ACT water usage targets

@Tempestas – there is no more water, and no less, than there was 10,000 years ago. Its location has changed, but there is absolutely no more, or less, water on the earth.

What the issue is, of the potable kind, there isn’t much at the moment.

Carparks NathanaelB, carparks!

Lake Burley Griffin was completely empty at one point (before they filled it) … so I’m sure we could live with it being empty again! All that wasted land … imagine the skyscrapers we could be there! The shopping malls! Motels and apartment blocks!

Um doesn’t all our water effectively get recycled by evaporation eventually becoming rain anyway?

On those signs I get the sense they are updated during the day as the previous day seems to be day behind on the morning commute.

I do wash my car regularly, but I take it to our local car-lovers type self serve, where they recycle the water.
There was segment on ACA or TT about recycled water in carwashes and how it had several hundred % more than the safe level of bacteria and other nasties in it. Apart from the bacteria aspect of it the recycled water is crap and not filtered very well and isn’t that good for the paintwork of your car. The detergents used are cheap and nasty as well. I can notice the difference when I wash my car at home using my own car wash detergent, yes, and mains water – I only wash the car once every few months and I don’t water the garden so IMO I’m entitled.

you will be drinking poo water.

Straight from Jon Stanhope’s mouth.

OK, so not quite in context, but TAGLINE!

We always use less than the target during periods of rainy weather, and use more than the target during long hot weeks.

The only one of relevant size is Lake Burley Griffin, at about 33GL (about a quarter of the size of Googong). As we found out earlier this year in the worst possible way, that’s where Queanbeyan’s sewage is discharged to – so we’d still be drinking recycled effluent anyway, with the added bonus of turning the centre of town into a muddy ditch.

Personally I favour “virtual recycling” – where instead of recycling the 31GL/year that existing treatment works puts into the Murrumbidgee, we just take out 31GL/year from the Murrumbidgee upstream and bung it into Googong. Net effect on the river flows is zero.

VYBerlinaV8 – my point exactly. Its hard to go anywhere in the ACT without passing some form of large body of water, all unused.

@Holden Caulfield – like here ? http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21416524-1702,00.html

My synopsis is until the monkeys can work out how to not drink the water THEMSELVES, I’m not really willing to risk such a sensitive task.

Triple filter, double process all you like, there is no absolute failsafe, and eventually somebody will be exposed to drinking unprocessed poo – lets face it, do you trust the ACT Government to deliver this ?

What the hell is with calling algae blue-green?? Is it blue or is it green? Come on, people – this is a major issue!

Because toilets don’t have blue-green algae?

Plenty of poo comes from Jon Stanhope’s mouth.

If we’re going to go to all the hassle of turning poo into drinking water, why don’t we just start treating the water in one or more of Canberra’s lakes for the same purpose?

So long as poo water is safe, what’s the big deal?

foo foo on the html – link here http://www.chiefminister.act.gov.au/Speeches/2006/060815water%20recycling.pdf

Official policy – at least something published on a .gov.au site such as

The extracts to note are:

Guidelines now being finalized establish mandatory targets that must be met, but they also allow a great deal of flexibility in how new developments can achieve their targets — including through the kind of effluent recycling already happening at Southwell Park and elsewhere. – aka we’re thinking about poo

A major trunk sewer runs through the site to the Lower Molonglo treatment plant, creating an opportunity to explore the possibility of recycling high-quality effluent back into the new development. – we’re really thinking about poo

to accept the notion of recycled effluent in our cups of tea and our baby’s baths. accept it people, under my reign you will be drinking poo water.

Straight from Jon Stanhope’s mouth.

They’re not policy documents, they’re a government commissioned report. One would hope that the report will be used to inform policy; nontheless it can still be used to inform debate, which is where we are.

Policy outcomes based on the FWO reports are also out there, but they’re not as useful for informed debate as the reports themselves.

I have read through some of them – bearing in mind that .com.au addresses actually don’t give out official .gov.au policy.

They can publish all they like, until it comes from a .gov.au source, it’s not necessarily set in stone, which is where I’m coming from.

ACT, available right here. I ask because your frequent comments about the future of our drinking water make it seem like you haven’t. Regardless, since you’re apparently interested in the subject I highly recommend them.

@caf – which government ? The regardless answer – most probably.

Water targets are like most government targets – they don’t represent any sort of analytical process, and failure to meet them has no real consequence.

sorry folks to blow your images but I live 5 min south of googong on acrage.. no mains, neighbours no closer than a few hundred metres any direction.. ahhh life is good 🙂

So is the water target an arbitrary figure – what does it actually represent? And if water usage fluctuates so much, wouldn’t it make more sense to average it at least over the week for a more accurate indication of water conservation progress?

Snahons_scv6_berlina just gave me images of that Magnet Mart ad with the guy who looks like Frankenstein watering his garden with his sticky beak neighbour from hell looking over the fence.

and when you run out you can just refill it from the mains

Indeed. Connect your bath into your outside water tank, and then just run the bath whenever you need a top-up for your tank.

This illustrates one of the many avenues available for exploiting the system.

Looking at the dams up in the Brindabella’s has to be considered in the context that Actew has been pumping water like crazy out to Googong. This keeps the Brindy dams as low as possible to (hopefully) store the winter rains.

… and when you run out you can just refill it from the mains.

I love my 110 KL water tank.. I can use what I want when I feel 🙂

Have you even read the Future Water Options reports Maelinar?

Here’s some pics of Corin from May last year:
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh177/Holden-Caulfield/156573822-L.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh177/Holden-Caulfield/156574352-L.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh177/Holden-Caulfield/156570178-L.jpg

Now Mælinar may well be right in that we have so much water we should just turn our sprinklers on when it’s pissing down rain for the hell of it. But personally, I’m quite happy to accept that, we, as a community, have a history of wasting water for no good reason and if that means I need to think twice before turning on a tap, then I’m happy to make that compromise.

Cool..& may I add, good work!

Restoring riparian corridors and waterflow structure along, for example the Murrumbidgee via planting natives and strategic fencing, among other things such as I’ve also done some bore capping, bore structure restoration, and water level/salinity work, even desilting.

Thumper’s your billabong man though, he’s pretty hot on natural flow and the historic element to the way Australian waterways worked before white man decided this would be a good place to drop a few convicts.

Thanks for asking.

In what capacity though Maelinar? I’ve also worked for that same department, yet I’m still happy to admit to having next to no knowledge when it comes to water management.

Actually JB, I am quite good at it. I have been working at the Department of the Environment and WATER and a few other bits and pieces (DEWHA) for a few years now.

** Disclaimer **
This comment does not represent the view of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

I do wash my car regularly, but I take it to our local car-lovers type self serve, where they recycle the water.

Yes, Maelinar….because you’re the expert in water management.

Ahh, cool VY. You never know on this site lately. 🙂

… (I was actually kidding). Thanks for that.

Holden Caulfield – yes I have actually.

When you choose to view the world in black and white, yes THAT dam is empty. I am telling you that this is greenwash.

It would not take a lot of infrastructure to fill that dam by taking off the top of every other dam that is UNUSED at the moment. Or you can sponsor the highly technical, hugely expensive and prone to error poo treatment plant option.

Unfortunately, it is the current Government that have restricted the deck of cards avaliable to be played.

A very large percentage of it is lost VYBerlinaV8.

I think Standope believes that all the worlds problems can be solved by using signs. He probably believes that a “Don’t detonate bombs” sign in the Middle East would end all conflict.

Does the water I use to wash the car on my concrete driveway run into the dam?

Exactly what I was getting at excession. Why all this want to waste water anyway? Get used to the restrictions people, they’re here to stay…& rightly so.

1 gigalite is fractionally over a single week’s consumption at the target rate.

1 litre = 1 kilogram
1,000 litres = 1 tonne
1,000,000 litres = 1 megalitre = 1,000 tonnes
130Ml = 130,000 TONNES of water a day.

I have seen those signs showing daily usage at 150, 165, 179 and other numbers. Usage on cool wet days is much lower than on hot dry days.

Yeah, let’s just waste water for the heck of it. There’s plenty around! I can’t wait until I can hose down my driveway again, that’s just the best.

Have you been to visit Corin Dam? Googong Dam? Thank goodness we have had decent rain over the last few months, because the last time I checked out those two dams it was downright scary!

The signs are greenwash. Stanhope will have you drinking recycled poo before drinking treated lakewater, because the wool is very much, over your eyes.

As a practical example, nominate anywhere in the ACT that is further than 20 minutes from a water source of over 1 gigalitre.

We’re often above the targets. Has it rained every day this week? I do believe it has!