Well I'll be dammed , what courage , here we have a female solicitor who has figured out we need water !
This wise Lady needs several thousand Water Professor's eg; like AGW does , previous to AGW no one even dreamed there would be that many AGW Prof's ......well this is the "need" we need a BSA like Garneau or Billy Graham to bring out the Hype BS and Fear to frighten the population into demand mode then our man Rudd will blossom , "Today I have set aside 678 Billion to solve our water crisis , work is to begin tomorrow". (Beware of the stampede comprised of 3000 Shingle Waving Water professor's).

I am going over old ground here, but the problems with our water is not so much that we have a shortage, rather, the way we use water.

Firstly, 100% of all water passing through our taps is ‘A” grade drinking water, yet, we only drink/consume 2%. Therefore 98% is wasted. Washing cloths, bathing etc.

Now if we provided drinking water via either ‘free rainwater tanks’ or ‘subsidised bottled water’ and replaced our tap water with water that has been treated to a lesser extent, one may well pay for the other, then, we can recycle much of the water that is currently being wasted.

Secondly, we already collect and channel stormwater, so why no re-direct it back to the catchment areas.

Then there is ‘big business’. I was told one day that a certain canned fruit processor in Brisbane uses 27 thousand litres of water PER HOUR just to wash fruit. Remember, this is drinking water being used.

I think this is where the answer lies, better use and management of water rather than simply building more dams.

I assume you mean to Treat & Recycle water back to the storage Dams , sure I would vote for that .

What's missing in Oz is the ability of every day Australians to contribute Ideas to water science .

Democratize Science , in History "Can Do" people were the inventors the Scientists came along later to unravel the Mysteries .
Scientists today have gained the Ascension , this is very bad because simple solutions are instantly condemned because they lack mysteries .

How can a Scientist get a grant to profitably sort something with no Mysteries ?

What our Gov; needs to do is find the people with inventive genius for example offer a two hundred thousand dollar prize plus patent protection to anyone who can establish a way to desalinate Sea Water using evaporation and condensation techniques .

Evap/Cond is used every day in the Tropical Islands to provide drinking water , I don't accept that it can't be done on a grand scale , especially in Au since we have an abundance of suitably cold sea water and absolutely no shortage of solar activity.

Think about it , get right outside the square , it's to easy .

Yes, but there are some pretty good arguments against total recycling as well, esspecially if you live in a town that is 'down stream' and relys on the 'waste water' from towns 'upstream' for your river to flow. This was pointed out by a poster with regards to the Toowoomba situation.

Towns that dump their waste water into oceans are another story.

I am more talking about 'storm water'.

At present we catch trillions of liters of the stuff and channel it into rivers and streams which ultimately sees it flowing into our oceans.

What I say, is we have already caught it, why not simply re-direct it back to the catchment areas.

Yes , storm water , this was an Idea put about or supported here in Bendigo by Damian Drum .
Apparently it's not environmentally positive .
The natural drainage from Bendigo ends up in Cow Swamp a bigtime Bird Habitat , no doubt in heavy rainfall situation it would drain out to the Murray a few miles away.

I guess all inland creeks go somewhere and support some "Habitat" .

Goodness and I thought that the hype about 'sustainability' and 'water reform' was all about softening the sheeple up for the eventual privatising of water.

After all, if government was really concerned that our cities were already running out of water they would turn down the tap a little on the record numbers of migrants entering the country. It seems simple logic to slow the flow while necessary infrastructure is put in place, rather than have all of that pressure on housing, water, hospitals and the like.

But no, the spin is that consumers are 'wasting' water and guess what, the best solution will be to charge more for water to make people more parsimonious with a precious resource. How long before there is a water collection tax on privately owned water in dams and tanks for inspectors to ensure the water is not harbouring pests or some similar excuse?

Of course the National Water Commission did not discuss sustainable population growth and immigration policy, but then it might if there was any real representation of consumers. Can't have voters getting in the way, that would be too democratic and they cannot be relied upon to know what is best for themselves.

The natural drainage from Bendigo ends up in Cow Swamp a bigtime Bird Habitat

Yes, this type of argument has been put forward before, what happens to the oceans and lakes if the water is suddenly taken away.

Well, before storm water was collected, much of it soaked into the ground until saturation point, then, the 'run off' would find its way into the rivers, steams and oceans. So essentially you would not be taking much away, rather, taking it back.

Cornflower
How long before there is a water collection tax on privately owned water in dams.

Actually, nobody owns the water in their dams. You own the land, the dam, but not the water.

As for water tanks, some suggest that the rebate system was a way for governments to find out who owned tanks so they can charge for the water at some point.

There is also talk of charging for water pumped from dams and bores. This may have already started with regards to bores.

One area of thought is that perhaps someone will invent an affordable, 'in house' water recycling plant. Perhaps it could be solar powered. I would certainly use it if it ment having a decent shower after a long days work.

Rehctub My understanding is that when you apply for the grant for a water tank then your allowance for the cheaper tariff is reduced by the size of your tank. Effectively you then pay more for that proportion for ever after. A bit like buying a five dollar note for twenty dollars a year forever after. If someone other than the State government did it it would be exposed and called fraud!
So no they are not going to "Do anything" the goose has already been killed, skinned and cooked lol and an everlasting feast it is too.

At our rate of population growth, we in Australia will have over 50 million by 2050. This means that to support the food and other water needs of this number of people, water supplies will have to increase at the same rate - at about 2% extra each year. How will this happen? Are we to keep adding desalination plants and destroy marine biodiversity and coastlines, not to mention all the greenhouse gases that they will emit!
Our government has no population plan - it is growth at all costs to please their business sponsors and create more "vibrant" economy that will not see our lives more vibrant but see struggling to survive and make ends meet!

VivKay
My suggestion is that the answer to your question lies in one of the following two options.

1. We find an affordable way to re-use some of the 90+% of the water we waste daily, or

2. We find an affordable way to collect the water that we don't currently collect, e.g. stormwater run off.

Correction, we collect it, but then dump it. How crazy is that!

There is always a problem with water recycling; Gravity.
Where the dirty water ends up is always lower than where you need to
send the cleaned up water.
Water is heavy and needs a lot of energy to get it back up to where it
is needed. This makes the process expensive.

Desalination plants have the same problem, but they only have to
remove the salts. Renewable energy sources can be used to drive the
pumps.

VivKay said;
At our rate of population growth, we in Australia will have over 50
million by 2050.

That is a business as usual statement and such population will be
unsustainable by 2050. What must be borne in mind is that all
projections of the future by almost all future planners is based on
an unlimited supply of energy. It ain't gunna happen.

There is an increasing amount of evidence that peak oil may have
occurred in July 2008 when oil reached US$147 a barrel.
Whether it did or not does not really matter, in the time scales
being discussed here we just cannot plan on increasing city sizes
but on a gradual dispersion of our current city populations into the
regions. Likewise our food production will become local and
sustainable locally. Everything will become local.
The 1500km salad will be a thing of the past.