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Now that I have taken the first steps to the moral high ground, thought a poll on water recycling would be interesting, following on from Ashore's one on flushing. :roll:
So the question is: how much recycling do you do?
Multiple choices is possible
You vote is private.
You left out a couple. So I couldn't vote.
I never water the lawn in autumn or summer.
I never fill the spa in Summer.
I mulch the garden and only hand water in Summer.
We recycle grey water indoors. So much for the private voting, huh?
It's simple enough, and considered a little strange if you don't do it around here. To a point, it's nearly impossible to not recycle a little grey water every day.
Flush the toilet, water runs over the top to wash your hands, which then gets flushed down next time.
We also save the bathwater for washing clothes. Simple enough since the washing machine is 4 feet from the bathtub, the bathwater is clean (no soap at least), the machine has a pump to draw the bathwater and the machine automatically selects clean water to rinse. We need the bath for the little fella, and we use all of that water in clothes washing. Without it, the water bill would be scary.
Washing dishes? Rinse everything qucikly, soap it all up, rinse it all off. Clean dishes, less than half a sink full of water used for rinsing only.
It's just the done thing around here.
I don't like everything the locals do, but occasionally they hit the right solution on the head. :D
We've always been water conscious but are going to have to get more so when we move on the block as we'll have to catch all our own water.
We use treated effluent in the toilets and on the gardens. We rely on tank water so we have a good incentive to do something. When you can't just assume that it will never run out like some town folk seem to, it adjusts your attitude to water use.
We use a container in the shower to collect the cold water. My in-laws next door are doing the same thing.
We keep the kids bath water and use it to flush the toilet.
We don’t water our plants. We let nature looks after them and nature has done a great job so far.
We don’t take showers for longer than 5 minutes, except my niece who I have to keep reminding her over and over again.
The in-laws have 2 water tanks.
G'day Stuart,
No mention of rainwater tanks in the poll.
Don't ask the Vic Gov' on their stance on this. We won't be building any dams and they're useless until it rains (or words to that effect, as our Dipstick Environment Minister said on the Sunday news a couple of weeks ago), all we think we should do is impliment water restrictions long after we should have started them. :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :((
Hi Waldo,
Sorry - rainwater tanks are implied in the collection, and then how the water is used (house vs garden) The focus was more on what you do, rather than how you do it.
Totally agree with you viewpoint about how it has all been mismanaged to date. We should be in stage 4 now (or worse) and be kept there long after the rains arrive until the dams actually recover, not until they just start filling.
Even rethink the whole immigration thing / country population goals. We can't permanently sustain the current population with the current management strategies. The strategies need changing, and the resources have time to recover, then see what is left over and how many more people that equates to (with a BUFFER for unusual weather conditions!!!)
We don't have any redundancy. What happens if a dam's contents are lost (and one of the big ones here), through contamination (deliberate or otherwise)?
Yes, population is the killer. In 60-70 years at the current rate, we will have doubled the population. The world is warming up and Melbourne will get less rain. Plainly it's not sustainable.
There are no rivers left to dam unless we want to rob more water from the dying Murray.
If we started with stage 4 water restrictions in November, there would be a huge outcry from the gardeners of Melbourne.
True, but at some stage, we are just going to have to bite the bullet. Commercial gardeners need to start looking at techniques used in other countries such as Israel where they accept that water is a limited commodity. Home gardeners need to ensure that their gardens don't impact any more than they have to on the limited resource.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grunt
As a nation we have to recognise that we live in a desert country, and the changing climate (temporary or otherwise) is not going to help. If more stringent actions are not taken immediately, the pain suffered trying to change when it is way too late will hurt a lot more.
Even to the point that we should recognise that some things just shouldn't be done in this country - water guzzling industries etc. On a very local scale, don't allow non water efficient equipment to be sold, don't allow open transportation of water (cf pipes), even plants that have high water requirements should be limited, so individuals are not tempted to waste potable water to keep them alive.
Haven't been able to find any info on it but I heard on the news the other night that a document was leaked that talks about introducing a tax on rainwater use. Anyone know anything about it? Was a Fed government thing.
I agree completely.
Agriculture needs to stop using so much water. Rice and cotton are not things that should be grown in the Murray/Darling basin.
I posted this short Flash documentary in another thread but I think it's worth another look. This is what agriculture should be doing in this country. Jordan
It was reported but the Federal Water Minister (that rich bloke, can't remember his name) said it was not and will not be on the agenda. As we know, politicians don't lie so we can rest easy,
My folks claimed the pitiful tank subsidy from the government and the next year they got a bill from the council for water catchment (I believe this nearly negated the subsidy in one year). Which to my reckoning is their own roof space. I told him to send them a bill for upkeep of catchment area!
Pete
G'day SilentC,Quote:
Originally Posted by silentC
It was the headline on the Herald Sun down here, proposed by some stupid boffin.
The proposal: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...rom=public_rss
"Mr Matthews' email continued: "Governments have not yet considered the capture of water from roofs in rainwater tanks to be of sufficient magnitude to warrant the issuing of specific entitlements to use this class of water.
"However, if rainwater tanks were to be adopted on a large scale such that their existence impacts significantly on the integrated water cycle, consideration could be given to setting an entitlement regime for this class of water."
Such a regime already exists for farmers catching rainwater and storing it in dams.
A residential household version could include a licensing arrangement and taxes for those wanting to collect more than a set amount."
THE Federal Government has rejected suggestions it plans to tax rainwater tanks:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...rom=public_rss
THE Federal Government's water reform commission has ruled out any plans to recommend a levy on rainwater collected by the owners of residential tanks:
http://www.news.com.au/business/stor...rom=public_rss
There's just about only one thing that I agree with farmer FIL on, and that is the hide of local gov' ect. to collect a tax/levy on water falling on your own property, then collecting it into your own damn and the water runoff goes no where else but your dam. He can only collect 10% of water either falling onto his land or caught by rooves of dwellings, eg. shed, house etc. ! :((
...and when theres no water left to collect and tax, the brastrdas will tax our urine. :no:
Thats a p!ss poor idea.
Serious question, I don't live in town, so I'm not subject to level 1,2 3, or 15 restrictions, our family are subject to the restrictions I lay down as required.
Now for the question, is level 1 or 2 or whatever the same in Melbourne as it is in Brisvegas as it is in tinylittlecountrytown? What do each of the levels restrict the householder to?
Ok that's two questions, and I'm not adding I don't give a rats ring option either. :q
l was teaching sustanable agriculture and it came home with a bang how much we need things to look right .the design for the school it was more important how it look than being sustanable there water use was high and a simple design changes were blocked because it changed the view :doh:
easy way to save water get a lemon tree they do grow better if you do
on immigration when things dry up more what are we going to do use our planes and tanks to keep them out we as assies use more than our share of the planets stuff
fix the envioment and you fix the water problem
I'll just give them 40% of mine directly. They can do what they like with it then.:2tsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shedhand
Of course. But we are now in a situation where the environment is going to take decades to fix, and the water resource has been mismanaged into near oblivion. So we need to take steps in the meantime to sustain what is worth preserving until such time as the long term solutions can be (found, debated, changed, bought and buried as bad for business, resurrected, mooted, finally begrudgingly agreed to (typical political ########) and) acted upon.Quote:
Originally Posted by SPIRIT
Waldo half the problem is that farmers block off rivers creeks etc with dams and the like.
Have you heard of Cubby station? They dammed the Darling and made a dam that Sydney CBD all the way to Manly would drown in. They pay less than 1% of the price city people pay for their water. All so they can grow cotton.
Anyway could I pose a different viewpoint. Let's suppose there is no water crisis but should people get worked up about it Government can pretend to be doing big deal stuff when all they are doing is what they should have done some years ago.
Regarding water restrictions here we went level 2 and water use increased by 50% compared to same time last year. This gave Mike Rann a great chance to feature in a TV campaign for level 3 "This is why my govenment etc etc" BUT the great thing is that water restictions increased use and thus the money the state govenment gets from the water company. We all know how much govenments love having money to bribe us with at election time.
So if they just said we will have a water market where everyone buys water we will all pay the one price. Cotton and Rice would have to pay too much for it to be economical. People who get good value from their water will pay the price and home users will have price pressure not to use too much. Then there would be no crisis, the bureaucracy would just set how much water the market could access according to catchments and the like.
Studley
PS I said that I don't do anything to recycle water because I don't but my lawn hasn't had a sprinkler on it for about 8 or 9 months lots of mulch and I like Aussie Natives because they just handle dry weather and wait for the next rain
G'day Studley,Quote:
Originally Posted by Studley 2436
I know very well the situation re Cubby Station, as my late Dad was a Hydrographer who worked there taking water levels, run off collection etc, and worked on approving the application for it. And nothing meant to you, but what you wrote is a massive misconception. They havn't dammed the Darling, in fact Cubby Station takes no water from the Darling directly, they only collect water that is run off on their land only.
Yes, it collects water greater than Sydney harbour.
:)
"...Aussie Natives because they just handle dry weather and wait for the next rain."
The more people learn that the most efficient way to grow garden is to plant Aussive natives, top plants - pity that most people don't like them. :(
:chase:..........slight hijack, but worthy none the less.
Is it true that an Evaporative Cooler (roof mounted and ducted throughout house) uses close to 30 litres p/hour?
So if one of these was on for 24 hrs during a hot period, thats 720 litres down the tube?:(
G'day,
There's a good question from Matrix.
I'll put my hand up and say I'm guilty of that, if it's true. But like they were asking on the news last night for anyone to turn off non-essential power points etc. SWMBO justly said to the effect of, "Can't do, have to keep our little (13mths old) girl cool and comfortable in the house on a hot day" such as yesterday was at 41º.
I am gulty your honour.:;
How do you reckon they got by before air conditioners were invented? :wink:Quote:
Can't do, have to keep our little (13mths old) girl cool and comfortable in the house on a hot day
Actually, I lived in Sydney for 16 years and only ever lived in two houses that even had air conditioners. :) The sparky tried to talk us into putting one in here in the new place (600kms North of Melbourne) but we decided it wasn't necessary. I grew up here and the most we ever had was a table top electric fan for the really hot days.
Fair enough Waldo
Either way regarding Cubby they don't pay market rates for their water if they did they would either not use so much or find a more efficient use of it.
Same goes for everyone. If cotton and rice are so bad they would stop in a day if they had to pay full price for their water. If they are OK they would just keep on doing it.
Too much politics water rights and the like in it. Markets do this stuff so much better it is not funny. If it was in the market stuff would be grown that made money without needing a subsidy. Stuff that wasn't effective would be forgotten and bought more economically from other places.
Farmers would see their water expense rise or fall in direct relation to how efficiently they used it. Good farmers would prosper bad ones have to shut up shop, but there is nothing like the hip pocket nerve to stop all of us wasting water.
Studley
Quote:
Originally Posted by Studley 2436
The trouble with this approach is that it assumes that agriculture sources its water the same way as domestic users: ie the government or a central body like a water supply board builds the infrastructure to collect, store, treat, distribute and charge for water. If you want a truly level playing field then either someone pays for the infrastructure to pipe water to every farmer's gate, or we get rid of all the infrastructure and everyone collects, stores and treats their own water. I'm fine with the latter, I do it already.:U
Mick
Studley,
unlike domestic wastage of water which is pretty effortless (ie, you leave a tap running) wastage of water by farmers generally requires them to run a pump or something. So I'd say that direct waste by farmers is pretty minimal. Some crops (like rice or cotton) do use a lot of water, but I wonder how it compares to lawns and European style gardens that people insist on having? If people who wanted to water lawns or grow water dependant gardens were forced to collect and store all their garden water requirements how many would continue to do so? Most farmers pay for their own infrastructure for water collection and storage and most of this is water that would not have found its way into domestic water supplies but would have run down the river and into the sea. Now I'm not saying that water running down the rivers is wasted, I do know that some river systems don't have enough flow to keep them healthy. But this is a seperate issue to the "user pays" issue.
Now if somehow we end up sourcing all water intensive crops (rice, cotton,sugar cane, most fruit etc etc etc) from overseas because it's "cheaper" what happens when rising fuel prices make it uneconomical to import them and there's no local producers anymore?
Gets back to my point. There is no way a desert country should even consider growing water intensive crops such as rice and cotton (didn't know cotton was so demanding). There are plenty of countries that can and do, and on a global scale, we should be buying from them, and providing to them things we can do well.
Pity that is too utopian to work.
As to fuel prices making importing water intensive crops uneconomic, the cost of fuel would have to get so high, that we'd be in a situation that the current fuel type would have been abandoned.
If there was a sudden huge demand, then like bananas, within 12 months the local growers could respond to that demand. It's not like having to regrow 10 year old trees.
Buy organic rice as they use considerably less water to grow in then the big ag rice growers do.
Cotton should be replaced with Hemp. It improves the soil, you get to use the majority of the plant for making cloth or paper therefore an acre of hemp will produce significantly more usable fibre than cotton and it uses about 1/4 of the water.
Yeah Mick to get past the nuts and bolt the detail of structuring a market what I think is that if water was sold on an open market then it would be there to buy. You and I wouldn't be bidding there for our bath water too much mess to sort out to arrange delivery.Quote:
Originally Posted by journeyman Mick
SO what I think is that AGL and the like could bid buy water and then for the ones that own the pipes allready just sell it on to customers with a markup to cover their expense. The Farmers who buy it but have their own infrastructure don't have to pay someone in the middle but have to cover their own expenses.
The bit where it gets interesting on a consumer level is that say Mick and Studley open a water company which is like Dick Smith an office and a couple of desks. So we buy water pay whoever owns the pipes for delivery and clip the ticket but only just so that we can get our price below the other guy.
Yep Well anyway that is OK but things like big dams that farmers have. You can say we will charge you for what you have there but what do you do about the rest that is in the dam?
Perhaps someone pays for it and the farmer gets paid for his infrastructure? Might be that he just has to release it into the River going past but gets to clip the ticket on that.
Yep there would have to be nuts and bolts to work out but what we have now is a Government monopoly, just like telephones used to be. Just like when you couldn't get connected, couldn't get your own handset, had no choice of supplier and so on
No reason why the same thing can't happen with water. In fact it must for there to be any hope of a reasonable future in so many ways in this country.
Studley
Get your facts right man! Cubbie Station takes no water from the Darling River. The water is pumped out of the Culgoa river if and only IF it is in flood. As for your other comments that farmers are damming up all the rivers, HA! Have you ever left surburbia? Most rivers in this large dry land only run when there has been big rains somewhere. I have seen rivers way out west that are just a sandy bottom a few metres wide. After large rain they can become 5 kilometres wide overnight. A week later the water has run and they are just sandy bottoms again. We don't have big fast running rivers in this country. The murry is just a drain. Has been for millions of years. Cubby and all the others have spent millions of their own money to develop their dams to catch some of this flood water before the normally dry river becomes just that, dry again. Cubby rarely has their dams full, I have know of the station for 20 years and the dams have only been full twice. And for those that say that we should get rid of cotton and rice, fair enough. But if a farmer has an allocation for 300 megalitres of water then he will use that 300 megalitres to grow something, whether it is cotton, apples, hemp, trees or grain. So lets start paying big dollars for imported cotton and have a glut of apples and almonds! Oh and the same amount of water has been used! Yep, people are smart in this country!
Mate if you want to get a South Aussie upset just mention Cubbie Station and Cotton. They pay almost nothing as I understand it for their water. They got a good deal from the QLD government.
What I was saying about one single national market stands. If water were priced by the market then everyone would pay a fair price. The Federal Government could decide how much water to allow pumped and how much for the system.
Obviously I have you riled up enough to join and make a post although I think I was completely reasonable in what I said. Water is a commodity and it must be properly priced to ensure it will be used efficiently. Figures I have seen vary but range between 80% and 93% of the total use of water in Australia being used by farmers for irrigation. However the irrigated land produces the vast part of Australia's farm wealth.
If water were priced on the market there would be other problems. Orchardists and Vine growers would do OK because they get about $10,000 of produce for each megalitre. Cotton and Rice growers get about $110 of produce for each megalitre. So we would very quickly see everyone trying to grow grapes and oranges. This would then lead to a glut crash the market and nobody would be good.
The solution is still a long way away on this but we must decide which farms and what type of farming we are going to have in this country so that everyone can have a sustainable future.
Studley
and the Culgoa runs into...?Quote:
Originally Posted by balquhidder
we live in a rural area so have no town watter.
we have always depended on rain watter for all the indor use we have a 20,000 gallon tank on the house and a 5,000 gallon tank atop the hill. the water gets pumped from teh 20,000 up to the 5,000 every coulpa months and gravity feeds back to teh house, this was done due to the large number of power outages. we also have a gass hot water heater and gass oven/griller and cooktop so wee have watter hot and cold and can cook if the power is out. we have never even come close to running out of watter in teh 20 years the house has been here even with 5 of us living here.
we also have 3 large dams that are used for all outside watter as well as around the farm. also pumped up to teh top of the hill.
how dare they use al that watter to produce food for the rest of you buggers to eat when it can be got from over seas where they are so enviromentaly minded they even recycle human waste to fertalise it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Studley 2436
Go easy Carl, I grew up in the country. How water was a big big issue back then in the 70's and 80's and still is. I think it always will be and a better solution will be to get as much of it's allocation out of the hands of politicians as possible.
Most of the problem with water use is that a lot of it was allocated by National Party politicians buying votes in Country NSW. The vast part of the water that comes out of the Murray Darling system is taken by NSW irrigators.
Many of these farmers are on land that is not really viable whatever is done.
I think it is fair that some sensible corrections are made. Like taking less water for dryland farming in places like Hay, I would like to see a bit more for orchardists here in SA at present their whole orchards are likely to be lost forever due to being dried out. I would like to see some more water get down to the Coorong for some so called environmental flow.
In the times when I was a kid there was a really big flood every couple of years. I reckon in ten years on the river I saw three big ones when the River was up into the main street of Berri. You don't see that anymore. People are building houses and farms on the floodplains which used to be left as scrub due to the frequent floods. I don't think I am being reckless to say that there is too much water being taken. Flood and drought used to be part of the cycle but the flood part has largely gone now.
I will stand up and say market pricing on water will be good for everyone. Good farmers will prosper, the environment and thus tourism will benefit and downstream in SA we will get enough to manage which we don't at present either our farmers or Adelaide.
It would be pretty dumb to say just stop farming and there will be tons of water and I am not saying that. The fact is though that most of the water taken is taken for farming. Everyone should tighten up I think.
Stephen
Hooray, someone else who knows the facts about Cubbie Station. :2tsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by balquhidder
And the point is that it's pumped when only in flood, otherwise the rest of their water comes from their own dams. As Alex points out it flows into the Darling. It's like telling my FIL, a beef farmer, that he can only collect 10% of the water that falls on his 900 acres, the rest has to be allowed to flow into the creeks, but those creeks only run within his property - sounds stupid doesn't it.
My late Dad, like Alex was a hydrographer for many years - his last field area area he worked included Roma, Cunamalla, Blackall etc. and the surrounding western corner of Qld. so he knew the area well, then when his health went he went into water licensing (still with Queensland Water Resources) and was responsible for giving Cubby their license after a very long and lengthy approval process - I'm not saying anything about anyone - just to say that there's a lot of carp going on about Cubby and misinformation and that Cubby's license was all above board - but nowthe Qld gov' has decided to play politics with it - as they do when the public gets aroused be it rightly or wrongly - in this case wrongly. there my 2¢.
I won't buy into the Cubbie station argument, as I don't know enough about it to give a considered opinion.
In NSW in the 70's, 80s & 90s, it was common to come up with a set of operating rules for regulated rivers that would allow a water allocation to irrigators that ensured that there would always be some water for irrigators and the environment - maybe not as much as they wanted, but enough for them to keep going. Inevitably, the irrigators would put pressure on the government of the day to change the rules so there was a higher allocation, and the government would give it to them. This was water that, in the long term, simply didn't exist. Then, even with the new rules, when things got tight, they would demand 'emergency releases'. All this does is ensure that sooner rather than later, you will run out of water.
This wasn't confined to irrigators. I was intimately involved in developing a set of operating rules for a river which included irrigation areas and a large significant area of wetlands which, under natural conditions, was subjected to long droughts. The rules included provisions for emergency releases if there hadn't been a flood big enough to trigger bird breeding for 5 years, and also releases to maintain breeding if there was a flood at the start of the breeding season. The rules were agreed to by irrigators, National Parks and other interested organisations. After a long (but not 5 years) drought, the government succumbed to pressure to make an emergency environmental release. Naturally, the irrigators also demanded an emergency release. So much for the operating rules.
Just for your interest, the attachment shows pretty graphically the flood and drought periods we've had over the years. The graph is for the Murrumbidgee at Wagga Wagga, but it's pretty typical of NSW and the whole of south-east Australia. Put simply, if the graph is rising to the right, it's above average flows, if it's falling, it's below average flows. I make no comment, other than to say that if you think we're in the worst ever drought now, look at the start of last century.
carlQuote:
Originally Posted by Studley 2436