop is escalating as we run low on the flanking groundwater. Also we keep building in SEQ.

The estimates Anna Bligh quotes assume substantial flows into the dams, based on long-term past records. I am assuming no flow, based on the past three years, which is not quite right either, but may be. We may get heavy rain, game over, three cheers, wrong again. But if it trickles in as per the last three years, the accelerating evaporation, not factored in, is going to cancel the trickle. The ground is now very dry. We will need about 100 mm in a downpour, to get anything useful into the dams. The recent rains have each bought about one day's grace.

Hence our only option is now the pipeline to the Burdekin. We will not make it on roof rainwater tanks. This last three days I talked to maybe a dozen interested older folk, some very informed, some just bothered. Consensus is, can't think what else to do, let's do it, fast, and hang the cost. The desal plant can come later.

I do not accept there was a Machiavellian plot to foist recycled water on anyone. They just got it wrong. This is not an easy guessing game.

psraven@bigpond.net.au anyone, to get in touch. 07 3289 4470. PO Box 108, Samford, 4520, Qld.

Cheers all,

Peter.

Peter,

Thanks for the clarification of the estimate of time until run-out. As you can see, I suspected the correct figure had to be the then eighteen month one, and rest assured, if your projections had anything to do with bringing on the level 4 restrictions, I certainly wont be trying to organise any lynching party over that!

And yes, I completely agree with you (as probably does Peter Beattie) that securing 'baseload' supplies becomes more of a guessing game the shorter the time available for planning, construction, and accumulation of stored supply. The problem is that it is a guessing game with very high stakes, both for the immediate and more distant future for all Queenslanders (and probably all Australians, if calls are made for Federal financial assistance). What the community has to spend now, or permanently surrender to overseas interests, in order to solve this particular problem will profoundly affect what can be done in other areas in future.

I completely agree with you that there is no alternative to urgently obtaining a reliable water supply for SEQ, if only to avoid disaster. I simply suggest that that reliable supply is a lot closer than the Burdekin dam, and that much of the pipeline infrastructure to get hold of it either exists or is already under construction. And no, although they have their place, I am not talking about rainwater tanks or stormwater collection, for it might not rain, either. Have a look at the proposal in this link: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=495#9790

The science of waste heat utilisation is well understood. The scheme does not even depend upon the reduced pressure proposal of Dr Alan Williams (link above), although parts of his proposal will magnify its effectiveness. Several birds can be killed with one stone.

There is a significant engineering and organisational challenge involved. However, if that challenge is successfully met, the impending disaster will not only be avoided but water and energy supply security will be dramatically enhanced for SEQ for the foreseeable future, global, or gullible, warming notwithstanding.

Forrest Gummp:

You're not just a pretty faceless one. Knew it all along. That low pressure desalination stuff is impressive and completely new to me.

As the stakes, as you say, are very high, what do you suggest? Should we trust to luck and new technology, or should we first put in the tried and tested old-fashioned solution, a pipeline to a full dam?

I have spoken with about twenty people in these last 3 days. They will all wear extra costs for what they trust. The consensus is, the cost is now irrelevant. I don't think they will bet all they have on a horse that they've yet to see run. The plants you propose, if they work, can go on every thermal power station in the world. We should certainly build the first one, but after we build the Burdekin pipeline, I think.

We need to start the national water grid with the areas in crisis - Brisbane, Goulburn, Ballarat, Toowoomba, Melbourne, Adelaide, etc.

The best and cheapest way to do that may be a dedicated water tax. I suggest that it not be based on water usage, but on power usage. That will allow sone irrigators to survive. Power is already a metered commodity. Most power generation now takes water. That tax will boost alternatives - use wind or solar and you avoid the water tax. The alternative is borrow the money, i.e. sell our water rights to foreigners. Why do that? This is one of the richest societies on the planet. We should retain ownership of our own water infrastructure and to do that we best raise a tax.

I am heartily tired of the governments selling everything ordinary people worked for, over generations, to their rich mates. I've told Malcolm Turnbull I think I'm not the only one, and that this philosophy of theft, if applied to water, may cost his party dearly. I think most of us are now fed up to the back teeth with privatisation. We should not let it grab our scarce water, in its death throes.

Peter.

What do I suggest?

Trust to luck? Successive governments have done that for 18 years, punting for their (and foreign utilities corporations) own advantage with public assets out of sight of the general public. Look where it has landed them, and all of us! There is no luck involved with this desalination proposal.

The sea will remain full, and where it is, no matter how long the drought.

Much of the pipeline required to get a start-up scale (say 15% of total Brisbane usage) seawater supply to thermal powerstations in SEQ already exists. That which does not is already in the process of construction. Irrespective of how much duplicated or additional pipeline requires to be completed for any scaled-up seawater reduced-pressure desalination program, it will be far less than any otherwise required for a Burdekin pipeline. The start-up scale of operations simply substitutes seawater for coolant freshwater.

[Exuent stage right - operators running in all directions, tearing hair and shrieking "Salt water! In my pipeline/pumping station/condenser/river system! We'll all be rooned!]

Salt water - steel ships float in it all the time.

Concentrated brine, from the outset, will accumulate from power station cooling. Let it. Just make sure it does so in proper progressively constructed solar ponds. There is plenty of time to bring solar pondage on line later. Let's look after our water supply crisis first.

There is nothing new about condenser technology, and that is what is involved in the next level of seawater desalination at thermal power stations. If all the cooling water was reclaimed as fresh water in simple condensers, then around 28% of Brisbane freshwater demand is satisfied. Granted, there are doubtless engineering challenges in retro-fitting condensers, but engineers are ingenious, and Australian industry has a reputation for rising to unusual challenges.

Behold! The word limit approaches, and we haven't even got to multi-effect reduced-pressure distillation, so-called 'new' technology! And if it rains in the next 18 months, we wont have committed to a huge investment, just pumps, condensers, and some solar pondage.

But will supplying 28% of Brisbane demand be enough?

I think we have to assume that it will not be enough. If we require only simple condensation from the retro-fitted condenser design, full advantage of the waste heat of the thermal power stations is not obtained. The design requirement should be for a system CERTAINLY capable of simple single-effect atmospheric pressure condensation with segregation of condensate, but ALSO designed to operate in conjunction with, or alternatively as, a multi-effect reduced-pressure condenser.

At this point the investment risk is confined to that as to the actual performance of the reduced-pressure multi-effect condenser component only. There would seem to be little risk that it will not work at all. If you only recovered enough heat to distil as much seawater again as the single effect condensation produced, then the combination of cooling water substitution and poor-yield reduced-pressure distillation would leave you meeting 41% of total Brisbane demand.

The extra pipeline capacity that would simultaneously need to be constructed to deliver the extra seawater to Tarong would not be a risk investment. This capacity would be needed long-term to take advantage of the energy collected in the ever-expanding solar pond farm that is accumulating the concentrated brine resulting from the 28% of demand base load output. (Even should reduced-pressure distillation yield be absolutely lousy, by the end of 7 years at most, the solar ponds would be collecting as much energy as the thermal power station output! One use for this energy is production of more desalinated seawater.)

I should point out that this proposal does not require Dr Williams' geodetic dome, which is perhaps what you identify as new or unproven technology. The reduced pressure environment construction requires standard engineering and steel pressure vessel fabrication skills. Should the gained output ratio be only half of the 10 that Dr Williams states is commonplace for fossil fuel powered desalination, the scheme would supply 75% of demand on coal alone, maybe 150% with solar.

Only two years ago Burdekin dam was nearly empty.

We have so far only looked at investing in this thermal power station waste heat desalination in a worst case desperation scenario of averting a short-term prospect of running out of reticulated water. There is also a potentially enormous upside that has barely been explored, an upside that just does not exist with a simple plan to raid a distant rain-dependent storage via a pipeline.

The Australian community only has a finite amount of resources that can be invested in large scale projects of either type: it is critically important that it choose the right one first up. We face other enormous calls upon resources nationally, not the least of which may be the wide-scale implementation of engineered wetland basins. Another regular OLO contributor, KAEP, has indicated such as being pivotal in rectifying the climatic distortions caused by our coastal conurbations and their associated waste water disposal practices. This link is a good starting point for understanding why: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4053#28946

Given that water, and, specifically by definition waste water, is required to implement these engineered wetland basins, it is important that this erstwhile disposal problem, which has now become a resource, is not over-treated and misapplied, which is what is presently in prospect. The requirement for these engineered wetlands provides the overriding reason why the prospective 100% plus of present and projected demand that a combination of waste heat and solar pond powered desalination promises must not be foregone. We urgently need the extra water on an ongoing basis, and lowering our sights by drinking recyclate cheats us of a future.

This is the scale of the challenge to leadership, at both the State and Commonwealth levels. It requires leadership that is not only 'up with the game', but that is capable of taking on board at the broadest community level, far-reaching matters for judgement. Leadership that has displayed throughout a distinguished career prior to, and at State and Federal level, an absolutely intimate grasp of the concept that who dares, wins. Leadership that is above politics.

It is misleading to talk about creating a national water 'grid' at this stage. In eastern Australia, one already exists. It is the river system, but that, being substantially dried up at present, is not of immediate relevance.

The major trouble spots are the coastal conurbations of Brisbane, Sydney, Melboune, and Adelaide. Toowoomba, Goulburn, and Ballaarat can be considered but simply small outliers that can, and should, be immediately supplied irrespective of shortage from the present Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne metropolitan supplies via pipelines at a charge primarily against the metropolitan centres of the respective States.

With the exception of Adelaide, each of these coastal conurbations has thermal power stations nearby that produce large amounts of waste heat. Queensland, NSW, and Victoria can proceed in the short term to implement fossil-fueled reduced-pressure multi-effect seawater desalination, accumulating concentrated brine in solar pondage for future energy supplies. Construction of engineered wetland basins discharging into the Murray-Darling basin for waste water disposal are an integral part of this proposal. Each of these conurbations has likely contributed heavily to the drying-out of adjacent inland Australia.

Adelaide is a special case. As with Hiroshima in a different context and epoch, there may have to be special plans for Adelaide. For the time being it has the Murray. It returned the governments that started this privatisation of public utilities: until it moves itself to discover how this may have been engineered, let it cop the consequences.

Perth, for the moment, is shifting well enough for itself.

To return to SEQ, as a first part of this integrated scheme, a pipeline should be constructed for desalinated water from Tarong to Toowoomba, as a substitute for the Emu Creek dam. See http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=256#4767 as to why. Toowoomba waste water, after relevant local use, can once again be returned to the Condamine, and hence the MDB, for natural recycling. Adelaide, here it comes.

Yes, we will need a national pipeline grid, but it will be for taking seawater to desalination facilities located close to future demand.