Drought - thegoodwills.com

Rainwater tanks save the day Part II

rainwater-tanks-flitration — Connolly Dam, Warwick’s town supply, spilling over for the first time since 2011.

I had so much correspondence on this topic last week I took up an offer from guest blogger and rainwater tank owner NEALE GENTNER. He writes about his water filtration adventures working in the PNG Highlands and the hard yakka maintaining concrete tanks and plumbing over a 30-year period.

I totally agree with Bob’s piece last week on water tanks…except for paying extra rates to council for maintenance “compliance”.

Theoretically, under various “Health Acts”, tank water cleanliness is currently enforceable. No one wants to do it because of voter backlash; they will act if disease breaks out.

Over time, when replacement of pumps, filters etc is included, the real costs to install, operate and maintain a good rainwater harvest system is currently more expensive than hooking to the grid and paying water rates. Some have no choice due to location.

In 1984-1985 when I worked in PNG, I gained a lot of experience with filtration of drinking water. We were wildcat oil drilling in the Southern Highlands at 2,000M elev. The nearest village/town was Tari, the only access by helicopter, or a trek through jungle.

Everything broke down into 1,000kg heli-loads, constant heli shuttle flights; mostly diesel fuel once everything was established.

Water supply was rain run-off into an earth “turkey-nest” dam a mile or two away and lower than rig. Yes, everything that lives in the woods also craps and eventually dies in the woods, so lots of opportunity for pathogens. We used a diesel pump and 50mm steel pipeline back up the hill to rig & camp.

All camp drinking water was filtered. We just used wound-string filter elements, in clear plastic housings, elements were white when new, changed when completely brown, Most of the brown was decayed leaves etc, I forget now how long the filters lasted, probably variable, monitored daily, changed as-required.

No chemical treatment, no bad outbreaks of “squirts”, and the few minor cases were likely guys being careless. (If I knew then what I now know about water-borne bacteria, I would have taken more care).

As a child, I lived through Redcliffe City Council’s ban and enforced destruction of household rainwater tanks. But we much preferred the taste of my grandparents’ tank water in Dalby. And even Redcliffe “town” water tasted better than Brisbane reticulated water.

Chrissie’s family have only ever had un-filtered tank water. At 93 years of age, her Mum still does! We have had two 45,000 litre (10,000 gallon) concrete tanks for almost 30 years.

We’ve never run out of water. The tank filling pipework comes from single storey roofs, goes underground, then back up to tops of tanks. Originally all the underground pipework was 90mm “rainwater” PVC. Subsequently, I have put in additional underground pipes and replaced most of the existing with 100mm “sewer” grade PVC, bedded in sand, because it is more resistant to plant root and reactive soil damage, plus it flows a lot more volume when it really rains.

About 15 years ago, I emptied, ventilated and got inside both tanks (one at a time), de-sludged, pressure blasted, wet-vacuumed, prepped and sealed cracks on the inside so water pressure helps ensure a good seal. I installed a string filter about 10 years ago. It is plumbed straight off the pressure pump, so all house water is filtered. From what I have learned subsequently about water-borne bacteria, I’m glad the entire house is filtered. Now it just needs an anti-bacterial filter element to take it to the next level. I also installed a “first flush” plumbing system to get rid of most dry weather accumulated crud (inc frogs) to stormwater street drain. I like frogs, just not in my drinking water.

Mozzie mesh-crud strainer baskets at tank top inlets have been replaced once, the filling inlets at tank top strainers have gravity actuated, one-way flaps to stop critters entering, but allow everything out of the pipe.

A Council inspector once insisted that I put mozzie mesh on our three sewer roof vents (septic tank). He said mozzies would fly through vent caps, down vent pipes and breed. Knowing it’s a losing battle arguing with those who flex authoritarian muscle, I bit my tongue. I could have instead asked about the statistics of mozzie breeding in Council-approved stagnant water, within the underground portions of my tank filling pipe-work (before first flush installed), and the number of breeding mosquitoes at the water filled settling ponds of town water treatment plant, not to mention the actual dams & reservoirs.

But I replied “Oh Gee, mate, never though of that. I’ll put some mesh on the roof vents straight away (and I did). The “expert” was happy, I just muttered and shook my head, it was the simplest resolution.

Then there was the “drought proofing” by the taxpayer funded pipelines and pumping stations, intended to shuffle water between municipalities. Apart from its questionable effectiveness, the environmental damage and costs to some land owners was enormous. The pipeline only required a 3M wide clearing to dig the trench and get it in the ground. But the pipelayers insisted on clearing a 10M wide swathe, simply so they could turn the lengths of oversize black poly pipe around, “if required”.

Even gazetted nature reserves suffered this fate. Our illustrious water resources authorities have been vested with the power to do almost anything, with complete impunity.Then the pipelayers carted away and sold off the mostly top quality top-soil removed from trench, before backfilling with carted in “fill”, some of which was building waste.

Creative uses for rainwater tanks

The best suburban use of water tanks I have ever seen was when neighbours replaced their side boundary fence with a string of narrow water tanks, originally intended for under eave use.

Both house roofs feed the huge volume “boundary-tank”, the final over-flow is right at front fence and goes under footpath to road gutter. They chose neutral colour, roto-moulded plastic tanks with integral see-through openings/reinforcements and even left a gap for a gate so neighbours can still be neighbourly. The interconnecting feed pipe is underground for gate and overflow connects above.

Each neighbour only “lost” a 300mm wide strip of yard and it keeps the dog in. Brilliant! Of course this requires that you get on well with your neighbour. Perhaps this is worthy of a simple Council mandate… all suburban side fences must be minimum of 600mm thick and hold rainwater. NG

Footnote by acreage dweller Joy Duck

The benefits of rainwater tanks aren’t limited to rural areas. People in the burbs used to have smallish (1000 litre) tanks to top up their pools and water their handkerchief lawns. Then the scaremongers went to work and they were removed in droves (sadly the tanks, not the scaremongers), with challenges of maintenance cited as the reason. I bought a second hand, 3000-litre tank for for the shed, from a developer who had dozens in a paddock. He had removed them (just a year after installation), from a complex he’d built.

There is already a dedicated 22,500 litre tank and fire pump connected to our house with a rooftop sprinkler system. Because it is a fire pump, if necessary, the brigade could connect their hoses to it and use for other purposes. It’s a key start petrol pump so if the fire takes out mains water and power you still have firefighting capability.

Having a stand-alone tank and pump dedicated for firefighting can be very reassuring, if you live on a heavily treed block where the wildlife successfully protests any attempts to clear vegetation!

Next week: On the road again!

Rainwater Tanks Save The Day

rainwater-tanks-dams — Leslie Dam (reservoir 1,260ha) at 28%. Photo by BW.

Yay – the dams are full, creeks and gullies are running; rainwater tanks are spilling over. Everyone’s happy.

Our three rainwater tanks are full, as you might expect of a region where two water-starved dams reached 100% capacity in just two days.

Not so long ago (2018-2019), things were dire on the Southern Downs, with Warwick’s Leslie Dam at 7.66% (it’s now 28%), and the Granite Belt’s Storm King Dam virtually empty (now 100%).

In January 2020, a national news story told of the local council carting water to Stanthorpe from Connolly Dam in Warwick. The cost, borne by the State Government, was $800,000 a month. Carting ended last week after the March rains brought Storm King Dam back to capacity.

As you might expect, the district deluge was met by the relaxation of severe water restrictions which have been in place now for several years. Southern Downs Council had lifted daily water restrictions from 80 litres to 120 litres in mid-2020. Last week the limit was raised to 200 litres per person per day. There are caveats on this, however, with permanent restrictions applying to the use of hand-held hoses to water gardens or wash cars.

How quickly our mindset changes. We’ve gone from leaving the toilet water to mellow for days and collecting shower water in buckets to using a hose (between 7am-9am and 4pm-7pm) to wash cars. Last time I washed our car I used tank water in buckets.

It’s not so long ago that academics were advocating the use of recycled water to drought-proof houses. Writing at a time when at least seven New South Wales regional towns were in danger of running out of water altogether, Professor Roberta Ryan of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) wrote that the only real obstacle to using recycled water for a range of purposes was community acceptance.

“Household waste water (which is what goes into the sewerage system from sinks, toilets, washing machines and so on), is a more consistent supply, with 80% or more of household water leaving as waste water.

“Furthermore, waste water goes to treatment plants already, so there is a system of pipes to transport it and places which already treat it, including advanced treatment plants that can treat the water to be clean enough for a range of purposes”.

You might recall that stories like this in 2019 and earlier were met with community opposition. In 2006, Toowoomba, Australia’s biggest inland city, voted against introducing recycled water.

Those advocating re-cycled water (extracted from treated sewage), suggest using it to operate washing machines and toilets in homes and to irrigate parks and sports grounds. Many Councils already use recycled water for those latter purposes.

As the Millenium Drought (1997-2009) worsened, State and local governments started creating rebate schemes to encourage households to buy and install rainwater tanks.

It’s been a hit and miss affair, with rebate schemes ending as quickly as eager queues started forming. Australia’s building code requires tanks to be installed and plumbed in to all new houses, although this differs from State to State. For example Queensland’s local governments can opt-in (or out).

In 2013, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 2.3 million households (26%) used a rainwater tank as a source of water, an increase from 1.7 million (19%) in 2007. The ABS said the increase from 2007 to 2013 may be attributed to water restrictions, government rebate schemes, water regulations and water pricing.

South Australia had the highest proportion of households that used water from a rainwater tank (46%), followed by Queensland (34%).

In the absence of an update, extrapolating the annual rate of growth assumes Australia now has close to three million rainwater tanks. This estimate could be rubbery, however. The unknown factor is the numbers of tanks which are self-installed without going through Council.

Although authorities generally do not recommend that households drink harvested rainwater, the supply can be used for a range of purposes, including washing, bathing, laundry and gardening. In some parts of Australia, it may be the main source of household water, while in others, it can supplement existing mains or town water supplies.

Rainwater Harvesting Australia, a committee comprised of irrigation industry leaders, advocates use of rainwater tanks as part of a blueprint for urban water management. A strategy is suggested (for South East Queensland), to consider re-use of storm water to improve the diversity and resilience of water supply. The strategy also recommends rainwater tanks and a basic form of passive irrigation for street trees.

The main criticism of rainwater tanks is that they breed mosquitoes and testing has shown sufficient pathogens in the water to dissuade many Councils from recommending it be used for drinking.

Despite the development of waste water recycling and desalination plants, Australia is still highly dependent upon rainfall as its main source of town water.

A Productivity Commission draft report in 2020 found that direct rainfall (surface or bulk water) or indirect (groundwater) accounted for 89% of all urban water in 2017-2018. The balance was attributed to recycled water (6%) and desalinated sea water (5%).

The report argued for a (national) integrated approach to urban water management, citing seven impediments to such an approach. The key stumbling block is the management of storm water, much of which flows out to sea.

For purposes of this discussion, the report criticises State government policies for mandating recycling or rainwater tank installation without a full cost benefit analysis.

“Many governments, for example, set recycled water targets, mandate the installation of household rainwater tanks or specify that recycled water is to be used in particular applications (such as for flushing toilets).

“These policy decisions are often set without clear and transparent evidence and analysis. They have driven significant investment and have sometimes resulted in higher costs than alternatives and failed to deliver their expected benefits.”

The report cited Marsden Jacob Associates, which found that the costs outweighed the benefits by more than $2000 per tank in most cases. Harvesting rainwater tends to be more costly than supply from centralised supply systems. For example, research in south-east Queensland found that the average cost of tank water was $9.22 per kL, substantially higher than the $4.40 per kL for potable water at the time.

The intangible benefits associated with rainwater tanks include reduced town water and storm water infrastructure costs and environmental benefits (reducing local storm water flows).

They also allow households to have flourishing gardens when water restrictions are in place.

A recent study by the CSIRO (apparently a first), found that 96% of participants identified benefits with their rainwater tanks. The most prominent were: watering during restrictions (88%), reduction in water consumption (82%) and benefit to environment (71%).

Cost-benefit analysis aside, I’d advocate for an integrated approach to installing rainwater tanks in every home and business in Australia. Surely we can solve the apparent downsides (including mosquitoes, water-born disease and contaminants (ash and debris from bushfires).

The key may be for Councils to implement an annual maintenance inspection and issue show-cause notices to those whose systems need work. As the CSIRO study found, only 58% of respondents in an ABS survey claimed to undertake any kind of rainwater tank maintenance. At present, householders have no legal obligation to undertake maintenance other than to minimize public health risks.

The practical advantage of a good rainwater tank system is that it ensures your allotment will dry out quickly once the rain stops.

Meanwhile, we have 9,200 litres of water stored to irrigate gardens through the traditionally dry winter.

It can’t be a bad thing.

FOMM back pages

Water theft a sign of crumbling civilisation

water-theft-drought — Image: Storm King resident Penny Davies indicates the ‘normal’ dam water level. Contributed/

As communities across drought-paralysed Australia patiently wait for rain, reports of water theft, ranging from relatively trivial incidents to a 25,000-litre heist, are troubling. Can we be far from outright anarchy when dishonest (and sometimes honest but desperate), people help themselves to other people’s water?

There are precedents for this – just think back to Cape Town‘s ‘Day Zero’ crisis in 2018 when a city of 3.74 million was set to run out of reticulated water. The rich white South Africans relaxed behind their high fences and simply bought in more water as and when needed.

Meanwhile, the poor black (and white) people were forced to queue at a public standpipe for their daily rations. While Cape Town’s immediate crisis is past, water is still a scarce and expensive commodity. There have been reports of water theft from there too – allegedly by residents fiddling their water meters to give false readings.

The Cape Argus News reported that the percentage of water lost or not billed for was at 34.27%, above the normal 20% band.

Last year the City of Cape Town warned of water shortages and introduced incremental water levels to discourage high usage. Punitive tariffs for high water users (more than 35,000 litres a month), costs R768.64, or $77 per 1000 litres.

That does seem steep when compared to Australian cities that charge $3.12 (Brisbane) $2.11 (Sydney), and $3.35 (Melbourne) per kilolitre (1000 litres). Some cities quote a range of prices – Perth ($1.82 – $4.85), Canberra ($2.46- $4.94) and Adelaide ($2.39 – $3.69). As you’d expect, water-rich Tasmania is the cheapest (Hobart $1.06, with Darwin not much dearer at $1.96.

So yes, we can see how an excess water tariff charge of $77 per kilolitre would galvanise people into trying to find a way around the system.

In Australia, water theft is more brazen; the rogues just back a water tanker up to an absent neighbour’s dam, stick a hose in and turn on a pump. A year ago, Southern Downs Regional Council authorities acted to secure water standpipes after neighbours reported numerous trucks illegally filling up at Connolly Dam. In December this year, police were called to investigate the theft of 25,000 litres of water from a Council depot in Murwillumbah (northern NSW). The thieves did just that – backed up a tanker, filled it up and drove away. This was at a time of bushfires (the Rural Fire Service said the stolen water was equivalent to six or seven fire tankers). Not only that, Murwillumbah, like other rural regions in NSW, was under severe water restrictions at the time. In this context, water thieves are no better than the two people who looted an abandoned electrical goods store in Bateman’s Bay. Leon Elton and Kylie Pobjie were arrested, charged and denied bail. It was alleged the pair traded the stolen electrical consumer goods for drugs.

Belt fruit growing town of Stanthorpe, which officially ran out of water last week. The town has just one water supply – Storm King Dam. Water is now being carted from Warwick, which is itself in danger of running out of town water by Christmas 2020. The State government has commissioned a $1 million feasibility study to extend the SEQ water pipeline grid from Toowoomba to Warwick. But what if it does not rain between now and the 18 months it could take for this to happen?

Other towns in Queensland (Miriam Vale near Gladstone comes to mind), have faced similar issues, although Queensland is often rescued by the northern wet season. It is not uncommon for drenching rain in southern parts of the state to follow a cyclone in the tropical north. Even then, Tablelands residents tell us the wet is late (again).

Drought-ravaged New South Wales is another matter, with the State government last year canvassing plans to evacuate up to 90 towns that are in danger of running out of water.

They include sizeable cities (Bathurst, Dubbo, Tamworth), and smaller towns like Orange, Armidale and Tenterfield.

In our new home town of Warwick, the Southern Downs Community Relief Group is hosting a weekly free water pick up from the Warwick Showgrounds The water is donated, rationed and available only to those who live in outlying towns which do not have reticulated water. Similar charitable groups are also operating on the Granite Belt.

Tambourine Mountain in the Gold Coast hinterland has no reticulated water service, forcing residents whose tanks have run dry to buy in delivered water,

A Mount Tambourine acreage dweller told FOMM the waiting time for truck-delivered water has blown out to eight weeks, because there are only two aquifer suppliers.

“It is a controversial issue on the mountain that a couple of other landowners are contracted to supply big commercial bottled water/soft drink companies. This means that thousands of litres are being trucked away from those aquifers every day, not available for local supply.

“Some residents have their own bores to supplement their needs but the water is of varying quality because those bores usually do not go as deep as those of the commercial suppliers.”

The Beverage Council of Australia, the peak body which usually responds to such reports, received some sort of vindication in December.

Its water division, the Australasian Bottled Water Institute [ABWI) welcomed the final report on the impacts of the industry on groundwater in the Northern Rivers by the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer.

“After a thorough and independent review into the bottled water industry in the Northern Rivers, the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer found that less than one per cent of groundwater in the Tweed is extracted for water bottling purposes,’’ Chief Executive Officer Australian Beverages Council Geoff Parker said.

The bottled water industry, which now generates over $700 million annually, has expanded in the past five years due to what Mr Parker says is “consumers’ preference for convenience, taste and rising health consciousness.”

A Queensland Urban Utilities survey found 35% of people preferred bottled water over tap water, while 29% thought it was better for them than tap water. But blind testing in South Australia revealed many people cannot tell the difference without packaging.

A report by consumer advocate Choice quoted Stuart Khan, an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales and an expert in drinking water quality.

“Australia is a world leader in the way we manage drinking water quality and we have some of the best tap water in the world,” Khan says. “Tap water and bottled water are regulated differently in Australia, so they don’t need to meet the same standards. Tap water needs to meet more stringent quality criteria and actually gets monitored more carefully than bottled water.”

Even so, no disrespect to the local Council’s efforts to keep supplying potable water, but I’m not used to the treated water here. Occasionally I’m one of those who buys bottled water (on average Australians consume five litres per week).

But here’s the thing. At its cheapest in a retail grocery store, 10 litres of water costs about $4, or 40 cents per litre. That compares with about 0.2 cents a litre for reticulated town water (in Warwick). (It’s merely supply and demand economics, Grasshopper. Ed. BTW I can say what I like today, ‘cos it’s my birthday.)

Resolution: we all want to save the world

resolution-save-world — Image: Southern Downs Regional Council water-wise pamphlet

Blame it not on the Bossa Nova but on the ancient Babylonians, who, 4,000 years ago, invented the dubious practice of making New Year resolutions.

The Babylonians were the first to hold New Year celebrations, although held in March (when crops were sown).

The Babylonians pledged to pay their debts and return any borrowed objects (thinks: whoever borrowed Murakami’s ‘IQ84’ and Cohen’s ‘Beautiful Losers’, give them back!).

An article in <history.com> cites these rituals as the forerunner of our New Year resolutions.

“If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favour on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the good books -a place no one wanted to be.”

Off and on for at least 60 years I have been making promises to no-one in particular that I would turn over a new leaf (an idiom derived from the days when a page in a book was known as a leaf), thus, to start afresh on a blank page.

Adolescent resolutions included promising to keep my room tidy and stop acting on naughty thoughts (less I go blind).

As decades passed, these resolutions turned to more weighty matters: to drink less, give up smoking, spend more time with the kids – that sort of thing.

The stalwart English clergyman John Wesley took the Babylonian resolution to another level, inventing the Covenant Renewal Service, commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Time has eroded the ritual’s religious overtones and these days making New Year resolutions is a secular activity that ranks alongside taking photos of your restaurant meal and posting it on Instagram.

If you have serious reasons for making an ethical promise to yourself to stop doing this or that or indeed to actively do something for the good of humanity, then go for it.

My three global resolutions for 2020, the first year of a new decade (although there are those who insist the first year of the new decade is 2021), are for the most part geared to survival (of the planet),

On Monday I was in the Warwick Council offices (handing in the paperwork for my seniors’ rates discount). There was a pamphlet on the desk explaining how to limit water use to 80 litres of water per day.

The limit was dropped from 100 litres per person a few weeks ago, given the parlous state of the region’s dams and lack of substantial rainfall.

Our existing 1,500 litre rainwater tank has but one ring left after (a) someone left the hose on or (b) someone sneaked in and stole it – an ever-increasing risk in this region. Next week we are having a 5,000 litre tank delivered. In so doing, we will have the entire cost of the tank deducted from our next rates bill. We have to pay for a handyman to build a base and also pay the plumber, but those are small prices to pay for water security. Mind you, it will take several decent falls of rain to make an impression on a combined 6,500 litre capacity.

Southern Downs Regional Council helpfully produced a pamphlet (above) which explains at a glance how you can get through 80 litres of water in a day.

The hard habit to break is flushing the toilet after every use (12 litres per flush). Most people in the region have a Mellow Yellow policy in place, which is what you think it is.

Living in an area which has seen no decent rainfall in two years quickly makes one mindful of how we routinely waste water. Now we aim to save and recycle every drop. Water left in a pot after steaming vegies, for example, once cooled is poured under a tree.

If you had wondered, yes, you could be fined for using more than your quota. The water meter reader will find you out. Not only will you get charged more pro rata for water use, if there is a leak in the system on your property, you are responsible for repairing (and paying) for it.

The second resolution is to ensure I generate as little waste as possible. As you’d know, moving house employs a lot of cardboard, paper, bubble wrap and rolls of packing tape which, at the other end, refuse to give up their grim hold.

Three trips to local transfer stations (dumps) later, I can see the urgency in re-thinking my attitude to household waste and packaging. When packing up, I picked up a few Styrofoam boxes (with lids) from the local supermarket. They made for sensible packing of fragile electronic components and the like.

But once you no longer have a use for Styrofoam or bubble wrap, what then? The local transfer station 15kms outside Warwick has a special container for polystyrene. As we found when getting lost looking for green waste, it also has a pit for asbestos and dead animals. (Ed: that’s what we call a non-sequitur)

We did donate a stack of flattened out storage boxes and a box full of plastic bubble wrap to a friend who is moving to our new town in January. A generous gesture, or did we just handball our waste problem to someone else?

Resolution number three is to reduce our personal carbon footprint – a hard thing to do when you live an hour’s drive from the nearest large city. When we were doing the green nomad thing driving around Australia, we worked out our carbon emissions and converted them into dollars. Then we donated an equivalent amount to a Landcare/tree planting organisation.

So while we are still driving a petrol-fuelled vehicle, we‘ll continue to do that. Once the height of summer has passed and hopefully some rain has fallen, we’ll plant as many trees and shrubs as this small suburban block can take. There’s a plan for a pergola on the western side, upon which we will grow grapes and other edible vines. This will hopefully mitigate our enslavement to the fossil-fuelled vehicle.

Of these three big resolutions for 2020, managing personal waste is the biggest challenge. We already started a compost bin. You can freeze and bury meat scraps, allowing decomposition and worms to work their natural miracles (Ed: if you have a dog, do not do this).

Avoiding packaging when you go shopping for groceries is harder. First thing: take your kete* with you. Fill it with unwashed fruit and vegetables straight from the bins. Check them out and put them back in the kete. Avoid prepacked fruit and vegetables, especially sealed packets of salad greens. Use paper bags if you have to, but be sure to compost them when they get wet and soggy.

On the outskirts of this town, young people are making a go of a small organic produce farm – hard to do in a drought. The ‘office’ is a small air conditioned shed with a couple of fridges, a bench with a set of scales and a pad on which to work out the total of your purchases. You then put the cash in an honesty box or arrange an EFTPOS transfer with the owner. It goes without saying you have to bring your own bag or box.

One can only hope that people do the right thing and that this brave little enterprise survives these arid times.

Happy New Year and please note, apart from the automatic distribution of this blog, I am having a break from social media through January. Thanks to those who subscribed to the cause.

*Kete is a woven flax basket traditionally used by the New Zealand Maori

A collection of must-reads for 2020

must-read-2020 — Image: Forest fires in the Amazon: www.pixabay.com https://www.facebook.com/pages/PixFertig/550895548346133 Bushfires in Australia ripped through 1.6 million hectares between August and December, 60% more than the Amazon forest fires which burned out 900,000ha earlier this year.

In seeing out 2019, I thought it might be useful to direct you to some insightful essays and analysis on the burning issues of the year.

Make no mistake, when the clock counts down the seconds to midnight on December 31, the honeymoon will be short. Australia is entering 2020 with a serious list of challenges. Not necessarily in order of importance, they include drought, fire, water security, the climate crisis, a stagnant domestic economy, the spiralling cost of housing and a widening gulf between the seriously wealthy and the working poor. Welfare recipients, the mentally ill and homeless people need taxpayer-funded help more than anyone.

To date, our peerless leaders of both State and Federal governments appear to have few answers to these questions. In their stead, we rely on informed and educated commentators.

An incisive piece by Everald Compton, an 89-year-old essayist posed the question ‘Will a candidate from the left ever win an election again?”

A fair question, given the pasting politicians of the Left have received at the ballot box in Australia, the UK, America, South America and key European countries.

In reviewing the global swing to the right and why so-called social justice parties have fallen so far out of favour, Compton concludes the Left had blurred complex messages. Politicians of the Right, meanwhile, worked hard to become popular with voters.

For example, in the most recent UK election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigned on a manifesto of radical policies, such as buying back the British Rail System and freeing up traffic congestion by allowing free rail travel.

His opponent Boris Johnson simply said (over and over): “Let’s get Brexit done; let’s get rid of the pain of recent years.”

As Everald wrote, that is what most people had on their minds when they filled out their ballot papers.

Likewise with Labor’s crushing electoral defeat in May 2019, Labor Leader Bill Shorten came up with 145 policies, none of which he managed to sell to voters. His opponent Scott Morrison had one mantra: “Don’t trust Shorten, he will take all your money in high taxes.” It worked!

In the US election campaign of 2016, Donald Trump had one speech only: “I am going to drain the swamp in Washington.”

Hilary Clinton, according to Compton, directed all her speeches “to please the great and the mighty”.

“In the end, most voters did not trust her. They believed that she was not one of them.

“Voters respond to ideas and visions, not policies. They vote for Leaders not Parties.

“It is a lesson that those on the Left have not learned. They simply don’t talk the language of the average voter.”

In an article about Europe’s cult of personality, Politico’s Matthew Karnitschnig wrote that the UK election demonstrated how ‘personality rules’. Polls consistently showed Johnson to be better liked than Jeremy Corbyn. (Polls showed much the same trend in Australia, with Morrison edging out Shorten as preferred leader for months on end).

“In today’s political landscape, where ideology and principle have been supplanted by pragmatism and raw opportunism, parties often serve as little more than wrapping for the larger-than-life personalities who lead them,” Karnitschnig wrote.

The list of cheeky mavericks includes “BoJo” (Johnson), “Basti” (Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz) and “Manu” (French president Emmanuel Macron).

The big question is where Europe’s personality-driven politics will lead.

“They may be like fireworks that burn very bright and then burn out,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the London-based think tank.

Politics aside (for now), the news story of the year was Westpac’s egregious mishandling of some 23 million transactions that breached money laundering rules. So far, the scandal has claimed the scalps of the chief executive and chairman and no doubt internal reviews will result in staff being sacked or demoted. Westpac’s share price has slumped from just under $30 at the end of September to a pre-Christmas low of $24.21 That’s a 20% loss in share value, which cynics might suggest investors will find more alarming than yet another scandal for a bank which, like its three rivals, has seen more than a few over the decades.

The Australian Financial Review had the bright idea of contacting former Westpac boss Bob Joss (now dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business) for comment.

Joss appeared disappointed that the strong risk management culture he injected into the Sydney-based bank had failed.

“What is needed right now is a thorough investigation and analysis of the facts so the breakdown in risk management can be understood and fixed, and accountability for failure can be assigned.”

Analysis of Australia’s waning economy (like a fully laden iron ore train going uphill), is best left to experts. Here, the AFR looks at Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s determination to hold on to the first Budget surplus in more than a decade. In so doing, he is ignoring the call from the Reserve Bank to open the coffers and stimulate the economy. The Christmas shopping figures will come out soon and then we will know if the much-discussed retail recession will spread to other sectors of the economy.

Direct action by farmers who organised a rally to Canberra to protest water security and drought management is one example that PM Morrison’s constituents may be having second thoughts. The same applies to veteran firefighters who sent a delegation to the nation’s capital seeking a meeting with the PM. He didn’t want to face them either.

The government’s main response to rising public angst about bushfires, drought, water management and the climate crisis is to champion tougher penalties against those who choose the right to protest. This mean-spirited, ‘blame the victim’ response is, alas, typical of Right-wing governments the world over.

The Guardian let writer Richard Flanagan loose in an opinion piece titled “Scott Morrison and the climate change lie – does he think we are that stupid?”

Flanagan railed against the view of some commentators that Morrison is a political genius – the winner of the unwinnable election.

“But history may judge him differently: a Brezhnevian figure; the last of the dinosaurs, presiding over an era of stagnation at the head of a dying political class imprisoned within and believing its own vast raft of lies as the world lived a fundamentally different reality of economic decay, environmental pillage and social breakdown.”

Flanagan ended his well-argued tirade with an observation that Morrison is held in thrall and thus influenced by his Pentecostal religion.

When the Rapture comes, Flanagan wrote, the Chosen are saved and the unbelievers left to “a world of fires, famine and floods in which we all are to suffer and the majority of us to die wretchedly”.

“Could it be that the Prime Minister in his heart is – unlike the overwhelming majority of Australians – not concerned with the prospect of a coming catastrophe when his own salvation is assured?”

Yep, someone had to say it.

I will leave you with scientific insights (as suggested by Mr Shiraz), into what happens to native forests, particularly wet sclerophyll forests, once they have ‘recovered’ from the ‘unprecedented’ bush fires that burned across Australia between August and December 2019.

If that is all too depressing, here is a fluffy piece of nostalgia about a man and his typewriter (recommended by Franky’s Dad).

The team here at FOMM (two people and a dog) wish you all a safe, healthy and smoke-free 2020. We will need more than thoughts and prayers.

Climate debate burning fiercely

bushfires-burning-climate — Peregian bushfire image by Rob Maccoll

As we prepared to move from the Sunshine Coast hinterland after 17 years, the air was full of bushfire smoke, dust and haze from an early, hot start to spring. It blew a gale up there for the best part of a week; strong south-westerlies, the last thing you need in an early bushfire season.

Multiple properties were lost around Stanthorpe and in the Gold Coast hinterland between Sarabah and Canungra as hot gusty winds sent bushfires out of control.

We all know how dry it has been around the Southern Downs and across the border in towns like Tenterfield and Armidale. The aforementioned towns join Stanthorpe and Warwick and at least six other regional New South Wales towns at risk of running out of water.

I recall being sent on assignment to Warwick in 1992 with a Courier-Mail photographer. We walked along the dry bed of the Condamine River with then mayor Bruce Green, commenting on the sparse pools of water here and there. The town’s main water supply, Leslie Dam, was at 3% capacity at the time.

In January 2011, I was marooned in Warwick. So much rain fell authorities had no choice but to open all seven floodgates on the Leslie Dam. Creeks rose and the main roads to Brisbane and Toowoomba were closed.

People who have at least one foot in the climate change denial camp will tell you it was always thus in Australia: floods, droughts, bushfires, insect swarms, dust storms and sometimes all five inside a few months.

The key differences between the long-lasting droughts of the late 1800s and what is happening now is a notable rise in average temperatures.

The CSIRO, the nation’s pre-eminent science organisation, states that Australia’s climate has warmed by just over 1C since 1910. Eight of Australia’s top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005.

University of Melbourne PhD researcher Mandy Freund and colleague Benjamin Henley studied climatic changes in Australia by studying seasonal rainfall patterns over an 800-year period.

“Our new records show that parts of Northern Australia are wetter than ever before, and that major droughts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in southern Australia are likely without precedent over the past 400 years.

“This new knowledge gives us a clearer understanding of how droughts and flooding rains may be changing in the context of a rapidly warming world”.

The debate between those who accept what 97% of the world’s scientists are telling us and the contrarians who think it is a left wing plot is increasingly polarising people.

The Australian, our only national newspaper, has kept up a steady flow of news stories and opinion articles which by and large support the views of those in denial about climate change. Similar views are consistently espoused by Sky News and populist radio shock jocks. Some would say that it is a good thing someone is putting the other side of the story.

What the Guardian Weekly now terms the “climate crisis” is well and truly on the agenda today with Strike4Climate, a globally coordinated series of rallies to emphasise the gravity of the situation.

The main idea is to support teenagers who have taken the day off school to protest. They, after all, will be the generation left to clean up problems left by their parents’ and grand-parents’ generations. The international protest movement was started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. She called on school students who have concerns about inaction over climate change to go on strike and support climate rallies.

Given the increasingly strident coverage of climate change news and opinion from the both sides, it isn’t hard to mount an argument for having both points of view up for public debate, although you need a subscription to The Australian to read its coverage.

So let me summarise an opinion piece, forwarded to me by a reader.

On July 8, New Zealand geologist David Shelley refuted climate activist assertions that temperatures are at record highs, glaciers and sea ice are melting at unprecedented rates, and sea levels rising dangerously.

“A cursory examination of the geological literature shows that the first two assertions are simply not true, and that rising sea levels are par for the course.

“To assert that today’s temperatures are record highs is mischief-making of the highest order. Earth has been much hotter (up to 10C hotter) for the vast majority of geological time”.

Shelley goes on to say that sea levels were also significantly higher in the last interglacial 125,000 years ago.

“Florida Keys, for example, is the remains of a coral reef that grew then”.

David Shelley’s views are moderate compared to those of the Top 10 climate deniers.

Brendan Demelle, executive director of DeSmog, lists names including Fred Singer, Christopher Monkton and Bjorn Lomborg. Demelle says many climate change deniers start their pronouncements with: “I’m not a scientist, but…”

(Lord) Monkton, a former UK politician with a degree in the classics once said: “global warming will not affect us for the next 2,000 years, and if it does, it won’t have been caused by us.”

Did I suggest the debate between believe and don’t believe is getting more strident? Environmentalist Tim Flannery went so far this week as to suggest that ‘predatory’ climate change deniers are “a threat to our children”.

A despairing Flannery now admits that his 20 years of climate activism has been ‘a colossal failure’.

“Each year the situation becomes more critical. In 2018, global emissions of greenhouse gases rose by 1.7% while the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by 3.5 parts per million – the largest ever observed increase.

“No climate report or warning, no political agreement nor technological innovation has altered the ever-upward trajectory of the pollution”.

On Tuesday, The Conversation’s Misha Ketchell announced a surprise ban on those promoting climate denial views through the portal.

“The editorial team in Australia is implementing a zero-tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics,” he wrote. “Not only will we be removing their comments, we’ll be locking their accounts”.

“We believe conversations are integral to sharing knowledge, but those who are fixated on dodgy ideas in the face of decades of peer-reviewed science are nothing but dangerous”.

The Australian’s Chris Kenny said The Conversation’s decision was a fundamental assault on freedom of speech and intellectual integrity.

“This action flies in the face of scientific endeavour, where the scientific method is founded on the presumption of rigorous scepticism”, he wrote.

Kenny added: “The Conversation was founded with taxpayers’ support and still relies heavily on the involvement of publicly-funded universities. This is taxpayers’ money used for the silencing of dissent and the deliberate shrinking and censoring of scientific, academic, environmental, economic and political debate”.

“Who will decide what level of scepticism is acceptable?”

The user-friendly website Skeptical Science (getting skeptical about global warming skepticism) should help clarify that question. The website lists 100+ common climate change myths, matching each one with the scientific facts.

I encourage you all to do your own research into this most urgent of issues. As the Joan of Arc of climate change Greta Thunberg said last year: “I want you to act as if our house is on fire, Because it is’.

Due to unforeseen circumstance I am unable to attend the Brisbane rally. I guess they’ll start without me!

Water shortages – here and there

When visiting friends in the water starved towns of Warwick and Stanthorpe, it does not take long for the local message to sink in – ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down’.

This is a water-saving tip for times of drought – seemingly a more or less a permanent state of affairs in south-east Queensland.

Southern Downs residents are currently on a per capita water limit of 120 litres per day and there is talk of introducing emergency measures (90 litres per day). Given that modern toilets use between 6 and 10 litres every time you flush, you can see why mellow yellow is the gold standard. Likewise, a shower will use about 10 litres of water per minute. So a three-minute egg timer is a handy gadget to stick on the bathroom wall. The other common water-saving measure is to keep a bucket in the shower to collect water for the garden. Many people wash dishes in a plastic basin and use the grey water on the garden.

The lack of significant rainfall coupled with rapidly declining dam levels led to Warwick, Stanthorpe and outlying villages being placed on extreme water restrictions in mid-March. Stanthorpe and Warwick are the hardest hit by the ongoing drought and declining dam levels. Warwick’s Leslie Dam is down to 6.33% and its back-up water source, Connolly Dam, at 36.5%. Storm King Dam, Stanthorpe’s only source of water, is at 26.7% capacity.

Southern Downs Regional Council estimates that without rain, Stanthorpe will be out of water by December 2019/January 2020. Warwick has a 17–month buffer, to January 2021.

Mind you, they have been here before. In February 1995, the Leslie Dam was at 3% capacity. And how soon we forget what happens when it does rain! In early January 2011, South East Queensland had so much rain the Leslie Dam’s seven spillways were opened for the first time in 22 years.

SunWater’s decision to open the flood gates in 2011 and take pressure off the dam left motorists and residents stranded. Sandy Creek flooded, closing the Cunningham Highway between Warwick and Brisbane. SunWater responded to a request from then Warwick Mayor Ron Bellingham to reduce the rate of release and extend it over a longer period so the highways could re-open.

“I guess part of the issue may be that it’s been 22 years since Leslie Dam was last full and perhaps there is no one around who remembers how that was managed,” Cr Bellingham told the Warwick Daily News at the time.

Extreme water restrictions mean residents cannot wash vehicles, hose gardens or fill swimming pools. Hosing hard surfaces like driveways or hardstand (industrial) is an absolute no-no.

The upside of going through a water crisis is that water-conserving habits learned at the time tend to stick with you. When Brisbane residents had to deal with level 6 restrictions during the Millennium Drought, per capita water usage fell from the Australian daily average of 340 l/p/d to 140 l/p/d.

If you look at the global situation, in which 3 out of 10 people are without reliable access to potable water, Australia’s urban residents have relatively little to complain about.

The 2019 United Nations World Water report also states that only 4 out of 10 people have access to safely managed sanitation services.

World water use has been increasing at 1% a year since the 1980s, the UN report says. Increasing water use is being driven by a combination of population growth, socio-economic development and changing consumption patterns.

As you may have read about major cities like Chennai, Cairo, Tokyo, Mexico City and Cape Town, you can’t take abundant, safe running water for granted. This list of 10 cities at risk of running out of water includes Melbourne in 9^th place. Scary stuff.

The seven million inhabitants of Chennai in southern India (it was Madras until 1996), are so short of water residents have to line up every day for a truck-delivered allocation. As reported in the Pacific Standard, the four reservoirs that provide the majority of the city’s water supply have dried up. Restaurants, businesses and schools have been forced to close and residents wait hours in queues to draw water from municipal tankers. As always, wealthy residents can afford to pay the premiums for water from private tankers. The calamity in Chennai can be blamed largely on domestic and industrial over-use which has depleted ground water.

Don’t think it can’t happen here. According to a report in The Australian this week, up to a dozen towns across regional New South Wales and southern Queensland are confronting a crisis that’s been dubbed “day zero”.

Local Government NSW president Linda Scott told The Australian some regional cities and towns, including Armidale, Dubbo, Stanthorpe, Tenterfield and Tamworth are preparing for a day zero that’s less than 12 months away.

SDRC Mayor Tracy Dobie told Steve Austin on ABC Drive on Monday that if there was no inflow into Storm King Dam, Council could have to cart water from Warwick to Stanthorpe as early as December.

“Warwick is a different situation. We will have to set up a network of bores if there is no inflow into Leslie Dam,” she said.

Cr Dobie said that normally Leslie Dam has three years’ supply of water; Storm King Dam holds two years’ supply.

“That may have been OK a couple of decades ago, but climatic conditions are changing and we need bigger and longer-term water facilities in our region.”

Cr Dobie told Austin there had been “no rain in our region since March 2017” by which she means sufficient falls to filter into dams.

Data kept by farmsonlineweather.com.au shows that Warwick had a total of 130.4mm between January 1 and July 18 2019 (the long-term average for this period is 405mm).

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was not alone in taking the view that Australia needs alternative sources of water. Several Australian States have developed desalination plants, with varying degrees of success. But as can be seen by the Murray-Darling Basin fiasco, there is no reliable, long-term water security plan.

Farmers and residents of outback Australia rely on steady rain to replenish rivers, creeks, dams and water tanks. The normally dusty red landscape north of Cunnamulla in far western Queensland is displaying a sea of green not seen in the outback for eight years. Heavy rain and floods in April has left this part of the west with full dams and green grass on both sides of the road (although in reality, it is a ‘green drought’, in which the country looks good, but the green cover will soon become parched through frosts and lack of follow-up rain).

You have to be watchful when traversing these often unfenced roads. As this photo shows, cattle are often left to forage for themselves, although She Who Drives Most of the Time said they seemed intent upon grazing.

After spending 10 days in the outback, I can but offer but this observation from a remote outback town: three large caravans queued up to fill their tanks at a public water outlet (that’s about 240 litres just there).

Fair crack of the whip, fellas. Go to the supermarket and buy your drinking water. We do.

More reading: FOMM back pages

Update: While Cape Town’s dire water crisis is over, authorities are wisely sticking to the 50 l/p/d limit set in 2018.

And…

Moving North Queensland water to Murray-Darling

North-Queensland-Water-Murray-Darling — Barron Falls demonstrates North Queensland water excesses. Photo by Coral Sea Baz

Australia’s mismanagement of water is coming home to roost now, with the highly visible deluge in North Queensland in sharp contrast to the water-starved Murray-Darling Basin.

Far North Queensland residents and emergency workers are still struggling to cope with the worst floods in living memory. Tully, arguably the wettest place in Australia, had 955mm over 27 days since New Year’s Day, about a quarter of its annual rain. Townsville broke all records with 1,200mm falling in just nine days, which accounted for unprecedented flooding and the decision to open the floodgates of Ross River Dam.

Residents of the seaside Townsville suburb of Balgal Beach, seemingly impervious to flooding, found out otherwise.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) recorded North Queensland rainfall totals in January and the first week in February ranging from 1,036mm (Cairns) to 1,325mm (Townsville) The highest weekly total in January was 766mm at Whyanbeel Valley. Crikey, that’s a few millimetres more than the annual rainfall for Australia’s second-largest inland city, Toowoomba.

Last time we were in that fair city (September), the only green grass around was in the city’s three parks, watered by Council to celebrate the Carnival of Flowers. That was the month parts of the Western Downs were added to the 53% of Queensland’s drought-declared local government areas.

Meanwhile in Southern states, BoM made the telling observation that annual rainfall in 2018 was the seventh-lowest on record (since 1900) for the Murray-Darling Basin. Rainfall was low over the south-eastern quarter of the mainland in 2018, with much of the region experiencing totals in the lowest 10% of records.

This is brought into sharper focus when we are told that parts of Australia’s mainland from around Newcastle in NSW to Euroa in Victoria are now included on the United Nations’ list of the Top Ten Global Water Hotspots (see further reading).

Many readers will be familiar with the crisis facing the Murray-Darling system: blue-green algae, millions of dead fish, the Darling River drying up; water being diverted for irrigation to grow water-intensive crops like cotton and rice. The recently published report by the South Australian Royal Commission found that the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan must be strengthened if there is to be any chance of saving the river system. Professor Jamie Pittock of the Australian National University writes that the Commission found systemic failures of the Basin Plan, adopted in 2012 to address over-allocation of water to irrigated farming. The Commission’s 111 findings and 44 recommendations accuse federal agencies of maladministration and challenge key policies that were pursued in implementing the plan.

Amid revelations of water theft, the awful legacy of dead fish in the oxygen-deprived Darling River and outback towns running out of water, plenty of people are having their say.

This week, South Australian independent Senator Rex Patrick dared to confront the cotton industry, demanding that growers justify the use of water and the right to grow that export crop. (The same could be said of rice, Ed.)

This is a long-running saga. In 2011 an article published by the Permaculture Research Institute explored a report that revealed Australia as the world’s largest net exporter of ‘virtual’ water (exported virtual water is defined as water consumed to create crops, livestock and industrial products for export). The report blamed the agricultural sector for the vast majority of the total volume of water exported from Australia in this way (72,000 gigalitres of virtual water exported overseas every year).

I’m not a scientist, hydrologist or environmental engineer, yet the answer seems desperately obvious. We need to channel and export North Queensland water to the arid south-eastern states and inland Queensland, NSW and South Australia.

One only has to think for five minutes about the Snowy Mountains hydro-electricity/irrigation scheme to see we are more than capable of funding, building and maintaining large and ambitious infrastructure projects.

Sydney food technology engineer Terry Bowring told The Courier-Mail in 2010 about his $9 billion plan to move water from the Burdekin and other north Queensland rivers to arid parts of inland NSW, Victoria and South Australia. Mr Bowring’s plan involved channelling about 4,000 gigalitres of water a year. The water would be transported 1,800kms by canals, with 60% of the water sold to irrigators. The rest would go to cities such as Toowoomba and Brisbane for domestic use.

Mr Bowring told FOMM yesterday the plan was similar to the Bradfield scheme proposed in 1938. Until Mr Bowring’s plan surfaced (he’d been working on it for years), no-one had taken Dr John Bradfield’s scheme forward to include costings.

Mr Bowring said the costings were based on experiences from the US, where he worked for some five years. The system would take six years to build but only four or five years to recover costs.

As with the Bradfield scheme, critics said the Bowring plan was uneconomic and impractical. The telling thing is that it would only take about 13% of the water that flows from the Burdekin to the ocean. Typically, more water flows to sea from the Burdekin than the Murray-Darling Basin and all city dams combined.

Mr Bowring, who is in his 80s, said he has no intention of pursuing the plan, but will make his research available for future use.

The other side of this argument was provided by the (then) Federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.

The 28-page report generally scotches the idea, which is often raised when there are weather extremes in the north or the south.

“Moving water long distances is costly, energy intensive, and can have significant environmental, social and cultural impacts,” (item 1 under Key Facts).

“Using water that is locally available is generally more cost effective than transporting water long distances. Current studies show that local options, such as water conservation, desalination and recycling, cost around $1–2 per thousand litres; a supply from 1500 kilometres (km) away would cost around $5–6 per thousand litres.”

However the immediate problem is to make the Murray-Darling system a Federal and State priority, no matter the financial or political cost. It is shocking to consider that outback towns like Walgett, Wilcannia and Bourke have either run out of drinking water or are under extreme water stress. These events seem to have flown beneath the media radar that picked up on the early 2018 water crisis in Cape Town (South Africa).

The real danger is the risk to the fragile ecosystem of a river system that spans 77,000 kilometres of rivers over one million square kilometres across four States and the ACT. Environmental challenges include excessive water being diverted for agricultural, the blue-green algae that killed millions of fish, and salinity (in 2016-17, 1.84 million tonnes of salt was flushed out to sea through the Murray mouth).

As the Australian Conservation Foundation summed up, in an advertisement posted on social media:

“The heart-breaking death of these fish is no natural disaster. Powerful corporate interests and their cashed up lobbyists are bleeding our rivers dry. For too long, state and federal governments have let them get away with it.”

Further reading: https://www.fabians.org.au/australia_s_water_crisis (a (long), technical article by Watermark Australia’s Dr Wayne Chamley).

FOMM backpages:

Cape Town water crisis a stark reminder for drought-prone Australia

water-crisis-drought — Water stress map: www.wri.org creative commons licence

Cape Town’s water crisis is making news around the world, but nowhere should it be ringing alarm bells more than in our neck of the woods – South East Queensland. It’s not that long ago since the Millenium Drought (2001-2009) reached a dramatic point in late 2007. Brisbane became the first Australian capital to endure Level 6 water restrictions at a time when the region’s main reservoir, Lake Wivenhoe, dropped to 15% capacity.

In Cape Town, South Africa, the town water crisis is so parlous that taps were to have been turned off on April 16, but conservation efforts by the city’s 4 million people has pushed this out to June 4. Cape Town introduced Level 6 restrictions last month. Reports from the South African capital sound a bit like conditions in South East Queensland, circa 2007-2008.

The so-called ‘Day Zero’ – when water in Cape Town’s six reservoirs drops to 13.5% – means taps will be turned off and residents will have to queue at standpipes for daily rations. (Think dystopian movies like Young Ones or The Worthy).

A news report this week described a sudden sharp shower in Cape Town (10mm or so). People were said to have rushed out of restaurants, bars and shops just to feel the rain on their faces.

Residents are being encouraged not only to limit their showers but also to have baby baths over the shower outlet to collect the grey water for recycling. As was the case in Brisbane, Cape Town residents are being discouraged from washing their cars and flushing toilets (unless really necessary).

According to our local utility, SEQWater, during our own water crisis in 2007-2008, Brisbane residents successfully halved daily water consumption to 140 litres per person under Level 6 restrictions, which included a ban on filling pools. Gardens could only be watered with buckets (with water collected from those three-minute showers). The motto, ‘if it’s yellow let it mellow’ was nailed to many a dunny door.

Conditions are tougher in Cape Town, where residents are limited to 50 litres each per day. The Guardian reported that Cape Town’s water crisis was accelerated by a drought so severe it was not expected for another 384 years. Plans to diversify with more boreholes and desalination plants are not scheduled until after 2020. The city’s biggest reservoir, Theewaterskloof Dam, has mostly evaporated or been sucked dry since the drought began in 2015. The shoreline is receding at the rate of 1.2 metres per week, The Guardian reported.

Tucked away in its two-page feature on Cape Town’s water crisis was the colourful but completely unhelpful statement from an un-named homophobic pastor who blamed the drought on gays and lesbians.

Back home, South East Queensland’s water crisis in 2007-2008 ushered in a new era of water management, resulting in the SEQ Water Strategy, which set a water consumption target of 200 litres per day.

SEQWater spokesman Mike Foster says the biggest single change since the Millenium Drought was construction of a 600 km reverse flow pipeline network that allows treated water to be moved around the region. The utility also now has a ‘drought-ready’ strategy which is triggered when storage falls to 70%. Currently the region’s dam levels overall are at 75.9%, so nobody is losing sleep over the average per capita daily water consumption of 184 litres.

water-crisis-dams — Baroon Pocket Dam spillway January 2011, image by Bob Wilson

FOMM wrote in March that water levels at our local dam, Baroon Pocket, had dropped to 46%. SEQWater supplemented the Sunshine Coast through an extended dry spell in 2017. Baroon Pocket Dam is now back to 78% (this photo of the spillway (January 2011) shows what can happen when 750mm falls in one month.

Blame it on climate change if you like, but the Sunshine Coast region has recorded below average annual rainfall in three of the last six years. What really did the damage was an eight-month stretch from July 2016 to February 2017 with an average rainfall per month of only 43mm. Source: Bureau of Meteorology monthly rainfall.

The South East Queensland Water Strategy aims to maintain regional water security into the future through management and operation of a water grid including a recycling facility and a desalination plant.

SEQWater owns and operates 26 dams, 51 weirs, and two borefields, including 12 key dams which supply as much as 90% of the region’s drinking water. Foster says SEQWater is now planning for far worse events than the Millenium Drought.

“Cape Town never thought they would experience more than two failed wet seasons in a row. South East Queenslanders never thought we would experience two failed wet season in a row either.

“But we went through the Millenium Drought and nearly a decade of failed wet seasons.”

Foster says that if SEQ was again faced with a Millenium Drought scenario, the strategies put in place would allow water supply to be maintained with medium level restrictions.

Meanwhile, in far more parched countries

You might feel relieved to learn that Australia was not one of 33 countries identified by the World Resources Institute as facing extreme water stress by 2040. However, Australia is one of six regions facing increased water stress, water demand, water supply, and seasonal variability over the next 22 years.

The top 11 water-stressed countries in 2040, each considered extremely highly stressed with a score of 5.0 out of 5.0, are projected to be Bahrain, Kuwait, Palestine, Qatar, San Marino, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Lebanon.

The 2015 report forecasts rapid increases in water stress across regions including eastern Australia, western Asia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the North American West, northern China, and Chile.

Nothing focuses the mind on the need to conserve water more than a summer camping holiday in a water-scarce national park. At the Bunya Mountains national park, east of Dalby, bore water is available in the national park camp ground. But it is labelled ‘non-potable’ and visitors are advised to boil and/or sterilise the water before using. We have a 60 litre tank under our caravan and we also take two 10-litre containers as back-up. Even so, after five days the van tank was less than half full and by the time we drove home on a stinking hot Sunday, we were sharing the last few mouthfuls from a water bottle.

Fine, just walk into the Kilcoy IGA and buy some bottled water, right? Maybe not. In Cape Town, supermarkets were forced to introduce a per customer limit after a big run on bottled water.

You may recall I was enthralled a while ago by Ben H Winters’ series, The Last Policeman. This cli-fi trilogy depicts the urban chaos developing as the population wait for the cataclysmic arrival of an asteroid which will destroy the planet.

Winters expertly conjured up underlying tensions between survivalists, conspiracy theorists or escapists who have “gone bucket list” or found easy ways to do themselves in. Then there are those with no particular moral code. As of the policemen in Winters’ second book says: “Just you wait until the water runs out…”

More reading: The 11 cities most likely to run out of water

http://bobwords.com.au/doesnt-rain-soon-mate/

http://bobwords.com.au/dont-drink-the-water/