I think it would be foolish to revert back to our old water-wasting days.Most of us are used to and comfortable with observing the current Wednesday-Sunday AM PM garden watering.And whats so bad about washing the car with a watering can.
We live on the driest continent so lets keep a healthy respect for H2o.

Good idea and while we're at it let's build high domed roofs over all the dams to cut down evaporation.

Water is no longer a resource and has become a saleable commodity in many council areas.

I should be entitled to use as much water as I can afford to pay for.

In other words, as long as I can pay the bill I am allowed to waste as much water as I like.

Maybe it's time for a re-think on how it is being managed.

Soon it will be privatised and from previous experience, it will then be too late.

We should view water as a finite commodity that we have no right to waste.
Now in perceptual abundace, it may one day be worth more than gold.
I think we should teach our kids a new appreciation of water and add the concept that without it we can no longer exist.

Why make a virtue out of a necessity?

Water restrictions have increased to the point where I know of people whose gardens are dying for lack of water. (And while they are dying they still permit wealthy people to build swimming pools. Close to me on my inner city block there are no fewer than four swimming pools on the region bounded by the roads enclosing the area in which my house is located.) In Queensland, elderly people, who are forced to water their gardens with buckets of water rather than with hoses, are suffering injuries from the weights they must carry.

I have always been a frugal user of all natural resources including water. However the restrictions are even hard for me to comply with these days.

The principle reason why there is a water crisis in Queensland should be blindingly obvious. Queensland's population doubled to 4 million between 1974 and 2005. In spite of the fact that our dams are running dry and the residents of the Mary Valley stand to have their communities sitting atop good agricultural land inundated with water to meet the growth in demand for water, the Queensland Government aims to increase the population of South East Queensland alone by another 1.1 million by 2026?

What is the reason for this stupidity? Queenslanders don't need more people. With proper government planning and training of people we have more than what we need now.

It is done for no reason other than to suit land speculators and property developers who need ever larger numbers of people to increase the value of their investment. In order to enrich themselves they are prepared to sacrifice the quality of life of everyone else, the environment, other species who are now being driven to extinction in South East Queensland, and future generations.

By all means we must do what we can to get throught the crisis that unblelievably irresponsible political leaders like John Howard, Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=818#14696) have caused, but let's stop making the crisis any worse than it is now.

Considering water covers 2/3 of the planet and is found in every cloud floating by I suspect that it would be difficult even for propaganda pumping governments to create a situation where it was considered as valuable as gold. I wouldn't think the public would be that stupid.

Why don't you just face the fact that governments haven't built the infrastructure needed to manage the resource for a dry continent and an expanding population and they take the heat off their faux paus by putting everything on the general populus. How many dams have been built in your state in the last 10 years? We need to observe restrictions currently because they have put us in this situation but there is no need to flagellate ourselves over the issue indefinitely. I heard today that the desalination plants that were rejected by the powers that be are all over the middle east. The government just doesn't want to pay for them when they can spend our money on things that can more directly improve their popularity.

That evaporation limiting idea put forward in here is interesting. I wonder if it is achievable. Dams have a huge surface area so there must be a whole heap of evaporation going on. My swimming pool used to be extremely thirsty. It was quite stressful for a while when the water restrictions started kicking in and I needed to pump in hundreds of litres every week. Then I got a pool cover and the level just keeps going up rather than down. I haven't looked back. Yet dams seem to have a much larger surface area to volume ratio. I wouldn't expect them to go up if covered due to the draining but I bet an incredible water loss would be stopped.

mjpb,

There are no cost-free technological fixes for water shortages. It requires energy one way or the other to evaporate saline water and turn it not fresh water. Desalination plants require finite global-warming fossil fuels to work. Even where wind or solar power generations are used, those generators have a finite life expectancy and require fossil fuels in their manufacture.

The only solution is to reduce demand, and before we reduce demand we have to make our politicians stop increasing the demand. If population growth is not stopped, many Australians may soon find themselves before long living in conditions now akin to those of third world countries, where most do not have access to tap water.

---

We must also begin to wind back, rather that increase, our exports of coal. For political leaders such as Peter Beattie and John Howard to contemplate increasing Australia's exports of coal when the world is staring in the face runaway global warming, which will, in all likelihood turn our already dry contintent into a barren desert, is criminal. (See also http://candobetter.org/about#coal)

Evaporation is very high in this country. To help prevent this, we could always try what some farmers do. Its not pretty but much cheaper than trying to roof-in massive areas over dams, AND it recycles. What is it? Simply, empty softdrink bottles slung in nets to float on the waters surface - pool cover for large areas. Of course, that then limits the fishing (income-earner via fishing licences), and spoils the natural beauty and limits the use by wildlife, but then we need to decide whats more important.

Water is a resource and needs to be treated as such. It is valuable. I am appalled that we still allow urban housing to be built without a compulsory rainwater tank. (It would be even better but unfortunately too costly to build underground tanks that were not prone to such high levels of evaporation.) Even if such water was only used for gardens and car washing it would save something.
I am also appalled that we still allow the building of private swimming pools. Sure, it is great for some people to have a pool in the backyard but it is a luxury we need to go without in Australia. We also need to cease growing rice and cotton - they take too much water. Let's preserve the water we have for the major fruit and vegetable crops we need.
Yes, could do a lot. We will not. State governments will get in the way - and they have the responsibility for water resources under our Constitution. Better and easier to claim and blame Federal politics.
I also suggest that we should be planting a minimum of one tree for each Australian in Australia each year and another tree for each Australian in the rest of the world. It would take water initially but would eventually provide climate change. Imagine adding 40 plus million trees to the planet each year!

Daggett

Shame on you for trying to spoil this blind men and the elephant pantomime.

I can remember days when there were no water restrictions, water wasn't even metered, and if you left on the hose all night all you worried about was the mud. And the really great thing was that there were no parasites lurking about trying to convince people that water was liquid gold so that they could flog revolting desalinated/recycled rubbish for a fortune. And why was this? Could it be due, as Daggett claims, to his dangerous and ludicrous claim that more people means less water per person? I am glad that I am seated else I should surely fall about laughing at such ignorance. I believe it to be due to the mysterious Emty worm which resides in water pipes Australia wide, sucking us all dry. As there seems to be no remedy in sight for this crafty worm, I can only agree with Goddess' sentiments. But If you must have more, then for goodness sake buy a tank. The Emty worm hasn't gotten into one yet, but I believe that it might have a go at gnawing into a few quite soon.

communicat, why cease growing cotton and rice? surely a farmer should be able to choose the most profitable crop for his/her business. When water is abundant there aren't big enough markets for such perishable produce if it were all fruits and vegetables. When no water is available cotton and rice just aren't grown. A dangerous position with permanent plantings, which require irrigation to survive during prolonged drought.

A 5.000 liter water tank on every city home in Australia, by law only that water for lawns and gardens.
Add the water never taken from dams as a result.
Better lawns better gardens and a better way than restrictions with not much cost.
How much extra stored water would it create?

im glad we are still talking about water, we are in for a hot dry summer down here in S.A and you can imagine all the water sucking thats going to go on.
I agree with Belly that tanks ought to be mandatory, in our state they are when a new house is built-but what about ALL PREVIOUS DWELLINGS not to mention APARTMENTS and FLATS etc- will these types of dwellers be exempt from any water conscious behaviour or responsibility?
I mention this as im sure this is a big part of the problem, people with no connection to the LAND and NATURE, cant seem to get their heads around the personal responsibility we all must face collectively, well that is if we want it to be a successful collective.
I think apartments and flats/ units etc ought still collect and store water for its tenants use, im not sure how this could be managed? or what area the water would be allocated to? still it COULD and SHOULD in my minds eye, be done! ALL HOUSING DEVELOPERS and OWNERS need to adapt to this responsibility from now, regardless of how old their building is, they cannot escape their responsibility of the collective, just because they let out their premises (or sell off) at a profit , to residents/ clients with little power over the management of the property.

Belly,

Even rainwater tanks incur a significant environmental cost, particularly if we aim to have one in every dwelling. Whilst I think it would be far better that the world's manufacturing capacity be dedicated more towards producing useful items such as rainwater tanks rather than throw-away junk which largely ends up in landfill after a matter of years at most, we must still bear in mind that:

* Plastic rainwater tanks require finite non-renewable petroleum for their manufacture and will not endure indefinitely, anyway.

* Galvanised iron tanks require non-renewable non-renewable metals for their manufacture and even their life span is also finite.

* all require the burning of fossil fuels, which will accelerate global warming, for their manufacture.

As I wrote above, there are no cost-free technological fixes for the predicament we find ourselves in.

The first we need to do is to stop increasing our demand for water. This means that Queensland Premier Beattie's demented dream to increase the population of this dry continent to 50 million (http://au.news.yahoo.com/070904/2/14cda.html) at a time when we are staring in the face desertification caused by global warming and poor land stewardship, must be loudly repudiated by every thinking person in this country.

Daggett, try concrete tanks.....

As for water use, we use 1746gigalitres of water annually for cotton, and 1230GL for rice. Horticulture (vegies/fruit) uses 2085GL annually. So cotton and rice arent chewing up quite as much as some wuold have you believe. This is despite the fact that more and more horticulture is using highly efficient drip systems to water and they still have a higher usage.

Then again, it all depends on how you twist the numbers to look at them. Grazing uses 2871GL water a year - shock horror!! It apparently takes 16,000l of water to produce just 1kg of steak. This sounds terrible. But then if you look at the kj density, steak takes just 0.19L/kj, whereas the 70L it takes to produce an apple results in a wter use of 0.35L/kj - nearly double. Therefore we must stop growing fruit! not.

Country Gal,

Thanks for the stats. The quantity of water consumed in food production seems to dwarfs our domestic water consumption.

---

I assume that you are aware that concrete requires combustion of fossil fuels in its manufacture. The energy necessary to ceate the strong chemical bonds in concrete has to come from somewhere. Presumably the greater energy cost will be offset by the greater durability of concrete tanks.

I am not in a position to judge which of the alternative materials for rainwater tank construction - plastic, galvanised iron or concrete - is the most desirable (or, rather, least undesirable) from the point of view of the environment, but my point remains that whatever we do to solve the water crisis for over 21 million Australians will incur a substantial environmental cost, and that cost can only become greater, and possibly even too great, if our political leaders insist upon increasing population numbers in order to suit the short-term selfish interests of land speculators and the malignant property development sector.

Guys,
I live in Sydney and for my own purposes, selfish or otherwise, I can live with our water restrictions the way they are.
Other states' restrictions are different to ours so I can understand this being a sensitive issue especially when applied to agribusiness.
However, at the end of the day, what's the point of wasting any finite resource.

Add stainless steel tanks to the list, they last the longest and are practially indistructable when used for water storage.

dagget,

anything we do will have an impact, so are you suggesting that we throw in the towel and return to the forests?

Water tanks mean that we reduce the load on our water system, water reclaimation and desalination means that we can put more back into our dams and water ways.

Relaxing the water restrictions now would be insane. Those who are advocating management via market forces are ignoring a very basic factor of human nature. People adapt, and for it to be a real inhibitor you would have to price water at a point which is garaunteed to see the government that brings it in thrown out.

>anything we do will have an impact, so are you suggesting that we throw in the towel and return to the forests?<

Are you implying that mass immigration is the only alternative to this? How about the middle ground of letting the population find its own equilibrium instead of being dictated to by greedy creeps?

Whether immigration has any per capita benefit or cost is far less certain than global warming, though I suspect that Bippo the Clown with a flashing "Immigration is Tops" sign is more than enough assurance for some. Why wouldn't it be? There wouldn't be a buck in flogging water without it.

James Purser,

Why does my simple point elude your understanding?

Obviously rain water tanks will reduce our load on our water system, and in and of it self that is a good thing.

But that is not the whole story. Manufucturing and installing a water tanks to give millions of Australian households water will necessarily deplete the earth's stock of non-renewable petroleum or mineral resources and add to global warming. Of course, as I wrote before, it would be better for resources to be used on rainwater tanks than on what they are largely wasted on at the moment, however ther can be no guarantee that even if we do this that our planet can sustain it.

Also, if more and more of us are crowded into smaller parcels of land, the capacity of each of us to collect rainwater will be diminished. As I wrote on an earlier occasion, this is what the Real Estate Institute of Queensland has plannned for our future (see, also, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#53620). An article in Brisbane's Courier Mail of 23 June 2006 described these plans:

" ... we will be living on smaller blocks as more people move to the southeast corner (of Queensland). ... The current water crisis will mean nature's drop will be rare, ensuring most houses will have minimal lawns and garden. ... A session in entertainment rooms will replace the smell of fresh air and a potter around in the vegie patch. Besides most workers won't be bothered about gardening at the end of a long day at the office."

... and that is if we still have the necessary natural resources left to allow the continuing manufacture of these marvellous electronic gizmos that the REIQ would have us believe will replace our need for fresh air, flowers and trees. I suspect that more likely many of us will have neither entertainment rooms nor outside gardens if the REIQ gets its way.

daggert you must see the world as it is and as it will be not the dream world you look for.
Man will continue to use machinery and build things he needs and things he thinks he needs, reality has a part to play.
Country homes on single house blocks or large farms have no other storage than rain water tanks, and mostly we live well.
Oh yes Christmas can be hard, city visitors who waste water just as they do every day.
But take my single block, one tank ,plastic, 3.000 gallons, all water recycled on the garden via a septic system.
No waste water, rare use of town water during very dry times, unless visitors stay for weeks.
tanks can be simple underground concrete or even plastic or steal ,and very large even the natural clay can make a well or tank, keep it safe however children die in such tanks.
City rain water should not be used for drinking ever it carries what is in the air.
The other impact is the better lawns and gardens ,they play a part in cleaner air and much more, more trees equal more rain.
The thought we should let the gardens die rather than try to use water better is at best childlike.
The thought that building rainwater tanks is further hurting the environment is hugely funny but sad too.

POint taken Daggert, I was looking at the endurance ability of the material.

As for those who would advocate letting gardens die, realise that this will result in increased energy usage? Why, because a shady garden with lots of plants and lawn has a cooling effect on the house in the middle of summer. Less airconditioning required (and lets face it, we get pretty hot in summer). The other thing to take into account is ground movement and its affect on buildings. Continuing to water your garden (as efficiently as possible of course), reduces the soil movement particularly on reactive soils, and cuts the incidence of cracking of walls and foundations. Wagga has had some houses condemned due to movement thanks to the drought and water restrictions. By all means use water wisely, but remember some of the flow on effects too.

Country Gal,
You always make sensible, interesting and informed points.
Good Work!

Upon reflection,I think I may not have expressed myself as clearly as I could have.

I am in favour of whatever measures which incurs the least environmental cost which can get us out of the mess that we are in. It may well be plastic rainwater tanks, stainless steel rainwater tanks, galvanised iron rainwater tanks or concrete water tanks. It just may be the odd dam or desalination plant, or yet further restrictions on our use of water that is the least damaging way to achieve this, but I would like to see the hard evidence first.

However, it is insane to adopt these measures whilst at the same time increasing the demand for that water as the Queensland Government is now doing.

We should not have doubled Queensland's population from 2 million in 1974 to 4 million in 2005 without first ensurig that there was adequate water for those people.

For Queensland Peter Beattie to encourage further population growth when the residents around Wyaralong (http://www.stopthewyaralongdam.org) and the Mary Valley (http://www.savethemaryriver.com) stand to have their comunities inundated as a consequence of previous population growth actively encouraged by himself (see http://candobetter.org/node/118#FourMillionQueenslanders) is criminally irresponsible.

110 million to the horse industry (make the rich richer?)
How many water tanks would that buy?
How much was the Sydney APEC meeting? (more tanks again)
Need I say more?

Good point!
I hopr I never was a water waster but I know that every time I turn the tap on I am aware of how much I am using.

By the way everyone, google up the APEC mission statement for a short but interesting read.