Droughtbusters

Droughtbusting Aussie Bucketeers are taking matters into their own hands and recycling water from the house, to keep parched gardens alive. This potentially subversive activity is documented in the Age. And yes, I am one of them.

In related matters, the Prime Minister and Minister for Water have followed up their multi billion election bribe, with a promise that we will all be drinking sewage before too long. I am not opposed to it per se, I just think that there has to be a nicer way to say it. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I hear it verbalised. I really don't want to know. Just get on with it, the technology is proven and nature does a good job anyway over time. The vision of flushing the toilet and the water going straight into the water tank is the challenging image to dispel.

Here in South Australia, Premier Mike Rann was first to jump on the yuck factor, ruling out recycled sewage as an option. Ditto, Steve Bracks in Victoria, who despite a thumping election win last year still has it in the too hard basket.

The funny thing is that much of the water we drink in Adelaide has been through the bodies of many humans and animals all the way down the River Murray. We are all drinking recycled sewage every day. Even so, drinking poo poo and wee wee are just too difficult as political issues. Let's stick to law and order and stamp duty.

In other news, an Adelaide based scientist, who lead the development of Australia's Drinking Water Guidelines says he wouldn't touch the stuff. Don Bursill says that while the technology is there, the back up systems to ensure the reliability of the supply is not there yet.

In Queensland, recycled sewage will be on the menu next year because of the dire water supply situation there. A promised referendum has been poo pooed, to move the sewage drinking plans forward.

And finally, the State Opposition want to build a $400 million desalination plant, similar to the one in Perth, to meet up to 25 percent of urban water needs in Adelaide. They have even proposed locations, an abandoned refinery being one. The State Government is poo pooing that one, claiming it will be too expensive, require too much power and be a disposal option. This despite the fact that they are building one in conjunction with the developers of the huge new mining development in the north of the state. Good enough for construction workers and miners, but not good enough for the good citizens of Adelaide.

It's not Poo Poo or Wee Wee

Adelaide householders are confused about whether it is illegal to put grey water on gardens.
Apparently current laws have been interepreted to mean that it is and SA Water has been advising callers as such. Current requirements include a $300 permit to install a permenant diverter and the capital cost, making it an expensive proposition.

I have been bucketing grey water onto the garden for years, which is rather crude, but I think, the right thing, given the water shortage here. Other states have a more practical approach to reuse of grey water and South Australia can do the same. An urgent review is being conducted. Common sense here please.

Salisbury leads in water reuse

One of Adelaide's northern suburbs is benefitting from very progressive water planning. Over much of the city, the lack of rain has dried out much of the vegetation but is not impacting on the Salisbury council area, where more than 25 years of planning and development have paid off.

Mayor Tony Zappia said stormwater collected through wetlands systems has been stored in underground aquifers, ready for use across the council area.

"We have substantial amounts of water in reserve underground and we have been using that water to irrigate many of our reserves and sports grounds," Mr Zappia said.

"Even with the water restrictions, we'll be able to continue to irrigate these reserves and maintain them, whereas had we been reliant on mains water, we would not be able to."

The council has the capacity to collect, clean and store seven billion litres a year through wetlands at Greenfields, Pooraka, Para Hills and Burton.

Annual water use has never exceeded what has been collected and it is hoped there is enough to see out the drought period.

In the next four years there are plans to extend the network throughout Salisbury.

We investigated doing this on a small scale at the kids school. While it was technically possible, the benefits were not there, given the large capital expense and the limited run off from the school. We did however reestablish a small wetland area to be fed from stormwater runoff. We got a grant to put in a tank and are just waiting for some rain. However the project on Salisbury's scale is a great model for other Australian Communities. Some of the wetlands have fantastic native vegetation and wildlife.

Salisbury is one of a number of Adelaide's northern suburbs that are part of the Australian Solar City Project, where individual houses will be encouraged to install renewables and energy conservation gizmos.

These sorts of projects can make a big difference, especially in the middle of the big dry that we have in Australia at the moment.

Update: These must have been the kinds of projects the Margaret Beckett was talking about and that Flute was not aware of when he elegantly savaged the current incompetent reactie fools running the country at the moment.

Beckett said politely.

And of course Australia has more cause than many other countries in the world to understand the force of these arguments, because you already are a country that can teach the rest of us a great deal in terms of management of water resources, for example, and because actually you need to do so.

To which Flute responded

"That’s why the Murray Darling is buggered, recycled water is synonymous with wee wee, and no one has done a thing about the relentless, predictable and preventable decline in dam levels over the last five years.

We could teach the UK as much about water management as they could teach us about dentistry."

Well apparently we are not all bad when it comes to water management programmes. More of this kind of forward thinking needed.