Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Sydneysiders Prefer Water from Hidden Source

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I was amazed at the level of opposition to the planned desalination plant in Sydney, but even more amazed to find there is praise some support from Sydneysiders for the idea that water should come instead from an underground aquifer.

Read all about it in the Sydney Morning Herald, click here.

There are other options of course, including new dams and water recycling.

Does anyone know of a good study/report comparing the, at least, four options for water for Sydney?

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Comments

  1. Thinksy says

    What I read wasn’t general or uncategorical praise for using the aquifers. It was generally that the desal plant wasn’t the best idea but neither was relying on newly discovered underground sources a reliable answer, that efficiency measures were also important.

  2. Steve says

    Do you have any links to praise from Sydneysiders? I am not yet aware of anything that fits the description of ‘praise’ for the aquifier idea.

    Why don’t you understand the level of opposition with desal? Expensive, contributes to greenhouse emissions, potential environmental impacts, sutherland shire nimby factor. It’s pretty straight forward and understandable isn’t it? Not something to be amazed at.

  3. Jennifer Marohasy says

    Steve,
    The Sydney Morning Herald piece, that I link to above, gave me the general impression that there was more support for aquifer tapping than desalination. And I read the newspaper article to indicate that Iemma, Kiernan and Faehrmann, were pleased that an aquifer had been found as an alternative solution.
    But perhaps Thinksy, in her above comment, was much closer to the mark and that my impression they were pleased they had an aquifer – was really just relief that there is not going to be a desal plant?
    So, I have crossed out the word ‘praise’ and added the words ‘support’.

  4. Steve says

    Kiernan was clearly talking about his pleasure that the desal plant was axed and wasn’t quoted talking about aquifiers.

    Faerman was quoted as saying that the aquifiers plan needed due diligence – definitely not anything that could be described as supportive of aquifiers, but pleased that desal was scrapped.

    And Iemma, well, he’s a politician keen to find an alternative to the now scrapped desal, so of course he is expressing that he is pleased.

    In any case, its misleading to use those three names and suggest that “Sydneysiders” either praise or even support the aquifier idea.

    It might seem like i’m nitpicking, but given the large amount of city vs country debate that occurs on this blog, i think the way you’ve titled and presented this post could be interpreted as angled to have lots of subtle meaning and provocation eg. those urban-dwelling sydneysiders how dumb are they? Eh?

    Well, that’s how i read it, and i think its a misprepresentation of “Sydneysider” sentiment on what should be done to secure sydney’s water supply.

  5. Ian Mott says

    Goodness me, Steve, so we are actually getting through? But I wouldn’t regard it as a stereotype. In fact, one can hear some quite intelligent and perceptive people on the Jones/Laws talkback radio. And they all seem to know exactly where the problem is.

  6. Steve says

    I’ll have to take your word for it re the callers to those programs, I can’t listen to those shows – too many adverts, drives me crazy.

    And I prefer the cool hip urbane sounds of FM stereo, none of this AM mono business. This is the 21st century!

  7. Ian Mott says

    I suppose one could regard one’s own roof top and a water tank as “a hidden source”? Especially in Sydney where the world is viewed from inside someone else’s rectum. Can’t fault the focus, just a wee problem with the peripheral vision.

  8. rog says

    Praiseworthy or not, the issue of aquifers in the Sydney basin has been common knowledge for years – why they went down the desal road is a mystery.

    They still need that new dam.

  9. Phil says

    We never say rectum in Queensland – we say “wrecked-em”. Must be a Kings Cross thing. Such depravity.

    Hey won’t building a new dam alienate some poor person’s rights?

  10. Ian Mott says

    Yes it would, Phil, but the long established practice is for the state to pay ‘just compensation’ on the basis that the Dam is a ‘just cause’. Banning clearing in a catchment with an expanding forest estate, or one with 90% veg cover, is not a just cause and spending all the money on jobs in DNRM is not just compensation.

  11. rog says

    There was no poor person to be affected by a new dam, Bob Carr declared the area near Braidwood a National Park, Sydneysiders were well pleased.

  12. Thinksy says

    Contrast Jennifer’s interpretation of the SMH piece with that of Michael Pascoe in Crikey: “but there are plenty of more sceptical voices in the SMH warning that the aquifers are only good for limited help in the next drought emergency, never mind the cynicism about that fact that their sudden “discovery” is at best disingenuous.”