28 October 2005

ACT is drought-free

| Kerces
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The ABC brings the good news that the drought is officially over, in the ACT at least (and there was much rejoicing).

Environment Minister Jon Stanhope said three of our four dams are now overflowing and as a result the Stage 2 water restrictions will be lifted.

However, he warns this doesn’t mean there is to be free-for-all water wastage and a return to the high consumption levels of the bad ole days.

“The centrepiece of the announcement today is that we are asking Canberrans to no longer, for instance, water lawns during the day ever,” he said.

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id like to see hydroelectricity turbines on the lake ginninderra and burley griffin dam walls.

of course id also like all new houses constructed in teh act to have solar panels instead of tiles on their roofs.

and mini hydroelectricty turbines on all downpipes.

anyone else read renew ?

Some quick facts about Goulburn:

It hosts one of the largest smoked trout industries in Australia.

In Mossvale, just up the road, they commercially sell their water to coca-cola in Sydney.

OK the people in town at Goulburn don’t have any water, that’s because it’s been plugged up upstream for industrial purposes. If they got off their asses and stopped whinging to the Government and started action to return their waterways back to their purposes they might see a lot more action than maintaining their current regime of waiting for the federal government to pump them water.

No one is proposing there not be a minimum amount of water supplied at minimal prices.

The water prices are here.

Off the top of my head i’d like the price of water over the first 100 kilolitres multiplied tenfold.

I know a lot of people think water should be moreexpensive, but what about peo;ple who are not well off. Do you really want to see pensioners not bathing due to costs. Or single mums sending their kids outside instead of to the toilet! Access to some level of water at reasonable cost is a right in our society. Whereas wasting it on paths and luch lawns is not so neccessary. I don’t mind the new restriction regime. And I would get a tank if I had room. Not everyone is obsessed with making a profit.

Heh. I’ve always found the idea that someone might think a driveway or front pavement “need cleaning” on a daily or even weekly basis pretty amusing/bewildering.

I mean, apart from the waste of water – what a waste of TIME! Don’t people have anything better to do?

Vic Bitterman10:26 pm 28 Oct 05

Idiot ‘restrictions’ never stopped me hosing my windows and hosing down my driveway.

Nothing gets the dust and leaves off better than 20 minutes squirting from my hose each day.

Maybe I can do it for longer each day now? May as well.

I have these neighbours upstairs (I live in units)who use the taps like ALL the time. From like 4am to midnight. I’ve being tempted to report them to someone for water wastage, what the hell are they doing with ALL that water?!?!?!
*end rant*

“i think there should be a cracker night to celebrate!”
I second the motion!

agreed. water is ridiculously cheap.

crunch the cost of a water tank and ancillaries with the equivalent volume of water you pay for from ACTEWAGL.

its nuts.

a tripling of the water cost would be reasonable as an interim measure.

as long as the $$ is used wisely and not pissed away on stanhopian whimsys.

something sustainable and infrastructure related, like lightrail.

actually, ive always wondered – where does the water from lake ginninderra go ? i it stored for a reason or just to make a nice lake for me to walk around ?

I think we need to stop inflicting our own choices on others by coercion and applaud the Chief Minister for refusing to do so.

If people want to hose their concrete down then let them pay for the use of the resource.

If the country can grow rice and cotton in the desert it can afford to let people have the sorts of gardens they want (if they’re willing to pay for the water)

Bonfire, what you said actually made some sense! I see you still managed to slip the term ‘softhead’ in there though.

i think we have to step away from teh 4 seasons mentailtty that has lingered on from our european forebears.

the aboriginals in some areas have a concept of three seasons.

since i read about it, i see it as more apt for this area.

in a few hundred years maybe the cycle of arid and non-arid ( i dont like the term drought) will be nderstood, and planned for.

farmers and rural folk can maximise profits during non-arid periods (of several years) and perform maintenance or *gasp* go on a holiday when its arid.

i think population limits might be foreseen, but it would be better to establish new population growth areas, such as on wa coast between perth and the ord river region, where this population can grow.

do we need more dams in canberra ? i dont know, but some serious research outside adversarial politics and green softheadedness needs to be conducted.

any bets that the folks at ACTEW bleeting on that they’re losing profits because people aren’t using as much water didn’t influence this announcement

ABC missed the thrust of the story. They’ve brought in a new, long-term scheme of water conservations measures. So we’ve gone from stage 2 restrictions to stage 1 conservation measures which, as I understand it, are permanent.

Scary stuff that Goulburn is still in that much trouble, and here we are less than 100km’s away lifting restriction… We should be planning for the future becasue I’m fuct if I’m going to pay more for water in ten years because Sonic the Hedgehog has sat idle after having his ass saved from having to spend up on ‘our water crisis’.

Did he really say that? Word for word? “for instance, water lawns during the day ever”

Dammit I actually VOTED for that man, can you believe it.

All that’s missing is an “ever EVER”.

Growling Ferret1:22 pm 28 Oct 05

To show how hit and miss the rain has been, Goulburn is still on Level 5 restrictions with less than 20% water capacity available for consumption, coming into summer…

http://goulburn.local-e.nsw.gov.au/roads/1439/1858.html

Social Control? I don’t see it that way, I see it as the government encouraging people who have no intention of doing the right thing and behaving responsibly to comply for the greater good.

Water restrictions are just another crude attempt at social control. Get rid of them.

i think there should be a cracker night to celebrate!

Hooray for our brave leader for providing water from the heavens!

Am I the only one concerned that the restrictions will be lifted altogether? I’m fairly confident that most Canberrans will do the right thing, but I can see problems brewing down the track. Thoughts?

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