[kyrill]

We always need water, without it AKSA and Aspen will leave the vicinity of  Melbourne
but is it this grave?


 "We lived just 30km outside Melbourne. The only water we had was rain water that we collected in a tank. We did not see a good rain for 12 months. Water was so scarce that we decided to sell up and move to the city.

   
People in the city are not worried. People in the countryside see things differently

Where we lived was once in the countryside, but because the city has been expanding, it gradually became a suburban area of Melbourne.

We weren't connected to water mains, nobody living outside the cities is. The only things we were connected to was telephone and electricity.

Plants were dying and wildlife was disappearing. The birds went away. Even the large gum trees, that don't need much water, were looking distressed.

We grew our own vegetables, which we abandoned altogether.

The water tastes foul here in town, and we have water restrictions that mean we can water the garden once a week for two hours and we can't wash the cars.


But people in the city are not so worried. They turn on the tap and there's water coming. People in the countryside see things differently.

I don't know if this is a sustainable city. I don't think the politicians know either. I have been saying something was afoot for a while but people thought I was a strange "greenie". People will not alter their lifestyle until they are forced to. And I think the time has come.

There was a river once in New South Wales called the Lochlan River. I remember that you needed a barge to cross it. Now it is no longer there. It has disappeared
John parsons"

[lonewolfny42]

Old news.....and....New news.... ...and from the old - 2004....."Sydney and other Australian cities could run dry by 2006".

[JohnR]

I dunno about Melbourne, but one thing about Sydney is that while Sydney itself gets plenty of rain, the catchment area is somewhere completely different. It's a little weird to be having storms and loads of rain, and water restrictions at the same time. There are some mild incentives to install rainwater tanks, but IMO it's not enough -- the default size is something like 2000 litres, and is intended to be used for watering your garden instead of using tap water. My garden doesn't need water, so when I do get to install tanks they will be a decent size and they will be plumbed/pumped into the toilets and laundry and that will all cost a pretty penny....!

Curiously enough, the water main down the road burst yesterday. I was working at home that day That was a taste of what it would be like to be without tap water, I have to say that "completely useless" would be an understatement. I was able to go to the bathroom once all afternoon, and washed my hands with Perrier (I'm not kidding). It's amazing what we take for granted.

(PS. kyrill, it's polite to post a link when you quote from another site In this case: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6749073.stm )

[kyrill]

lol

i have a reversed osmosis in my kitchen ( 80L/day) to clean the Dutch tapwater. European tap water is on average 70% pure water. looks good? 30% tapwater is 100% unfiltered! All industrial and farmers waste is in it.
The osmosis filter cleans the water ( any water) 93% or so, so my tap water is 97+ % pure water, for the last 20 years.

I know that the gradual drying of South Australia is going on for a decade or more, but the stories become alarming. Desalinization plants will help cities, but farmers? I wonder. Would be strange to live in a "waterish" city and meet dry wastelands acre after acre outside  cities

i quoted the man not so much the website but you are right

[JLM]

But our Pres. Bush says we don't have to worry, there's no such thing as global warming, just keep the economy going like always.   

Here in the U.S. it's been raining in eastern Texas nearly everyday for months (during their normally dry period) and its very dry here in Michigan (and in many other places in the eastern U.S.) with what rains that do come being very unusally spotty.

[lonewolfny42]

Why is Australia drought prone?.....Link...

[kyrill]

"..It seems there’s only one way for humanity to preserve itself from a catastrophe alongside which oil shortages would pale: tapping that other 97.5 percent—in other words, desalinizing water from the sea.

Techniques for doing so do exist, but up to now they’ve been quite expensive and use a lot of energy. But there is hope. TNO, the Dutch organization for applied natural-sciences research, has developed a purification system that turns both wastewater and sea water into clean drinking water using very little energy. The technology, called Memstill, produces cleaner water than any other method available. The procedure works using residual heat from industrial plants—a boundless energy source in modern countries.

The project began when Allerd Stikker, ex-head of the chemical firm Akzo Nobel and shipbuilding firm RSV and now chairman of the Ecological Management Foundation, approached TNO a few years back to test the feasibility of a new desalinization method. TNO engineer Jan Henk Hanemaaijer was then mulling over a similar idea, which ultimately proved more promising. He and others including Stikker eventually formed a consortium to develop Memstill (a contraction of “membrane” and “distillation”).

A few small-scale pilot projects, including one conducted for the Amsterdam municipal water board, have generated international interest. Bert Jansen, Memstill’s business manager,, sees exciting times ahead. “We just started on a larger project for the Singapore Public Utilities Board, in collaboration with our partners Keppel Seghers, filtering 1,000 litres of sea water per hour into high-quality drinking water,” he says. Memstill will be tested further with several Dutch companies.

Memstill isn’t the only system for making sea water potable, but it is the cheapest and most environmentally friendly. The cost in large-scale water production, if industrial residual heat is free, is about half what it would cost to purify surface salt water Memstill is a more practical and cost-effective option than the other state-of-the-art methods like reverse osmosis, multi-effect distillation and multi-stage flashing. And it doesn’t contribute to the production of greenhouse gases"   
Source: http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/32/water_water_everywhere

Is is now outside its infant's shoes and maybe TNO has found something

[AKSA]

Kyrill,

The notion of Australian cities running out of water has never yet happened.  The press sells more papers when they talk about it, however!!  We have been in severe Stage 3B restrictions here in Melbourne for more than a year, which means getting consumption down to less than 100 litres a day per person where possible.  My wife stores all kitchen waste water for the garden.  No hoses or sprinklers in gardens, only hand held hoses every second day at a prescribed hour.  But it is amazing what you adapt to, and we've scarcely felt it here, although the quality of the water has deteriorated slightly as the reservoirs have run lower.  We got down to around 30% of our total reservoir holding capacity, but after heavy rains are now up to more than 40%, which augurs well for next summer.

The Australian continent, being a large island, is highly susceptible to southern and eastern ocean currents, just as the US and norther Europe is susceptible to the Greenland Conveyor and the Gulf Stream.  If these stop, or slow, the usual transfer of water vapour through thermal gradients in the sea is modified.  Land records on the southernmost continent reveal slow cycles of drought, every twenty years or so, and most people of 50, city or country, can remember at least two in their lives.  There is even a line in South Australia, the Goyder line, named after a clever Scottish surveyor, above which farming is not viable for reasons of drought.  To quote from the South Australian history website at http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/goyder.htm:

When pastoralists complained during the severe drought of 1863 -1866, Goyder went north to reassess their properties. The first eighteen valuations carried out by Goyder were published in the Adelaide Express in September 1864. His line of travel, which amounted to nearly 5,000 km on horseback, marked off the line of drought and became known as Goyder's Line of Rainfall. He drew a line indicating the limit of the rainfall which coincided with the southern boundary of saltbush country. It separated lands suitable for agriculture from those fit for pastoral use only. It also marked areas of reliable and unreliable annual rainfall. Not all agreed with his Line and some even called it Goyder's line of foolery.

When agricultural land became scarce, combined with good seasons and crops during the early 1870s, and the expected income of land sales, it persuaded the government to disregard the Line and allow farmers to buy land north of the Line. The government even surveyed towns in that area such as Hammond, Bruce, Cradock, Gordon, Johnburgh, Wilson, Carrieton, Chapmanton, Farina, Amyton and several others. Poor seasons in the 1880s proved Goyder right, and farmers slowly moved back south of his Line.

This is not to say farming above the Goyder line is impossible;  merely risky.  Most of the towns mentioned above no longer exist;  failing in either the 19th or early 20th centuries.  And there are always individuals prepared to take the risk, but many have lost everything on the driest continent challenging the Goyder line.

But what really does challenge the water issue is increasing pressure on available resources, particularly from big cities which draw their water from huge catchments from hundreds of kilometres around.  The water table in even the greenest parts of Australia has been slowly dropping for forty years;  now this is dangerous, and what is worse, the water is becoming more salty, along with large areas deep inland which are being seriously affected by pure salt rising to the surface.  In the large cities until quite recently it was illegal to erect water tanks to collect the rain;  only in the last five years has this foolish law been changed, and now subsidies are paid to encourage the population to buy these tanks.  Curiously, the cost of water from our rivers ranges from as little as $15 a megalitre to $350 a megalitre depending on location;  several rivers, such as the Darling, are now all but dead.  Seano might give us a lot more information on this interesting topic, as he is very knowledgeable.  The commodity of water has until now been free, but is finally starting to attract open market prices as increasingly the companies trading are becoming privatised with increasing demand and severe drought.

In the meantime, Kyrill, there's plenty of water in southern Australia now (Brisbane is in trouble however), and we are all able to shower daily, you will be relieved to hear.........

Cheers,

Hugh

[lonewolfny42]

Hugh....

How many cases of water will you take for the new Aspen Soraya ? 

Kidding aside....I hope it improves down there....

[AKSA]

Ah, Chris,

But what of the carbon footprint to get those cases to Oz?

And what if they tip over, as you would expect Downunder?

I noticed you have some ideas on airfares, I'm looking for LAX to Denver on 10th, and then Denver to NYC on 17th, and NYC back to LAX on 25th.  I will be staying with Paul, and hope sincerely to meet you in Brooklyn.  Could you perhaps give me some pointers for cheap fares, Chris?

Cheers,

Hugh

[rabbitz]

In the Hunter, we're at 96% capacity and during the worse part of the drought, I don't think we were below 65%. The Hunter was the first water utility in Australia to introduce a user pays system which in turn has made us more careful with our water usage... hip pocket nerve. We've had a long time to change our ways and I'm sure this helped immensely at keeping our levels high where others around us were drying up, plus we live in the best part of Oz. 

[kyrill]

best part of Oz? Rabbit?

I would choose the Gold coast as i love a bit warmer weather in the sense of tropical weather.

[Seano]

As a participant in the Australian water industry..........we don't have a scarcity of water.......just a scarcity of common sense.

Despite living in the so-called 2nd driest continent.......we have more than enough water.  The problem is that, per capita, Australians are some of the highest water users on the planet. 

Our relative water wealth has made us stupid & lazy. 

The really good thing for the future is that Australians are finally beginning to wake up....except for those fools that persist with 'desalination' which in a country like this is just soooooooooooooooooooo stupid.

The technology (basically a version of reverse osmosis) used for desalination is the very same as that used at the quarternary stage of sewage treatment to produce the exact same thing - clean water. Yet the set-up, running & environmental costs of using tertiary treated effluent as the feed water instead of sea water is far far far far far less because the effluent is 'cleaner' to start with.......only the political cost is higher and for some stupid and lazy reason that is always enough to kill that idea.

[rabbitz]

best part of Oz? Rabbit?

I would choose the Gold coast as i love a bit warmer weather in the sense of tropical weather.

You bet... Newcastle has a nice temperate climate only bettered by Coffs Harbour IMO. I've always enjoyed my visits to the Gold Coast but wouldn't like to live there. I think someone once said it needs a building and population transplant. 

[gerado]

Is all this worry realy justified, do we trully need to change?
My wife believes that this planet is a living organism, it will rebell against whats damaging it and protect itself. Eqilibrium will be restored.
Im tending to come around to her  way of looking at things considering current climatic events.
History's great epidemics and exterminations may be dwarfed. Are we whitnessing the great rebellion or are we about to wake up in time
Probably a bit of both and hopefully will be allright for our childrens sake.

Not quite she'll be right mate.

[AKSA]

Theo,

There have been four major oceanic apoxic events in the last 2000 million years.  Each was accompanied by rises in CO2 levels, and increasing temperatures.  If Al Gore is correct, the last 30 years have brought CO2 rises quicker than ever before, and this is cause for concern. 

However, it's conceivable that we may soon enter another world wide depression, and that this will radically slow hydrocarbon consumption.  Further, the price of energy is beginning to move up very quickly all over the world, and this too will force a reduction in consumption levels.  Arguably we could then be saving our world inadvertently - no bad thing.

Perhaps we should all eschew transportation except bicycles, and spend most of our time at home listening to music.  Would that be so bad?  If I never left Melbourne again I'd be quite happy.  The gardens of Kyoto, the fjords of Alaska, the majesty of the Rocky Mountains - I can live without this stuff.

I would miss the ZRX, however;  but it does more than 18 kms/liter, so perhaps I'd be allowed to keep it!!

Cheers,

Hugh

[franklin1990]

                 We think that water which has no longer have a present of time to stay.

_________________
Thermostat

[timind]

                 We think that water which has no longer have a present of time to stay.

_________________
Thermostat

Ok, you dug up a two-year-old thread to make a nonsensical comment. 

[whubbard]

I believe it is complete spam.
He just want's just to click on the link.

-West

[AKSA]

Yes, West,

I believe you are right.  Silly fellow.  A waste of people's energy.

Just reading back, did you see my comment in August 2nd 2007 about an imminent world Recession?  Quite proud of that.....

Cheers,

Hugh