Melbourne running out of water: What to do?

[Julia]

We do have a bunch of water saving features but the biggest one of these is simply low water system pressure. No massage strength showers, just gravity feed.

Oh, to hell with that, Riddick. No one is going to take away my massage strength shower! I don't stand under it for long, but it's just wonderful.
Seems pretty silly to me to focus on water pressure and low water delivery shower heads when people can stand under something that just piddles on them for half an hour if they choose.

Until we make it more expensive or provide incentives to save water it simply will always be that australians will want their house and land package over sustainable urban design, it will be that australia will want a front and back lawn, feel the need to wash to dog, climb under the hose on a hot day. the list in endless.

Yes, I absolutely want a front and back lawn, yes I want to be able to wash the dog, yes I want to top up my swimming pool, and I'm quite prepared to pay for these privileges. We are not living in a third world country. We should be able to access decent quantity of water if we wish. The technology exists and charges can be made to consumers in accordance with the cost of running the source of supply.
Btw I also have rainwater tanks.

So I restate my initial assertion. we don;t have a water supply problem, we just have an chronic overuse problem.

I'd say we have a political inertia problem.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Melbourne is a community full of bogans, centrelink dependents, godbotherers, old rich, criminals, and executives of corporations vital to Australia's future.

The latter would be better placed in Brisbane, Townsville or Darwin, cities with a future.

The sooner you run out of water the better. And keep the former.

gg

This site is informative as to why we should deny water to Melbourne.

http://www.canberra.edu.au/monitor/articles/new/20080320_underbelly

gg

 

[dbcok]

From an engineering perspective, the water "crisis" in Adelaide and Melbourne is entirely solvable. It's just that for some reason people keep listening to politicians and the "can't be done" brigade rather than relying on proper engineering which does have answers.

Politicians lie whereas proper measurements and calculations are far more accurate.

Believe it or not, some idiots down here in Tas are trying to get federal funds to install a water meter on every house. Then they're going to start reading these meters and issuing bills based on how much is used. It makes sense in many parts of the world certainly, but here in Tas the cost of the meters exceeds the cost of what they're measuring so it's a rather pointless exercise. It would cost the same to fix the water supply bottlenecks and problems as it will cost to install meters. Why not just fix the problems instead?

Are you saying that many properties in Tasmania have no water meter?I was in Tas for the first time in May this year and the towns on the east coast advertised that they had water restrictions.Is this usual for towns on the east coast to have a shortage of water?
The north coast seemed to have had plenty of rain.

 

[Agentm]

i just wish it would stop raining in melbourne, our catchments are filling up..

soon i wont be able to pay double for the water like the premier promised withing 2 years..

stop raining!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[gdaf]

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/enrc/inquiries/Water/transcripts/02-02-09_Geoff_Crocker.pdf

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/enrc/inquiries/Water/submissions/084_attachment_6.pdf

 

[Fishbulb]

Ross Garnaut and Tim Flannery - a couple of chicken littles or forward thinking luminaries?

The jury is in

 

[Smurf1976]

Are you saying that many properties in Tasmania have no water meter?I was in Tas for the first time in May this year and the towns on the east coast advertised that they had water restrictions.Is this usual for towns on the east coast to have a shortage of water?
The north coast seemed to have had plenty of rain.

Homes in urban Hobart generally don't have meters. And for those that do have meters (such as mine) they aren't actually read and there is no water charge based on consumption.

Basic situation in Hobart is that water is a worthless by-product of upstream power generation. More than enough flows down the Derwent to supply every state capital city (in full) in Australia and then some. Given that Hobart only uses 1% of it with the rest running straight into the sea, there's not much point worrying about it.

It's different on the East Coast however with very low rainfall (around 500mm in a normal year), minimal water infrastructure and a decade of severe drought that only ended this winter. Those areas do have water shortages, and in most cases meters, but the underlying problem is lack of infrastructure rather than any inherent inability to supply water to these areas.

Basically in Tas we've got a ridiculous amount of water, 12% of all the fresh water in Australia, and we use it to run virtually the entire state on hydro-electricity (93% of all power in Tas being from hydro). But that's it. Irrigation is ad-hoc and largely a downstream by-product of the Hydro's operations. Urban water supply is much the same - it works fine where it's downstream of Hydro operations (eg Hobart, Launceston and parts of the North-West coast) but is close to pathetic elsewhere due to lack of storage, pipelines and investment in general.

My basic point is that it's a waste of time measuring how much water I'm using in urban Hobart. It would be far more useful to spend the money on actally fixing the problems on the East Coast etc. The cost of maintaining the pipes etc isn't going to drop if consumption falls, all the meters do is add another cost rather than fixing anything. That's a point that's been repeatedly made by countless people since the 1950's whenever the meter pushers have surfaced. My expectation, and that of many, is that the real purpose of metes is essentially a revenue raising operation.

As for Melbourne, well there's already an assortment of cables (communications and power) across Bass Strait a well as a gas pipe plus various oil/gas platforms and thier associated pipelines. How about adding a water pipeline from Tas to Vic?

 

[>Apocalypto<]

What would happen if a city of 4 million people ran out of water ?

What do other Forum members think - particularly those of us who actually live here...

Move to Brisbane, plenty of water up there ATM................:grinsking

 

[Julia]

Move to Brisbane, plenty of water up there ATM................:grinsking

Doesn't Brisbane still have quite rigid water restrictions?

 

[Riddick]

Oh, to hell with that, Riddick. No one is going to take away my massage strength shower! I don't stand under it for long, but it's just wonderful.

Seems pretty silly to me to focus on water pressure and low water delivery shower heads when people can stand under something that just piddles on them for half an hour if they choose.


Yes, I absolutely want a front and back lawn, yes I want to be able to wash the dog, yes I want to top up my swimming pool, and I'm quite prepared to pay for these privileges. We are not living in a third world country. We should be able to access decent quantity of water if we wish. The technology exists and charges can be made to consumers in accordance with the cost of running the source of supply.
Btw I also have rainwater tanks.

I'd say we have a political inertia problem.

1. If a massage is what you want I'll volunteer my services.

2. I can get some clippers for your dog. shave the little dear and washing will be as easy as using a wet one and a kleenex.

3. All our hot water is solar with solid fuel boosted in winter. each house has a gravity feed tank set up with two congruent systems, a solar heater on the north facing side of the roof and a convection heating plate behind the combustion heater. (all fuel sourced and cut onsite) You would be lucky to get a ten minute shower for 4 people so timein the shower, and as a result wate usage, is limited by hot water. I guess showers become what they were intended for originally, a simple method of functionally cleaning your body, as opposed to an indulgent luxury. (as much as a i used to love this aspect, 2 yeas in this environment has hanged my tune)

4. we are definitely not a developing nation and can and do access excellent quality water almost every where in the country. Quality is not the problem it's the amount we can access in certain areas. ridiculous wastage and 'old school we-did-it-as-kids attitudes are just not acceptable in this day and age.

5. plastic grass is less maintenance than real grass and makes for a good wicket for backyard cricket. also stops the now bald dog from digging holes.

 

[Happy]

If water is such a problem, why don’t we slow down the demand by reduction of the number of new users? (including illegals)