Digiwigi
Umm I know its a mine field. Think we need to go for a National accreditation for water tanks [dont ask]
Seriously the state Gov puts out hand books and the councils just do their own thing. Imagine the stress on the elderly. They are making people apply for permitts. The normal set back here is 6m but then there are other circumstances to consider.
' If you call the council and talk to three different people they will tell you three different things. I am not kiding. So finally you loose it and call the minister in charge who finally tells you he cant stop the local council from bring out their own bilaws.
Personally I am sus from my part. I think The GCCC have it in for Beattie. The poor people are just the porns who will be fined and some end up loosing their homes in years to come because they cant afford to fix it
Maybe the fences of the future should double up as water tanks.
It nice to chat with somebody who can think a bit to be honest with you.

Person Against Live Exports, it is indeed very annoying when simple and highly significant factors are ignored, by article-writers on this forum, correspondents, politicians and the general community.

I support the widescale implementation of water tanks. But we’ve got to be careful about it. There are some major concerns;

Most urban properties cannot hold a tank big enough to truly drought-proof the residents. So in dry times when the tanks are empty, the demand on the public system is likely to be just about as big as it is now (actually, progressively larger when you factor in the rapid population growth rate in just about all our water-stressed urban areas).

While the ideal would be to find a balance between using tank water and mains supply, if tank water is free (the cost of tank having been paid) while mains water carries a cost (and no doubt a much-increased cost in the near future), then people are going to use their tank water entirely until it is gone.

So while the demand on the public system is likely to be greatly reduced for a lot of the time if tanks are installed on a wide scale, it would still need to be fully maintained and indeed progressively increased in order to cater for dry times. Indeed it would need to be improved with just the same urgency as it would if no-one installed a tank.

Thus, tanks can give us all a bit of a false sense of security.

continued

And the worst thing of all is that with the widespread implementation of tanks and the resultant large reduction in demand on public system, our pea-brained leaders are just going to keep on encouraging more and more water-consumers to move into the stressed areas. They’ll just see in their normal blinkered manner that growth can continue unabated. They won’t feel any pressure to slow the population growth rate, let alone stabilize it.

But crikey, widescale implementation of tanks beats stuffing around with the northern rivers or NSW or QLD hands down.

The great advantage of the water crisis SHOULD be an awakening in the general community and amongst all levels of government of the imperative to stop bloody well forever expanding the demand on stressed resources, to get the bijeezus off the continuous growth spiral and to gear ourselves towards a stable population that can be comfortably supported by a renewable resource base, with a huge safety margin to get us through the worst times.

It’s a pretty simple and obvious message. But very few people are getting it!

Ludwig

Have you considered how enticing SEQ will be to potential migrants under level 8 water restrictions, whatever they turn out to be? And if the people dont come, the property market collapses, then everyone wakes up to the big con.

Yes indeed Fester.

But you can bet your last razoo that Beatty will still be espousing the virtues of rapid growth in Queensland even when SEQ is virtually crippled under greatly increased water restrictions. In fact, you can just imagine him hollering across the border; “Nooooo don’t stop coming to luvly Qweenslayand. Please keep coming. Pleeaaase……….waaaaaah boo hoo hooooo!! !! !!”

What a crying shame it is apparently going to have to be a major decline in the quality of life for existing residents that stops the influx rather than thoughtful government policy.

rojo,
There are some very good reasons to give free tanks or to heavily subsidise them.
My local council gives $500 dollars subsidy but requires a minimum 7,000 litre tank, which is fair enough as that is a size that can make a difference to a homes supply. It can cost around the $500 for site preparation, materials and pipe work. So for most households the cost is going to be around $1,600 or so.
There is currently a waiting time of around 3 months to get a tank.

The NSW Govt has just announced up to $1,500 subsidy, in the near future. Around this neck of the woods the installation of tanks has been put on hold! There are many in the community who simply cannot afford to put in a tank.
Last night it rained heavily, which is very good but if it continues to rain then the dams will fill up, the crisis will be over and the pollies will do nothing.
Many years ago there was a scheme afoot to tunnel through the Great Dividing Range and turn some of the Nth Qld rivers' water into the western rivers. Ion Iddreas (hope I got Ion's name right) wrote a book on it, or one that discussed it among other things. Seemed like a good idea at the time.