I live in Brisbane, in south east Queensland, and the city has historically relied on three dams for all its water. Not so many years ago politicians boasted that the dams were big and we would always have enough water.
Now we have level 4 water restrictions, which means that if I want to water my garden I can only do it on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday during specified hours and with a single bucket. All hosing is banned. Sprinklers are something we have already almost forgotten ever existed. It really is bizarre that gardening should come to this.
I have written that Brisbane should recycle its water and build a desalination plant or two, click here for the piece entitled ‘No More Excuses’ originally published in the local newspaper, The Courier Mail.
The Australian Water Association has said that if Brisbane recycled its water there would be 40 percent more water in the system. I am all for it, but the politicians have been dragging their feet while claiming the water crisis is all the fault of climate change. We have had a few dry years, but there are also lots more people. Indeed infrastructure has not kept pace with population in this fastest growing region in Australia.
Then just the other week the Queensland Labor Premier, Peter Beattie, announced that on 17 March 2007 south east Queensland residents will vote on the permanent introduction of recycled water into existing water supplies.
Just today the leader of the Liberal Party, Bruce Flegg, launched a water options website at www.wateroptions.net. There is some good information there about water recycling, water in south east Queensland and attitudes to recycling.
Interestingly local ABC radio has run a poll on water recycling and last time I looked most people (74 percent) just wanted the government to get on with the job of water recycling: http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/vote/total.htm .
Anyway, if you live in Queensland you can have your say and vote at: http://wateroptions.net/campaigns/1/ .
But if you just want to be really scared click here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001514.html .
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Vote no on water recycling – all the hormones in the recycled water will make little boy babies have deformed genitalia.
We want to see concrete being poured and new dams with freshly harvested catchment water. It will create employment.
And if we didn’t have mining we wouldn’t have cement – so be very grateful. It is actually a known fact that countries with high levels of cement consumption have healthier babies. So the more limestone caves mined the better. And if you didn’t have the iron ore industry you would not be able to make the steel to make the machines that dig out the limestone. And without coal there would be no way of smelting the iron. So I’m personally grateful that all these things exist. Let’s spend a moment contemplating the benefits of the mining industry.
An earlier post seems to forget that concrete can replace your timber floor despite using up a bucket load of CO2 to make it. The trees grown by foresters sequesters the Carbon, and saves the planet’s resources, just like the technology of water filtration, as recently explained on the ABC Catalyst program http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1785041.htm
If the Brisbane folk are going to vote they deserve to be informed by comments such as the Catalyst program, rather than one liners from media savvy politicians or card carrying WWF members.
Happy to vote yes and risk the manboobs etc.
Luke – your recent forays into satire aren’t as much fun as your stoushes with Louis et al. C’mon man ; snap out of it!
Hi Jennifer,
Whilst doing some reading on the proposed Traveston Dam I found the following:
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20800183-5006786,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20793382-5006786,00.html
I wonder just how well the water is being managed up there? Meanwhile you edge closer to the construction of another dam which could spell the end for threatened and endangered species, farmers’ livelihoods and even effect your beloved dugongs. All sounds like a done and dirty deal to me.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1798207.htm
I was speaking an Englishman on the weekend who informed me that there were very severe water restrictions in London. It seems that the pipes are Victorian era and are losing a third of of their water. That old infrastructure problem!
Blame Ms Thatcher & privatisation chrisl!
Aust is running into a few ageing infrastructure probs of its own. In fact this same problem is said to be facing a number of 1st world (& some old colonial) cities given the period when this infrastructure was 1st laid and given inadequate funds put aside for maintenance & upgrades.
Luke’s post gave me a laugh but it might have been the wine. I’d be ok with it as long as it’s not recycled XXXX they want you to drink.
It makes perfect sense to recycle water and pump the treated water back into your reservoirs so that it is further diluted with fresh water. This is a cheaper option than building a third – fresh, wsste, recycled – network just to water some parks and gardens.
The PR fear campaign can be countered by …
(a) having three big tanks at the recycling site – one receiving from the recycling, one pumping back to the reservoir and one to use when a partially full tank is rejected – and switch back and forth between them,
(b) posting on the internet how the water quality in the receiving tank compares with WHO standards and show if that tank will be rejected or be accepted back into the supply system.
In other words, provide clear proof of water quality from the recycling operation.
Most major cities around the world recycle water and it’s amazing that here on the driest inhabited continent people think this shouldn’t be done.
But Cinders without the mining industry we would not have chrome vanadium steel to make chain saws to cut down the trees and saw the logs into timber. And without steel you would not have corner braces or nails to nail the finished product together into houses. And you would not have steel to make refrigerators, dishwashers, microwaves, plasma TVs and insinkerators to put in the houses. Or fire engines to put out fires when people are forced to live next to bushland mismanaged by greenies as to create a fire hazard. And the extra CO2, a known plant fertiliser, will greatly help the growth of C3 plants like trees.
So I think we should be more grateful for the mining industry than the forestry industry. But that doesn’t mean we should be ungrateful to the forestry industry. Indeed I think we should be fairly grateful to the forestry industry but not quite as much as the mining industry. Of course the forestry industry can help build more dam walls as to stop recycling water introduction by providing form work to hold the concrete pour for the said walls.
Indeed recycling is bad for business. Imagine if everyone recycled waste metals. We would have less need to develop new mines which would be bad for the mining industry and therefore employment.
In fact recycling is communist.
Indeed I’ve heard that nation states that have more chain saws have lower infant birth mortalities.
Do we know if countries that use recycled water are more likely to be authoritarian states liek Singapore or indulgent liberal states like California. Do we want to be like these nations. Definitely not.
It’s un-Australian to drink anything other than water from a regulated storage.
Jen reckons “Brisbane should recycle its water and build a desalination plant or two”. Luke’s hung up on a particular closet issue. Cinders repeats his TCA lines “The trees grown by foresters sequesters the Carbon, and saves the planet’s resources, just like the technology of water filtration”. Jim would be happy with cross dressing. Chris reminds us of Victorian engineering and an era when they thought half the world was their private oyster.
Since I played a lot with pipes and pumps, slid down a sewer, cleared a bit of dewatering around a few plants and sampled an overdose of chlorine along the water line lets have a say on the basics.
Gravity feed systems are great savers; recovered or treated water (recycled) can go round and round but only in a closed system. Organisms love our warm water with paper and soap in it. It takes huge settling ponds and friendly marine life ages to make a stinking river nice again however it’s mostly free in natural systems. Reverse osmosis is a great whey filter but its all high tech from day one. You can have your cake and eat it too only if nobody depends on sand dunes staying where they are today.
Luke’s posts seem to have improved immensely since joining the WWF on the weekend. However he might not be aware that the WWF appear fully supportive of Jennifer’s plan. “Australia’s cities commit to reducing fresh water use by using water more efficiently and finding innovative ways to use recycled waste water”. Is a major recommendation of the Blueprint for A National Water Plan by The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists released on 31 July 2003 http://wwf.org.au/publications/blueprint_national_water_plan/
The Wentworth Group is convened by WWF Australia – Saving Life on Earth and funded by the Purves Environmental Fund see http://www.purvesenvirofund.org.au/activities.htm
Luke you deceptive turncoat, you promised to join me in fighting for a return to primitivism, a la John Zerzan
Cinders – upon review of my application they disallowed it as you couldn’t have a gun and be a member. Plus something about being too right wing. So I’ve decided to join the far right instead coz they have more fun.
Sorry Pinx – being a thoughtful citizen is just too boring – shooting things, cutting things down with Motty, driving a big dozer and rampant consumption at Harvey Norman is more fun. Stuff the third world. Name two of them anyway.
Besides I don’t want to drink water that’s come out of someone else’s wee-wee – it’s sick and perverted. The Anzacs did not fight for this country for this sort of dubious behaviour. I mean ask yourself – if you were at El Alamein fighting Rommel in the desert – would you be fantasising about a nice ice cold glass of poeey water & hormones. NO ! You’d want a good guzzle from a catchment personally thinned by Motty and Cinders. And not soiled by greenies eating lentils and other un-Australian wog-food nonsense. It’s well known that foresters do not relieve themselves in water supply catchments. They wait till they get home.
And it’s also well known that countries that thin their catchments have lower infant mortalities.
as long as you filter it through yr moustache, you can have yr cack & eat it too.
I can think of few more appropriate demonstrations of the revenge of the gods than to see the people of SEQ, who have voted for Beattie despite every stuff up, drinking their own urine.
It actually tells me two things;
1. Old Joh has been talking to God, and
2. Neither of them have lost their sense of humour.
The proponents of the recycling of waste water would boost their credibility no end if their main priority was to first catch all that urban storm water, that has neither urine or turds, and recycle it through the dams.
For every roof top in Brisbane there is another 250m2 of roadway, parking lot and pavement. And that means that, even if there were no rainwater tanks, there would still be 30,000 hectares of urban space with almost 100% catchment efficiency. This delivers 300,000 megalitres of fresh water runoff each year which is almost double the amount (170k ML) that is actually used by the city.
This water is currently used for washing garbage into the river and bay. It is already captured in a collection system that is already located in the very suburbs that need the water. Not all of it would be clean enough for use with only minor treatment but high risk areas can be easily identified and excluded to ensure a much lower processing cost than sewerage recycling.
This water can be delivered back into the dams at a lower cost than sewerage and this would enable the effluent to be sold to farmers who actually appreciate wees and poos as fertiliser.
So it is not a question of whether it is possible to recycle sewerage for human consumption but, rather, why would you when there is a cheaper, cleaner and more abundant alternative?
But this is the (smirk) state where the collective intellect of government is substantially dumber than the sum of the individual minds. So eat s..t folks, I have a water tank.
Ian,
the only way Old Joh would be talking to God is via a long distance phone call.
People here may be interested to know that the city of Boulder, Colorado, USA has gotten around a good part of the cost of managing the cost of water supply by having *two* water systems that run in parallel.
The first supplies water for household uses such as drinking, and it is carefully filtered and closely monitored for safety.
The second is used for such things as watering lawns and gardens, washing cars, etc., with correspondingly lower (and cheaper) quality requirements.
This doubles the cost of plumbing, but the city has found that this is made up by differentials in processing requirements. After all, you don’t need to wash your car with drinking water. Unless, perhaps, it’s a Lamborghini or something.
Schiller: the cost of retro fitting dual water supply systems to any of Australia’s largest cities and all their far flung their homes is quite prohibitive at this stage as we don’t have enough plumbers or engineers to even consider doing that job.
The city fathers of Longreach (Queensland) obviously deserve a mention for its dual water supply system then.
Look rain water tanks are not an option. Brisbane is full of fruit bats that do numbers ones and twos all over the place – so you’ll get Hendra virus if you drink tank water.
The only solution is for selfless property owning to surrender their properties to the metropolis and build bloody empoundments from which our water is drawn. Then we heavily chlorinate to just below bladder cancer levels which takes care of any microbes.
Goddammit!
Luke, I live just across the river and down the street from the bat colony at Indooroopilly Island: http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/register/p00203aa.pdf . They fly over my house most evenings. Then there are the possums and river rats.
I’ve looked in to putting in a rainwater tank mostly just for the garden. There is a 4 month wait at the moment on tanks.
If you are concerned about possible contamination Jennifer you can put in a diverter which excludes the ”first flush” – our last house had all sorts of ”contamination” but the rainwater was always good.
Well Jen just between you and me – I think there are also heavy metals present in the air that can enter tanks via rainwater. Over long term chronic exposure – neural damage can occur manifesting itself in development of crazy theories like AGW is a crock, greenies are bad, greenies cause fires, whales taste good, chardonnay and serepax swilling doctors wives residing near the Brisbane River determine state environmental policy, and very disturbing extreme cases such as property rights activism and secessionist/new Federalism hallucinations. Relief from these delusionary symptoms can be improved by consumption of heavily chlorinated water from a regulated storage. Indeed if you’re not sure that you’re getting enough chlorine to be effective you can try additional chlorine from pool chemicals or ordinary household bleach.
Ask yourself do urbanites suffer delusions – no only bushies drinking from rainwater tanks.
Now there is one complication – the mining industry (which we have to remind ourselves is incredibly handy to our way of life) does make the galvanised steel product that can be present in what are called “rainwater tanks”. OK so there are some plastic ones but even those materials source from the oil industry industrial complex (and even if the oil is abiotic in origin from a sedimentary basin full of plant fossils that’s till OK). SO of course we should also send a cheerio to the chemists associated with the mining industry and not let them drift too far from our thoughts either.
Just so the mining industry doesn’t think we’re not grateful we would actually consume more metal in the construction of new dams, pumps and associated piping than with tanks alone. So this would be consistent with our support for the mining industry and so overall they would be much better off under our new
non-tanks policy” given some manipulation of appropriate discount rates.
The cincher in the argument of course is that infant rate mortality is lower when people take their water from a regulated storage vis a vis the totally unsafe Hendra virus infesting, heavy metal chemical soups, anaerobic anthrax harbouring rain water tanks.
Jen – there’s a wait on tanks as the government is trying to slow down the spread of these evil devices. Excellent government policy from a terrific administration that I must say have been very supportive of the mining industry under the “prosperity from minerals” campaign.
The EPA should get right up that bat colony too and shoot the lot. Filthy squarking creatures. Without the bats you could have a nice little marina there with coffee shops. A nice coffee perhaps after a round of golf or two.
We have installed a 5,000 litre water tank in our inner suburban Brisbane garden a couple of months ago. We are in the process of landscaping but have three mature mango trees remaining on the block – a haven for possums and bats. And thank goodness the water is only for the garden. The tank is full at the moment as we haven’t installed our plants yet but what is coming out can only be described as pure possum pee. The smell is awful. I only hope the plants like it! Bring on recycled water I say! It has to be better than this. And yes, we have the first flush diverter and all the other bells and whistles on our tank.
Just follow Motty’s lead and poison bait every other mammal on your property. It’ll lower catchment yields but also reduce GW.
Susan, your 5000L tank will mean you draw much less potable water from the mains, won’t it? Three mango trees would certainly push the turd envelope somewhat. But hardly representative of the average Brisbane dwelling.
It should also be remembered that the levels of UV radiation and solar heat normally found on Brisbane roofs is more than sufficient to turn a Bat dropping into baked enamel within 24 hours and desicate them to base carbon powder in a few days more.
But what you describe as smelly water may have more to do with leaf, flower and seed matter in your guttering. Some tree species can stain the water as it percolates through berries in the guttering. Worth checking.
And good to see that Luke has finally given up any pretence of intelligent input. Any sign of the 17 mammal species that you claim have been pushed out of the Pilliga by forestry activities?
Or have we now opted for a strategy of hiding this outrageously false and misleading statement in a background of more extreme statements made in jest?
Ian – now that I’ve joined the extreme right wing and learning from Rog and Louis I don’t need to substantiate anything – that’s for lefty researchy suckers. I mean it’s good fun to make them research stuff and keep them running around. Keeps them out of harms way.
I’d also like to point out that we’re all very grateful for the mining industry to provide the rare minerals so necessary to make the electronics to make the Internet work.
And the Pilliga is really unnecessary – we should be using steel for house construction so as to help the mining industry. Indeed a good conflagration would be beneficial for the Pilliga as after recovery from the burn the albedo will be lower. Bugga the mammals. And a more open Pilliga would make it easier for gas exploration which would also benefit the mining industry.
I think you’ll find Ian that countries who use steel instead of timber for house construction have lower infant mortality rates.
Susan – check to see if pollen is not entering the tank – via gutters etc – it will ferment in the water – that is probably the source of any odour
Luke, You don’t sound like ‘Rog’ or ‘Louis’ or ‘Cinders’. You sound lost. Nothing much of what you have written would resonate with the so-called “extreme right”. Better you write about what you know about … and I always thought you were a great googler.
Hmph ! Jen’s not amused.
OK – I still wouldn’t regularly drink your Brisbane urban tank water – I’ve been told you’ll find Pb, Cu, Zn, Cr, As, Cd, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and phalates as roof top pollution. And first flush doesn’t necessarily remove them. Will they harm you in the levels present – who knows (for now). OK for your garden though – all that stuff settles on the plants anyway.
Luke: Our body and gut system are quite robust compared to other water based organisms.
City dwellers exposed to your list of metals etc in their tank water would still have a better chance after drinking it than if they had even minor passive exposure to cigarette smoke.
People I see too often dying on their feet or in a more advanced stage of smoke damage and cancer in their beds were all once routine smokers. I can assure you the other stuff hardly matters as they go on and die.
Gavin – we’re talking about a modern cocktail of chemicals. Obviously drinking it for a few weeks wouldn’t hurt. Smoking and other hazards of western civilisation are obviously much more dangerous than water quality in Brisbane.
The consequences for guzzling it for a lifetime though are simply “unknown” but perhaps “of concern” for long term consumption.
Of course chlorine gives us bladder cancer perhaps – but of course you can skip the chlorine and run the risk with Salmonella, Cryptosporidium and Giardia and go au naturale.
Correction – “were all once routine smokers” applies only to those folk I guess had blamed their pronounced lip, throat, nose and lung problems on anything but tobacco smoke.
I worked with many shift operators in various industries and developed a keen eye for skin colour etc as part of our union activity in assessing signs of reaction to many industrial pollutants.
Luke; I also worked in chlorine production (3 sites) and monitored acid treatment in a variety of places around the chemical industry. My workmates got soaked and breathed the atmosphere every day. Lead burners were most affected when they smoked. I woke up to danger when I found out one chap had a whole lung removed He looked quite crooked afterwards.
It set me on a long personal crusade looking for hazards. However I sent a note off today to one adviser chatting about our obsession with purism in our policy development. I have been a professional risk taker in a number of fields after a bit of reflection. But a history of looking into hazards got me a start with our AFP.
At the MMBW final water treatment and distribution stages we used liquid chlorine as the main dose after fluoridation further back in supply. Salmonella, Cryptosporidium and Giardia etc were our bread and butter. I spent months reading up on world wide water treatment research during that period however it was my experience in water recirculation and effluent measurements that got me in the door in the first place.
For the export and food manufacturing biz we had a lot of techs from Geelong schooled up in incubators and growth mediums. My dear ladies have both been expert in that field too. All factories have to deionize today as their final solution to crap build-up through evaporation and so on all too expensive for the home front.
A guy I met at the holiday camp by the beach last month failed to bluff me on taste even though he had a digital meter. After rain they chlorinate all rainwater tanks and septic systems under new council regulation due to local possums and birds on the roof. Guess what they have to top up with ground water from the park in-between. Loved the wild life regardless. They get hundreds of overnight visitor’s peak season.
After the third day I could not say for sure it was chlorine in our tank. Note, Our taste picks up on acids and minerals too.
“..Australian bat lyssavirus is usually transmitted to humans via bites or scratches that provide direct access of the virus in bat saliva to breaks in the skin and exposed tissue and through mucous membranes (eyes, nose and mouth).
The virus cannot survive more than a few hours outside the bat. ABL is not spread by bat urine, faeces or blood. Fruit soiled with bat saliva, urine or faeces is not a risk but should be washed before eating.
There is no risk of ABL infection from eating flying foxes that have been thoroughly cooked…”
Jennifer: Although it is not obvious in the Canberra Times report about future regional water supply options there is a strong case to directly recycle the bulk of treated effluent from the existing Lower Molonglo plant straight into old Dams along the Cotter River and hence into Canberra’s drinking water, as a “shandy” the former head of ACTEW Paul Perkins said.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=general&story_id=538583&category=General&m=12&y=2006
This scheme could involve a number of parched NSW cities and towns in a regional agreement with new federal funding. Growth in this region the hardest hit by drought now totally depends on new water supply and storage systems. Only the ACT has any developed capacity to store for the whole region, but rainfall is only a fraction of what we once had at a bit over 5%
The problem with recycling wastewater is that it isn’t old enough for consumption. Not properly aged, you might say. Well, those concerned about properly aged water should consider:
Old Water – 10 Thousand BC Luxury Glacier Water
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/old-water-10-thousand-bc-luxury-glacier-water/
“10 Thousand BC is a luxury bottled water from Canada that claims to be the best bottled glacial water in the world. The water comes from the Coastal Glacier Range in British Colombia and costs about $7 per bottle. The company has a couple of interesting steps in its process, one being that the water is bottle to ‘inspirational’ music because apparently research shows that water has memory. (GUSH)
Locked in an icy vault for over 10,000 years, 10 Thousand BC (TM), is the world’s finest luxury glacier water from the remote and environmentally protected Coastal Glacier Range in beautiful British Columbia Canada. This precious live resource is literally bottled to “inspirational music” since research shows water has a memory. Glacier water is recognized the world over for its unsurpassed natural purity, high ionic content and ability to slow the aging process. Only the purest water optimally hydrates the body, reduces anxiety, heightens brain functions and stimulates everything from plant growth to the human sex drive. (finewaterimports)”
Schiller: bunk
Glacier’s water = Fool’s water ;
Schiller, do you really believe such nonsense??
On my mineral water bottle is labelled: ” gives you overhuman powers and is the source of youth” !!!!
I wouldn’t buy this glacier water on a bet, but on the other hand, the smart money is behind the notion that old water=good water, new water=bad water. And they are selling it.
There is an easy low cost solution to purification of rain tank water for drinking and cooking purposes. Small low pressure reverse osmosis units that use household water pressure are readily available. They only work with low salinity water but that is no problem with tank water. The water they produce is far purer than any natural source and there is no need to chlorinate it. You wouldn’t use this to purify the entire tank but just for a separate supply for cooking and drinking. A unit the size of two ordinary cartridge type water filters will easily produce 20L/day of high purity water. I used one for some years to purify drinking water from a shallow well ground water supply that would occasionally become undrinkable during extended dry periods.
Given the level of fetishism present and given that drinking water is such a small portion of total water use, why not just get a roll out plastic liner that is only extended when it is raining? No built up deposits, fresh from the coral sea and directly into the tank.
And run the rest of the house on normal roof water with less than 0.008 ppmv of bat droppings. There is probably more dried bat dropping in powdered form in an hours worth of breathing city air. And as for the contaminants in a train, bus or lift, the less said the better.
The problems re household clean water collection are different for different locations; the urban situation limiting scope due to property area and neighbours on top of you, and indeed the contaminants from transport.
Having a small, but 2 story dwelling precludes safe roof access by occupants also. Both my entire boundary fencelines have overplanted
neighbours’ trees (loquats one side, tall rainforest the other)which greatly encourage bats and possums periodically. Therefore,I’d question 0.008 ppmv applying to my personal situation which I consider ‘abnormal’;and the fresh runny stuff being what perturbs me. Yes, lyssa virus is very fragile and doesnt survive, but I was more concerned by other viruses having been implicated in animal deaths (possible bat body-fluids contamination on pastures), and is there now some new question re avian
flu virus and water? Considering the number of times conventional wisdom has needed reformulation
after time yields more information and evaluation, I dont think it unreasonable for individual householders to consider and question any possible impact of the particular aspects of their situation.i.e., pondering the particular as well as the general before making decisions.