18 June 2009

Botanic Gardens finally get a water supply?

| johnboy
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The ABC brings word that the National Botanic Gardens have, after these many long years of drought, managed to get approval for a system to extract water out of Lake Burley Griffin, just as the Royal Canberra golf course does for the benefit of its members.

    NCA chief executive Gary Rake says it will save the gardens thousands of dollars each year.

    “This will mean they’ll be able to use a much cheaper and environmentally more acceptable source to maintain the gardens rather than having to pay for and draw from the urban water supply,” he said.

    Mr Rake says the deal took months to reach because there is a cap on the amount of water that can be drawn from the Molonglo catchment.

Hurray!

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Many native plants actually don’t like nitrogenous or phosphate-y fertilizer. I don’t think algae has the same effect on plants as it does on animals. It also doesn’t appear to be poisoning the fish, or else you’d see them all floating around dead.

dvaey said :

Having said that, I guess it wouldnt be that hard to add a filter along the way to treat the water and/or even add nutrients or something to it too.

Sounds like a sewer!

The only way I know of to remove the neuro-toxins generated by blue-green algae is by contact-filtration with activated charcoal.

Well I dont know about issuing signs to dingoes but theres some pretty scary looking warnings with swimmers and dogs crossed out, placed around the lake at various times. It warns if you come in contact with the water on your skin, to wash it off. Can that be healthy for plants, especially if trying to keep them for heritage?

Having said that, I guess it wouldnt be that hard to add a filter along the way to treat the water and/or even add nutrients or something to it too.

issued… dang poor proof reading by my dog that typed that. bad dog, in your kennel…

dvaey said :

What do Australian native plants think about water with blue-green algae in it? Are they more tolerant than Australian native dogs which are warned away from using the water?

have we issues ‘sit! stay…’ orders to the dingoes now?

What do Australian native plants think about water with blue-green algae in it? Are they more tolerant than Australian native dogs which are warned away from using the water?

hellspice said :

why not move the gardens closer to the lake instead ?

The siting of the botanic gardens where it is was a stroke of genius, as the topography has enabled them to grow things that usually won’t grow in Canberra. This water thing is great news, but hopefully in the time it takes to get it built, more things won’t die.

or help depress the rising unemployment no.s and get a whole lot of folks and a whole lotta buckets, line ’em up and…

or get those lazy dragons to do something other than sunbake.

hellspice said :

why not move the gardens closer to the lake instead ?

won’t the pipe be going into the lake via the anu? doesn’t seem to be much distance, but, as JB has pointed out, the grade that it would be traveling up is quite steep. perhaps a great big reservoir where the old empty pond near the toilets are would be of benefit? shorter pumping distance.

The Bot Gdns is the biggest collection of Australian native plants anywhere in the world. Even after more than 10% of the plants have died due to neglect.

It would be more effort to try to recreate the plantings closer to the lake than to pipe the water to the plants.

why not move the gardens closer to the lake instead ?

The ACT Government taxes water at 64¢ per kilolitre and charges far in excess for the actual cost of water for those amounts about 50kL each quarter. $3.70 when the actual cost is about $2.00 if there was no tax and one price for water.

I doubt that the economic and environmental cost of this scheme is positive just like most of the current schemes set up to avoid using water from the potable supply for irrigation.

The lake is not water storage because its level needs to be maintained within a 20cm range so in times of low inflows and high evaporation rates any water used for irrigation from the lake and the Molonglo river would need to be replaced by water from Googong, that is from our potable supply.

Blue/green algae, Chop71. I wouldn’t wash in it.

Well now everyone can wash their hands with lake water…. although I don’t know how clean that is.

The upfront capital costs are probably a one-off grant from Treasury (even if through the department). The running costs are just the cost of pumping after that, which probably comes out a less than half a million dollars.

A water authority that charged so much would have to be considered to have no scruples, but then, so would a federal government that refused to allow for these costs in the budget.

And before anyone gets going – it has been both parties running down the place since the early 1990s (and I wasn’t around to know before then). No one has clean hands on this one.

The pumps generally cost more than the pipes, it’s quite a grade they have to get up.

Read on the ABC news this pipe will cost $3M to run from the lake. That is one very expensive bit of pipe, that has to go how far? Probably less than 1km.

I noted that there is a saving of $500,000 PA, this begs the question, who were they paying $500,000 too? Would that be Actew charging them for water?

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