Heartbreaking and only just starting this drought every drought hurts us all, why can we not have another bigger better Snowy River scheme? sent our sewage inland and turn some part of rivers at least some flood waters inland?

Yes Belly it is tough for those experiencing it. In this large country someone always has it tough. We can't complain here really. It has been a dry few moths, but we had more rain in January & February than we had all year in 93 & 94, & are still above average for year to date. Lucky.

I read Ion Idriess book on turning the northern rivers inland, as a kid at school. I love the idea, but it's not that easy.

Unfortunately it takes a huge amount of energy to pump water up hill. This is the problem with Turnbulls Snowy 2.0 scheme. The power losses in his water "battery" are huge.

By the time you have treated & pumped our sewage over the range it becomes too expensive for irrigation of fodder crops. The same with flood waters. Then floods don't last long. It took only 3 days to wash a kilometre of my fences into Morton bay last year. That flood was almost a kilometre wide, & up to 30 metres deep. It takes huge pumps & huge amounts of electricity to move much of that, before it has gone out to sea.

Then the energy problem. Windmills are useless for this. They just can't produce enough power quickly enough, without covering all the coast with the things. You would need at least a couple of Swanbank size huge coal fired power houses to do anything much. Good luck getting that past the greenies, who want the farmers to fail anyway.

Then of course, like the Snowy, the greenies would demand most of the water for "environmental" uses.

Perhaps a better scheme would be some huge dams, like Cubbie station, to catch the inland river water when it does flow, to prevent it getting to Lake Eyre salt flats, becoming useless as it evaporates away. Good luck getting that past the greenies & vested interests as well.

Droughts are part and parcel of Australia; always have been, always will be. Our climate is another reason why mass immigration is so idiotic.

Hey Belly,
If you are all willing to pay me a reasonable sum of money I'm sure I can fix the problem.

Let this country first look at Israel, what they have done, then maybe small steps look at what we have done, my sewage is, and must be here about 40 klm as the crow fly,s from the coast, recycled, its every drop of water makes my garden grow, without it no garden, tank water, to the north coastal sewage is pumped about the same distance inland, this time from a highly populated area, it is cleaned and used on a hardwood plantation, planted for that purpose, we still pump even sewage untreated in to the sea in places. so why not pump that inland, why not a chain of lakes, like those we build for power stations? to keep the pumping lengths manageable? we can do it, in some cases solar power can do it, pumping only in the day? thoughts, we have only begun why not take river water too? solar in the day power at night much more in flood time

Hi Belly, the problem is also one of over exploration of resources. Many farms are situated on marginal land, which is fine in good seasons, but a disaster in bad. Farmers have become much better at land management and animal husbandry, but still find it difficult when disasters like droughts hit.
I know the sceptics will not agree, but all the creditable scientific evidence is indicating more extreme, and more frequent adverse weather patterns for Australia. Those who pooh-hooh climate change do so at our peril.
Your proposals for new and greater projects similar to the Snowy Mountains scheme are certainly ambitious, but not without merit. I dare say it will take governments greater than we have now with the intestinal fortitude to kick start those kinds of projects.