Rojo,

I did not say that I was against chlorination, which has proved its value now that people are buying bottle water, sans chlorine, and finding themselves with dental decay as bad as it was pre-chlorination.

My reference to chlorination re recycled water was intended to be exactly as it was meant - if they chlorinated our water for our own good without permission from us, is it OK for them to do the same again for our own good? After all, we cannot live without water.

But, let's stick to the subject. Have you any ideas about water yourself? Have you any ideas about how we can get our do-nothing politicians to remove their fingers and do something useful?

Don't sidetrack yourself just to have a little sport with me. This is a serious subject. Have a go at me for anything you don't agree with, but stick to the subject, please.

Once again we see that one of the most fundamental points of all concerning our water problems is not even within the mindset of respondents. Leigh alluded to it in his first post (“And how much has our population increased in 50 years!”), but no reaction has ensued.

Of course I am talking about the constantly and rapidly increasing demand for water exerted by population growth, directly in the cities and towns where the bloody water situation is critical!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

How insane is it that NO effort… not even a suggestion… from our three tiers of government or from the general community is made regarding the NEED to stop increasing the demand on stressed water supplies, at least until the supply issues are sorted out !

STOP stupid population growth into Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, etc NOW…. or at the very least, start working towards slowing it down.

If we can’t do this, then we are being TOTALLY disingenuous about dealing with our water issues.

Ludwig has raised a very interesting observation as to why we focus so much on the supply side and little on the demand side of the water debate. I suppose on the demand side, there are a lot of other factors that are being considered by politicians when setting immigration numbers or encouraging higher birth rates. The governments' view appear to be getting the people here (for reasons of skill shortages and economic growth etc) then think of a solution on how to cope with resource constraints, rather than being able to pre-emptively and pro-actively manage/plan for the issue. I support steady population growth for the sake of increased productivity, but it is very important to ensure adequate resource planning is undertaken.

Given the considerable section of the public(voters) having reservation on drinking recycled water, rather than to "educate" (used in a non-relative manner) them on the "benefits" of recycling we need to think of alternatives to solving the water crisis. I fully support the building of desalination plants around the country despite it being a costly option. If there is something money can buy with our increasing wealth why shouldn't we spend it on something that a significant part of the population want - pure water?

In the long run, we should be active in water conservation and tackling climate change issues, in order to ensure the viablity of future generations. Afterall as a minister said sometime ago on a morning program, he would like to see the population to double by around 2050, if i remember correctly..

Goku

Don’t you think that there is a rather huge contradiction between your support for population growth and your desire to address water conservation and climate change issues?

It makes no sense to push for everyone to reduce their consumption of water and energy if you are going to allow the number of consumers to rapidly and constantly increase.

The stabilization of population and hence demand is the biggest single factor in our struggle to address our water woes and greenhouse gas emissions in this country.

You support population growth for the sake of increased productivity. But we have had steady population growth and steadily increasing productivity since 1788! Obviously, increased productivity that is accompanied by population growth and hence does not lead to real per-capita increases is not the answer to this country’s economic or social woes. The ever-increasing productivity is putting ever-increasing stress on our already highly stressed resource base. It is not only water supplies that are stressed. There are many other areas of life-supporting, or at least, quality-of-life-supporting resources that are in decline.

Why do you support desalination plants? These are hugely energy-consumptive, which flies in the face of your desire to address climate change issues, and they serve to facilitate larger populations in cities and regions which quite frankly have enough people.

If a small number of desalination plants could help alleviate our water-supply issues without facilitating this absurd continuously increasing demand on those supplies, then ok. In other words, if they were brought online as part of a policy of population stabilization and overall sustainability, then fine. But not otherwise.

Might I suggest that Australia's current level of prosperity has almost everything to do with technology and education and nothing to do with population growth. Population growth is a per capita zero or negative sum game that enriches a few at the expense of all. Water shortages are just one consequence and provide an opportunity to rip people off further. How anyone can look at the many tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure required to cope with more people, the dismal state of health and education funding, and the parasitic reliance on skilled people from other countries, and still think that population growth is raising living standards has me flummoxed.

Leigh, perhaps you meant fluoridation for the teeth, chlorination is for "cleaning" the water. i couldn't see why you would have been against chlorination, but you probably weren't.

But yes I have great ideas on water. We need more of it, which means trying not to allow any to go to waste.

1- recycling allows an approx 80% water recovery, effectively meaning you only require a fraction of total use as fresh inflow. For towns/cities that don't usually have a supply problem this recycled water could be used for agriculture and/or sporting fields parks etc(as is already being done in many places)

2- storm water management. Difficult to find room for storage in city centres but urban sprawl will have low lying areas that could be used for temp storage of urban runoff. Reliable sites could have their own treatment plants and pump directly into mains supply.
Identify possible underground aquifers that could be overcharged and recovered later.

3- further encourage rainwater tanks and try and have the overflow directed to the garden, not straight to the drain. Reservoirs could be built under garages, basements or under the back yard if there is no room for free standing tanks.

4- create "new" water, cloudseed over the catchment, desalination or as a last resort pipe it in.

5- encourage commercial water users in the cities to move to areas with better supply. This will also have the advantage of reducing population pressures and free up more water