Water on the Brain. We’re Learning. Slowly.
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 01. 2.08
Residents of the driest inhabited continent, Australia, have evidently been cottoning onto the fact that water means life and we need to be more thoughtful in our use of this rather precious resource. Since the year 2000, Australians have managed to reduce their water consumption by 14%. In the most populous city, Sydney, they’ve managed to use less water in 2007 than in 1974, even though the metropolis grew by 1.2 million souls in this period.
Across the country nearly 20% of all households have installed water tanks. That would probably be due, in large part, to the various state governments offering generous rebates. In NSW, for example, where 24,000 households have taken up the offer you can get $1,500 AUD back if you install a 7,000 + litre tank and have it plumbed into your toilet and washing machine. (Another 7,100 households have received water efficient washing machine rebates.)
Greywater use has taken off too. The Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest that its now the second most common source of water in Australia, with over half of the country’s homes reusing water from their washing machines, showers and baths. The state of Victoria leads with 70% embracing greywater, and Queensland, coming close behind with 63%.
Victoria needs all the water help it can get. A controversial desalination plant is slated for the east of the state, as well as a $625 million AUD contract being signed for a pipeline to pump water from the agricultural north of the state over the Great Dividing Range to the capital has drawn calls for community-based non-violent protest and even sabotage.
Up in the northern state of Queensland, some of their dams have been below 20% until recent cyclonic weather just nudged them over this threshold. Sydney’s main dam is only at 56% of its potential capacity.
The country’s ongoing drought has seen more than 95% of the length of the Murray-Darling Basin (the two major river systems that supply the nations ‘food basket’ regarded as ‘degraded.’ Supply of water has become such an issue that hydro-electric power output has dropped 7% in a recent 9 year period for the states of NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. Not good for boosting our uptake of renewable energy in these climate changing times.
But at least the message is getting through about making every drop count.
For information on what more can be done, check out ::Savewater!com.au
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I noticed when I went to Bermuda that almost every roof on every home is made to capture the maximum amount of rainwater that falls. And they get a lot of rain but have very little groundwater.
Personally, I'm glad hydro power is not being used as much. Dams are pretty unfriendly to the environment, like putting shackles on a river.
Living in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia) I see people's yards with signs saying "grey water in use" everywhere - there's stage 3 water restrictions now and neighbours will report each other to the authorities if they suspect they are frivilously watering their gardens! That's both bad and good.
Unfortunately, there's water restrictions in place for everyone and all kinds of gardens, including backyard food growers and community gardens. One of the papers (theage.com.au) has been putting pressure on the government to change this.
They've also (finally) said you cannot fill a swimming pool with municiple water aka drinking water. So people pay all of $A90 to get water shipped in from somewhere else to fill their pools.
I guess it's good that people are realising that filling pools with drinking water is a massive waste, but I can always see room for improvement. Wish other places in the world were as concerned as us Aussies!
That's really commendable that Sydney has managed to reduce its water use despite substantial population growth. What is happening in Australia now is foreshadowing of what is in store for arid areas of the U.S. and the rest of the world. It's getting harder every day for skeptics to deny climate change. It's encouraging to see that Australia is taking water use seriously, has banned the incandescent bulb and has signed the Kyoto protocol. I am hopeful that in about a year (385 days specifically, but who's counting?), the U.S. will finally get it together too.