Time to ease water restrictions

I am amazed at those in the city who cry so loudly about water restrictions. Try having to harvest your own water, and if it aint in your tank, you can’t faff around with debates about whether it gets used on the car or the garden.
The water ACTEW provide is potable, drinking-quality water. To use it to water your roses or clean the new Commodore is ridiculously stupid. If you want to wash your Commodore and government restrictions prevent it, get a water tank, harvest your own and do what you like with it. It’s not rocket science.

Quote from original post: “And our dams are now full over 50%.” (yeah sorry, I don’t know how to quote original post and I don’t care either)

So no guessing if you are “glass is half empty” or “glass is half full” type then? 😛

Restrictions should be relaxed. We’ve been good little kiddies… They monitor dam levels and rainfall well enough to pick ’em up again should levels fall beyond say, 40%…

I doubt you will ever see unrestricted water usage again. You can water plants with a watering can or trigger nozzle under the current restrictions.. just not the lawn and i’m sure you can find 5 minutes of spare time somewhere between 7 and 10pm.

Relaxing the water restrictions automatically sets the green light off in people’s heads and they go crazy and water everthing, plus going into summer water usage in general goes up so the water levels will probably drop back to 42-43% full. Get used to it.

and for the people who say “OMGZ! I don’t want to drink treated sewerage!”. You already are, water goes to the treatment plant and gets put back into the waterways, which eventually ends up back in the dam and comes out your tap. There’s no problem with recycled water, given all the checks in place to ensure it’s safe.

omg take a look at the sky there’s not much falling from it these days and 50% empty not full what happens when it drops to 40% 30% etc because some people want clean cars and lavish gardens

Can anyone tell me how some of those car washes that advertise “we recycle our water” actually do that ? It seems to me that all the muddy water (I don’t wash my car often) just runs away.

Am I being duped ?

I agree it is too soon to ease water restrictions.
We should have pressured the Govt for another dam half a decade ago.
We should pressure the Govt now to cut back on unjustified environmental flows.
We who did not vote Green should be telling our leaders, JS and Zed to please vote together to block any Green attempt not to go ahead with Son-of-Cotter.
The current period of dry years is no worse than dry periods in the ACT pre-1950.
Our water shortage is the natural result of decades of giving creedence to Green anti-dam litanies.
Water is not “precious”, it is a commodity, that we all need, with a price and we have foolishly allowed Govts to not harvest water – then up the price and cry scarcity.

areaman said :

Um, you do realise google maps isn’t a live shot of what Canberra looks like right at this minute. Half of those ovals are now yellow-brown fields of nothing after the ACT government stopped watering them.

Thanks for that Captian Obvious!

You might like to know though that the majority or Canberra Imagery was updated recently.

Water is precious and shouldn’t be wasted – ever. The tight restrictions have taught most people how to conserve water; planting drought resistant plants, reducing the size of lawns, using artificial lawns in some cases, re-using bath/shower water for the garden, installing tanks etc… I hope that water conservation becomes a way of life in dry areas(unless of course we miraculously end up with an abundance of water in the future) and that the restrictions become every-day rules to live by. I would feel really angry if they lifted the current restrictions as we head into a potentially long, hot Summer. I think we all need to reconceptualise what is considered ‘normal’ regarding water usage.

AG Canberra said :

Does the Gov have the power to limit what we use other utilities for was well?

They bloody well should be able too. I’d rather that everyone can afford water to drink, wash their cloths and shower than that they get priced out of the market because some rich wanker has bought up all the water to keep their car collection clean and their pools sparkling.

The same goes for fridges and lights in a brown out or heating in a gas shortage in winter.

AG Canberra said :

Does the Gov have the power to limit what we use other utilities for was well?

When ACTEW couldn’t get enough gas a couple of winters ago did they have the power to restrict our use? no pool heaters, no outdoor heaters at cafe’s etc?

If we get brown outs in summer can they ban airconditioners?

My point is that if I pay for it I should be able to decide how I use it. If I take shorter showers and use water efficient appliances shouldn’t I be able to use my “spare” water for whatever I think is a fair thing?

Anyone for a slip n slide and the clown hat fountain?

Or a patch of green grass for my kids to play cricket on?

we bought a patch of green grass from canturf and water it with grey water. it isn’t a big patch, but the kids aren’t big either. it is the only patch of green in my entire back garden.(I don’t water the lawns, just the shrubs and fruit trees) the front of the house can go sing – I live on a corner block…

PsydFX said :

I reckon f*ck water restrictions.

I just did a quick scout on Google Maps, and I think if anyone was serious about saving water we wouldn’t have over 100 lush green ovals in the ACT – most of which I dare say are only utilised a small percentage of the time.

It’s BS that we have all this water being wasted on under-utilised public ovals, especially seeing as I’m not even allowed to grow a lawn in my back yard which will be fully utilised by my dogs who currently get to play in a dust bowl all day.

Um, you do realise google maps isn’t a live shot of what Canberra looks like right at this minute. Half of those ovals are now yellow-brown fields of nothing after the ACT government stopped watering them.

I reckon f*ck water restrictions.

I just did a quick scout on Google Maps, and I think if anyone was serious about saving water we wouldn’t have over 100 lush green ovals in the ACT – most of which I dare say are only utilised a small percentage of the time.

It’s BS that we have all this water being wasted on under-utilised public ovals, especially seeing as I’m not even allowed to grow a lawn in my back yard which will be fully utilised by my dogs who currently get to play in a dust bowl all day.

Does the Gov have the power to limit what we use other utilities for was well?

When ACTEW couldn’t get enough gas a couple of winters ago did they have the power to restrict our use? no pool heaters, no outdoor heaters at cafe’s etc?

If we get brown outs in summer can they ban airconditioners?

My point is that if I pay for it I should be able to decide how I use it. If I take shorter showers and use water efficient appliances shouldn’t I be able to use my “spare” water for whatever I think is a fair thing?

Anyone for a slip n slide and the clown hat fountain?

Or a patch of green grass for my kids to play cricket on?

New Yeah said :

radonezh said :

peterh said :

…thought the ACT actually looked greener than The Vegas at that point in time. Now of course, I realize it’s mostly because hardly anyone here seems to follow the water restrictions and does what they please.

Are you talking about Canberra in the ’80s? The place looked like an oasis back then.

Anecdotaly, I think more people follow instead of flaunt the restrictions these days.

imagine if you hit one of those in your Prius on the way to your university protest march

It’s not the ’60s anymore. Protesting university students is a cliche that people need to stop recycling

Nah, I’m talking about Canberra in January this year in the middle of summer with all big 3-inch cracks in the soil and the flies climbing in and out of every orifice (disgusting – it would never have happened under Joh) it was still greener than what Brisbane was at that time (that’s all changed since, of course, since the rains finally came.)

60’s cliche? I think not. Isn’t there a law that you can’t have a protest unless it has a certain percentage of university students and ferals from the Northern Rivers marijuana growing districts? I am sure there’s a regulation or at least a local by-law. Though, of course, I was exaggerating about the Prius.. most ferals and students can’t afford a Prius.. but I needed to add something for dramatic effect, no?

Of course – if you are talking about full-fee-paying Saudi students – then, yes, cliched.. they’d be driving Lexus or BMW’s.. and they certainly would be on their way to the coast to fish go game fishing with their hookers.. I mean hookahs..

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

Yes, but did the author think about the plight of the red-tailed flying desert skink, the bandied buttress-nosed sand moth and the snake-tailed dune snake? They would all lose their habitats if the deserts were turned into green places.

And remember the fact that all of Australia was once a lush paradise inhabited by megafauna only a few dozen millenia ago. Imagine what an environmental disaster it would be if that were to happen again. After all, you wouldn’t want all those giant wombats the size of prime movers coming back to life and wandering around the countryside eating the tops of your apple trees – they would devastate the apple growing industry. And imagine if you hit one of those in your Prius on the way to your university protest march?

It’s funny because it’s true…

but the wombats weren’t the biggest problem, one kick from the kangaroos of the time and you would be a pulpy mess. imagine a kangaroo that your head came up to its waist….

oh right sorry Jim *runs to wash car*

looks like i miss out on my shower tonight 🙂

Pesty said :

radonezh you obviously know your topic, but again I say, its OK until it goes wrong. imagine, just one system faliure and contaminated water got through, all the fresh water pipes down-line from the plant would be contaminated. A few bugs are dare I say it “good for us” but to my mind there is a world of difference between some naturally occuring bugs in the dams compared to treating raw sewage. don’t forget, its not just shit we are dealing with, think of all the chemicals, hospital and industrial waste too that goes down the gurgler.

Your concerns are the concerns of every intelligent human being whose mind is directed towards water recycling technology, and I certainly had the same concerns three years ago.

However, read what the process does, how it works, and what it has in place for the failure modes:

http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/myfiles/uploads/purified%20recycled%20water/PRW_How_is_it_made_v4.pdf

The evidence presented by the egg-heads, as well as the actual results from the pilot plant was able to convince the Qld govt and the entire population of SEQ, (which these days has largely been overrun over-cashed, neurotic former Sydney residents anyway) that water recycling was a wise piece of infrastructure to invest in. Most cities, already take much of their drinking water from river systems below the treated sewerage outflows from other towns and cities. Sydney water takes drinking water for the city from the Hawkesbury(sp?) River after the treated sewerage from a number of other towns is taken from it – and has done so for years – but without the benefit of the technology described above.

“i would rather have a dirty car than no water to drink or wash in.”

Come now; haven’t you heard that having a dirty car can damage your car’s paint! I’m sure that we’d all agree that drinking and washing are important, but can you really compare this to the importance of pristine paint? It’s all about resale, you see.

radonezh said :

peterh said :

…thought the ACT actually looked greener than The Vegas at that point in time. Now of course, I realize it’s mostly because hardly anyone here seems to follow the water restrictions and does what they please.

Are you talking about Canberra in the ’80s? The place looked like an oasis back then.

Anecdotaly, I think more people follow instead of flaunt the restrictions these days.

imagine if you hit one of those in your Prius on the way to your university protest march

It’s not the ’60s anymore. Protesting university students is a cliche that people need to stop recycling

radonezh said :

Pesty said :

Reprobate said :

Pesty said :

Danman said :

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

.

I object. I don’t want to be drinking yesterdays sewage. I’m not a fussy person, dealing with decomposing critters in hot roof voids is a regular occurance for me, then I have lunch (not the dead critter) but I don’t trust the recycling technology not to to fail if it were ever applied.

Umm – I thought ALL the water we drink is recycled, and has been for millions of years ie the evaporation/rainfall process…

Very good! In order to recreate this process all the sewage would need to be distilled! Have you any concept of how much it would cost to boil 140,000,000 odd Litres a day! If we are going down that route why not contract the whole thing out to Johnny Walker, they could bung in a few extra ingredients then we could all get totally P****d every time we had a cup of coffee!

The water you are drinking now is already contaminated with faecal matter to a much greater degree to the water that comes out of the sewerage recycling process that is implemented in cities such as Brisbane. In actual fact, osmotic polymer filtration is better than distillation, because it does not permit hydrocarbons to pass through the filter, whereas distillation does not remove all hydrocarbons (since many of those compounds evaporate and condense in a similar fashion to water). Osmotic filters can produce water that is purer and safer than any rainwater on the planet, and certainly safer than the stuff sitting in our dams, which are inhabited with all sorts of nasty creatures and plants, excreting their guts out into our drinking water.

radonezh you obviously know your topic, but again I say, its OK until it goes wrong. imagine, just one system faliure and contaminated water got through, all the fresh water pipes down-line from the plant would be contaminated. A few bugs are dare I say it “good for us” but to my mind there is a world of difference between some naturally occuring bugs in the dams compared to treating raw sewage. don’t forget, its not just shit we are dealing with, think of all the chemicals, hospital and industrial waste too that goes down the gurgler.

Woody – not true. The ACT Govt just kept pulling out the plug and let all that drinking water flow out of our dams. See pages 4 and 5 of link below.

Because I’m going to take a barrister/economist’s advice about water over those of environmental scientists living here. He doesn’t seem hysterical at all – except the part where he seems to think water restrictions and rising costs means “you shouldn’t have a family or plant a garden”. And did you know that environmental flows are unnecessary? Well, they are, because…you know, he just says so.

Seriously, people, I can post links to PDFs from people who make a convincing case that the world is flat. They’re wrong. Why do you find it so hard to believe experts in the field? Why do you have to go to the outsider, the long-shot, just to justify your own views and to construct a convenient reality? It’s science, not law – you don’t get to cherry-pick evidence that’s in your favour and hope nobody notices the rest.

i would rather have a dirty car than no water to drink or wash in.

We are managing fine without loosening the restrictions (and have been since water restrictions were implemented) , so why bother loosening them now when our dams are only at 50% – ecpecially as we are coming up to summer and who know how dry and hot this summer will be

peterh said :

funny thing, but there are councils out there patrolling the streets for water wastage. they even impose fines. Not here, mind you, but in other cities i have visited.

whilst on retreat at redcliffe last week, it rained a lot. the targets that the brisvegans have are a lot lower than ours, but they have had plenty of rain lately.

(it rained at night. Damn considerate.)

Yeah, coz it wasn’t raining in the catchments for years, only on the burbs. So the strategy was to limit potable water usage to drinking, showering and food preparation, whilst encouraging the installation and use of rain water tanks with really generous capacity-based rebates, as well as patrolling the streets for those sneaks trying to waste the precious resource on growing lawns and other similar ornamental weeds. They also would check for excessive use on water meters, so, for example, if you had a leak, or you happened to be growing large quantities of hydroponic weed in your basement, you’d be caught dead-to-rights. There were people getting fined all over The Vegas and its surrounding region of South East Bananaland. I think it even got as low as 19% at one stage.. it was pretty frightening for a place that had always been so lush and green and where you’d never have thought it could get so bad. It was so dry that Mrs Radonezh and I, upon coming to Canberra to see if we should accept the job offer that was thrust upon me, thought the ACT actually looked greener than The Vegas at that point in time. Now of course, I realize it’s mostly because hardly anyone here seems to follow the water restrictions and does what they please.

In my bones, I know that such a thing could never have happened under Joh. 🙂

“As for keeping a car clean, its about protecting paint from tree gum/debris and other acidic or oxydising substances, and thus in three years or at changeover time protecting my resale value. So yep, it is an investment.”

Protecting the paint? That’s it?

LOL @ pesty & distilling – how do you think they clean water presently ?
Multi storey chemistry sets ?

randonezh is on the money.

A basic watermining technology process, currently used on Southwell Park can be found here

So as you can see, even for non potable purposes, the water has stringent QC processes in place.

“An investment is property or stocks or something that brings profit to the buyer”

So using this theory, my car will depreciate less than any stocks I may have had in ABC Lerning, Lehmann Brothers, Centro, MFS 18 months ago? It makes it an investment… The stock market is gambling for those who think they are smarter than pokies players and horse racing punters.

As for keeping a car clean, its about protecting paint from tree gum/debris and other acidic or oxydising substances, and thus in three years or at changeover time protecting my resale value. So yep, it is an investment.

Yes, but did the author think about the plight of the red-tailed flying desert skink, the bandied buttress-nosed sand moth and the snake-tailed dune snake? They would all lose their habitats if the deserts were turned into green places.

And remember the fact that all of Australia was once a lush paradise inhabited by megafauna only a few dozen millenia ago. Imagine what an environmental disaster it would be if that were to happen again. After all, you wouldn’t want all those giant wombats the size of prime movers coming back to life and wandering around the countryside eating the tops of your apple trees – they would devastate the apple growing industry. And imagine if you hit one of those in your Prius on the way to your university protest march?

It’s funny because it’s true…

Pesty said :

Reprobate said :

Pesty said :

Danman said :

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

.

I object. I don’t want to be drinking yesterdays sewage. I’m not a fussy person, dealing with decomposing critters in hot roof voids is a regular occurance for me, then I have lunch (not the dead critter) but I don’t trust the recycling technology not to to fail if it were ever applied.

Umm – I thought ALL the water we drink is recycled, and has been for millions of years ie the evaporation/rainfall process…

Very good! In order to recreate this process all the sewage would need to be distilled! Have you any concept of how much it would cost to boil 140,000,000 odd Litres a day! If we are going down that route why not contract the whole thing out to Johnny Walker, they could bung in a few extra ingredients then we could all get totally P****d every time we had a cup of coffee!

The water you are drinking now is already contaminated with faecal matter to a much greater degree to the water that comes out of the sewerage recycling process that is implemented in cities such as Brisbane. In actual fact, osmotic polymer filtration is better than distillation, because it does not permit hydrocarbons to pass through the filter, whereas distillation does not remove all hydrocarbons (since many of those compounds evaporate and condense in a similar fashion to water). Osmotic filters can produce water that is purer and safer than any rainwater on the planet, and certainly safer than the stuff sitting in our dams, which are inhabited with all sorts of nasty creatures and plants, excreting their guts out into our drinking water.

I’m more of the school of thought that says giving people restrictions such as watering on odd days or even days according to your house number makes people water every second day when maybe they don’t need to. I try to have a mix of water-wise garden beds and others that require more water. Veggies obviously require more, but my beds with a lot of native plants do.

I try to monitor it all and give water according to need, not rules. Some beds I only water once a week.

Come summer, I’ll get up and water early before work. I understand that’s not convenient for everyone. 7pm makes sense in summer, but at the moment, when the temps are dropping overnight still, I don’t want to be watering later than about 5pm. And even then, I don’t water beds that are still in full sun. I’ll wait until they are in shade.

Essentially though I try and hold off til the weekends at the moment and do it early.

Not perfect, but I feel like I am able to make that judgement for myself about what is best.

I’ll also do things like save water from boiling vegetables and pasta and toss that on beds when I can, too. Not a huge step, but a step.

peterh said :

if you want to see a very good example of forward thinking and looking at ways to green the interior of australia, check out “the great boomerang” at the national library. written in 1941, its author felt sure that if we piped water into the heart of australia, we could have potentially changed the weather patterns…

Yes, but did the author think about the plight of the red-tailed flying desert skink, the bandied buttress-nosed sand moth and the snake-tailed dune snake? They would all lose their habitats if the deserts were turned into green places.

And remember the fact that all of Australia was once a lush paradise inhabited by megafauna only a few dozen millenia ago. Imagine what an environmental disaster it would be if that were to happen again. After all, you wouldn’t want all those giant wombats the size of prime movers coming back to life and wandering around the countryside eating the tops of your apple trees – they would devastate the apple growing industry. And imagine if you hit one of those in your Prius on the way to your university protest march?

Pesty said :

Reprobate said :

Pesty said :

Danman said :

Very good! In order to recreate this process all the sewage would need to be distilled! Have you any concept of how much it would cost to boil 140,000,000 odd Litres a day! If we are going down that route why not contract the whole thing out to Johnny Walker, they could bung in a few extra ingredients then we could all get totally P****d every time we had a cup of coffee!

um, drinking recycled water – wouldn’t someone already have p****d?

Reprobate said :

Pesty said :

Danman said :

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

.

I object. I don’t want to be drinking yesterdays sewage. I’m not a fussy person, dealing with decomposing critters in hot roof voids is a regular occurance for me, then I have lunch (not the dead critter) but I don’t trust the recycling technology not to to fail if it were ever applied.

Umm – I thought ALL the water we drink is recycled, and has been for millions of years ie the evaporation/rainfall process…

Very good! In order to recreate this process all the sewage would need to be distilled! Have you any concept of how much it would cost to boil 140,000,000 odd Litres a day! If we are going down that route why not contract the whole thing out to Johnny Walker, they could bung in a few extra ingredients then we could all get totally P****d every time we had a cup of coffee!

radonezh said :

AG Canberra @ #44: In BrisVegas, where dam levels got down as low as 20% just 12 months ago, the water restrictions were based on 120L per day per person in the household. Tankwater was unlimited. Grey water was also unlimited use, but it was not allowed to be stored (due to risk of disease) so had to be used immediately (I think that they should allow some limited storage so that the water can be discharged outside of the hottest times . The only piece of stupidity, however, was that they banned drip and micro irrigation systems entirely in favour of bucket watering between 7pm and 7am (there’s no daylight saving there and the sun sets much earlier due to the latitude.) No washing of cars whatsoever was allowed.

There are people all of Canberra covertly watering their lawns in the middle of the night using automatic irrigation systems. They think no one notices. Personally, I got no issue with them watering, providing they ain’t using potable water paid for by my taxes – so I reckon that the dogs should be unleashed on them.

funny thing, but there are councils out there patrolling the streets for water wastage. they even impose fines. Not here, mind you, but in other cities i have visited.

whilst on retreat at redcliffe last week, it rained a lot. the targets that the brisvegans have are a lot lower than ours, but they have had plenty of rain lately.

(it rained at night. Damn considerate.)

peterh said :

AG Canberra said :

what is with carrots and sticks?
dangle the carrot of extra water in front of the wastrels and then belt them with the stick!

Don’t hit them with a stick, hit them with an old sprinkler – chk…chk…chk…THUNK!

The grass would surely be greener with the added ‘blood and bone’.

Or maybe AG was just alluding to ‘carrots and sticks’ in the public policy sense of the term.

AG Canberra @ #44: In BrisVegas, where dam levels got down as low as 20% just 12 months ago, the water restrictions were based on 120L per day per person in the household. Tankwater was unlimited. Grey water was also unlimited use, but it was not allowed to be stored (due to risk of disease) so had to be used immediately (I think that they should allow some limited storage so that the water can be discharged outside of the hottest times . The only piece of stupidity, however, was that they banned drip and micro irrigation systems entirely in favour of bucket watering between 7pm and 7am (there’s no daylight saving there and the sun sets much earlier due to the latitude.) No washing of cars whatsoever was allowed.

There are people all of Canberra covertly watering their lawns in the middle of the night using automatic irrigation systems. They think no one notices. Personally, I got no issue with them watering, providing they ain’t using potable water paid for by my taxes – so I reckon that the dogs should be unleashed on them.

AG Canberra said :

My 2c
Lets reduce these ridiculous environmental flows

Lets give everyone an allocation based on people per household (the current defacto allocation of approx 500l per day per house is a blunt instrument – check your current bill as it’s what has been introduced this financial year)

Let everyone use that allocation however they see fit

Price accordingly any allocation above the daily limit

Some more carrot and less stick!

what is with carrots and sticks?
dangle the carrot of extra water in front of the wastrels and then belt them with the stick!

“And likewise on car owners who like to keep their cars looking shiny and clean.”

Besides vanity, is there any reason why people feel the need to keep cars ‘shiny and clean’? I’ve always wondered this but never known the answer.

My 2c
Lets reduce these ridiculous environmental flows

Lets give everyone an allocation based on people per household (the current defacto allocation of approx 500l per day per house is a blunt instrument – check your current bill as it’s what has been introduced this financial year)

Let everyone use that allocation however they see fit

Price accordingly any allocation above the daily limit

Some more carrot and less stick!

if you want to see a very good example of forward thinking and looking at ways to green the interior of australia, check out “the great boomerang” at the national library. written in 1941, its author felt sure that if we piped water into the heart of australia, we could have potentially changed the weather patterns…

miz said :

Woody – “People with unsuitable gardening practices and an obsession with their cars got us into this mess in the first place” – not true. The ACT Govt just kept pulling out the plug and let all that drinking water flow out of our dams. See pages 4 and 5 of link below.

http://www.icrc.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/71178/Paper_Terry_Dwyer_Sept_07.pdf

and we were losing it in gigalitres, not megalitres…

Woody – “People with unsuitable gardening practices and an obsession with their cars got us into this mess in the first place” – not true. The ACT Govt just kept pulling out the plug and let all that drinking water flow out of our dams. See pages 4 and 5 of link below.

http://www.icrc.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/71178/Paper_Terry_Dwyer_Sept_07.pdf

Reprobate said :

Umm – I thought ALL the water we drink is recycled, and has been for millions of years ie the evaporation/rainfall process…

Yup, that was pretty much my thesis in a nutshell.

People can say these things so more succinctly than I — I am constantly in awe.

haven’t we learned anything from the fires?

i would rather have access to water for emergency use than for my garden, and if the restrictions ensure that resource, I am still happy to be on them.

Lemons will thrive on neglect in Canberra if you plant them next to the house on a north facing wall.

I have a sickly looking lime growing – I think they are just more fragile in general than lemons.

Dams at 50% when summer hasn’t even arrived is not a good time to be thinking about relaxing restrictions.

The hottest part of the day has not passed by 4pm. A lot of the time during summer it is peaking around 4pm!

Really bad idea. Keep things the way they are. My garden looks like crap, but i’d rather have water for more essential things at this point, until we implement other ways of watering our gardens, like recycled water.

There would be so many failsafes in place that (note nothing is impossable) for the cleansing of recycled sewage that the chance of us spouting raw sewage from our taps would be negligible.

Think several containment tanks between raw sewage and drinkable product – several analysis/quality control points, and even then we will have local shut off valves and reserviours(sp).

The chances of a monumental mother of all fcuk ups woul dbe the same as per now – affter all, no one is yet to die from flouride poisoning or chlorine poisoning, and both these things are water additives that are stored in bulk at water treatment failities.

I reckon save the worry for the professionals who can actually do an accurate risk assessment and then make calculated educated decisions.

Southwell park is already entirely watered with recovered water – and sewage is something like 70% water anyway – what a waste of a commodity when we are so scarse anyway.

PS. If anyone does not like reycled water – where does teh water from all the water from animal faecies/decaying animals go ? – Into the air…

Where does rain come from ?

Still quite off topic – does anyone know if you can grow limes in Canberra with any success?

@areaman: thanks mate!

Yargh! Meyer lemons taste wrong – more like a grapefruit than a lemon.

Go for the Eureka. If you’ve got the room, get a non-dwarf rootstock. Give it a couple of handfuls of dynamic lifter every three months and watch it go nuts.

Any citrus responds well to being used as a substitute urinal.

Pesty said :

Danman said :

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

.

I object. I don’t want to be drinking yesterdays sewage. I’m not a fussy person, dealing with decomposing critters in hot roof voids is a regular occurance for me, then I have lunch (not the dead critter) but I don’t trust the recycling technology not to to fail if it were ever applied.

Umm – I thought ALL the water we drink is recycled, and has been for millions of years ie the evaporation/rainfall process…

The Meyer lemon, tastes better than a stadard Eureka and give fruit pretty much all year round.

Pesty said :

Danman said :

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

.

I object. I don’t want to be drinking yesterdays sewage. I’m not a fussy person, dealing with decomposing critters in hot roof voids is a regular occurance for me, then I have lunch (not the dead critter) but I don’t trust the recycling technology not to to fail if it were ever applied.

Bad news for you, Pesty. You already are! By the time it drifts through the water table or is dragged out of a water source it’s got all sorts of detritus in it. But then it’s treated and hey presto! No nasty bugs (mostly). I always prefer to drink tap water wherever I am in Australia (even in Adelaide where you really need a knife and fork to consume it).

http://www.ecopella.org/pollution.htm — one of my fave choir songs on topic. It’s sung with a bit of a Latina or ‘West Side Story’ swing to it.

As for lawns, I never watered my lawn when I was resident in a family place in Macquarie for three years. (For any locals, it’s the low, flat, box-like structure at the bottom of Bennelong that’s had a massive makeover in the last 12 months — sold about 12 months or more ago).

When it rained, I mowed more. When it was dry, it browned off. Never wasted a drop of non-grey water on it.

If anything, I believe that recycled water would be cleaner than current water at our taps – just on paranoia value alone.

Completely agree with you man. I’ve drunk recycled water for over 5 years while overseas, and it’s more than fine.

I suggested to mrs peterh about us buying a few lemon trees – less flushes for the toilet for me

Also good to give the compost a bit of a dose mate. Works as a terrific activator! Speaking of Lemons, do you happen to know the best variety for Canberra?

If Canberra ever manages to form a new government, it might be a good time for them to think about some new and friendlier water restrictions.

Given any new government will involve the Greens, you can expect tougher water restrictions rather than friendlier ones.

I was going to make a “I guess you’re a dam-half-empty person” joke, but WMC stole my punchline. 🙁

Well no, Killer, I’m not an accountant, but I know the difference between and investment and a black hole

sepi said :

7Pm is a really bad time for me, and I don’t like being out there after dark, so I find it difficult to water enough to keep my garden going.

And I’m sick of just maintaining it to keep it alive – i’d like it to actually start thriving for once.

Then water the garden at 7 in the morning. It light, not to hot, and you don’t need to be making dinner.

Sorry to burst yer bubble their Ferret, your car is not an investment. It’s something you spent lots of money on which in three years will be worth half what you paid for it.

An investment is property or stocks or something that brings profit to the buyer.

I’m guessing that you’re not an accountant, financial advisor or the like Duke.

Back on topic, I’ve pretty much given up on the whole water restrictions thing. I would use water from the tap on my garden maybe once a month and I just don’t even bother with what day it is.

“The heat of the sun is long gone by 4PM”
Ah no it isn’t. On some days we don’t hit maxmimum temp until 5 pm. Most others in summer it stays very warm until 7’ish.

Unfortunately the long term data (that I can find) doesn’t display what time max temp was, but on the day you can see what time max temp was hit at http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60902.shtml

Growling Ferret said :

My dream is that one day a month, washing cars with a trigger hose on a grassed area of your property would be legal.

After driving through country NSW and having my 2nd largest investment coated with locusts and all sorts of other bugs, I would like to be able to care for it with a gentle hand wash rather than carwash scratch-a-thon.

Sorry to burst yer bubble their Ferret, your car is not an investment. It’s something you spent lots of money on which in three years will be worth half what you paid for it.

An investment is property or stocks or something that brings profit to the buyer.

A trip to Carlovers will not affect the value of your purchase.

My dream is that one day a month, washing cars with a trigger hose on a grassed area of your property would be legal.

After driving through country NSW and having my 2nd largest investment coated with locusts and all sorts of other bugs, I would like to be able to care for it with a gentle hand wash rather than carwash scratch-a-thon.

No I live alone so I cook my own dinner Sepi. Neither your or your family will starve if you push dinner back to 7.10. Often I will water the garden around midnight before I go to bed.

Danman said :

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

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I object. I don’t want to be drinking yesterdays sewage. I’m not a fussy person, dealing with decomposing critters in hot roof voids is a regular occurance for me, then I have lunch (not the dead critter) but I don’t trust the recycling technology not to to fail if it were ever applied.

7Pm is a really bad time for me, and I don’t like being out there after dark, so I find it difficult to water enough to keep my garden going.

And I’m sick of just maintaining it to keep it alive – i’d like it to actually start thriving for once.

Duke are you cooking dinner at 7Pm, or is someone else in your household doing it?

– Dams not half full, they’re half empty
– having a dusty car is not ‘doing it very tough’
– People with unsuitable gardening practices and an obsession with their cars got us into this mess in the first place
– Get a tank and use grey water rather than imposing your unsustainable life choices on the rest of us
– Sydney is not Canberra

Maelinar said :

what would you rather, drinking recycled water (shudder) produced from a need after we have relaxed restrictions and everyone goes nuts with water usage, or waiting until our dams are at 100% before we even think of relaxing restrictions? – are you including the incumbent Government and their ‘Environmental flows’ releases in the above statement about people going nuts about dam water storage ?

I am making a personal opinion. no idea about the incumbent government and their environmental flows releases. I am referencing watching the moron next door water their paths and aviaries because they can’t be stuffed using a broom. washing the car in the driveway. leaving the sprinkler running all day. and this when we were on stage 2. what will stop them reverting to these stupid wasteful ways? keep us at the current level of restriction.

I would rather we had 50% in the dams in the hottest parts of summer, than brown water from turbidity and recycling.

I suggested to mrs peterh about us buying a few lemon trees – less flushes for the toilet for me and the twins, when the trees are a bit more established, and the twins start toilet training…. just an avenue for me at the moment.

There is little need to relax the current water restrictions. I’ve got a full size yard, front and back, including lawn and it looks quite respectable.

We had good rain last week so the grass is near hitting my knees and the shrubs get a quick watering once a week. 7pm is not too late. It takes maybe 5-10 mins to do my shrubs in the cool of the night. 4pm is still quite hot in summer.

My garden is no shangri-la, it could always do with more water, but you don’t have to keep your garden beautiful, you just need to keep it alive.

Washing a car with drinking water so it looks shiny is ridiculous.

Just cos the heat in the sun ‘has long gone by 4pm’ doesn’t mean the heat in the ground has also long gone by 4pm.

The cooler the ground temp the better the use of water will be when watering garden, 7pm is a good time.

Not sure why people are soobject to recycled water for drinking ?

Its not like it has not been appropriately treated – we are not going to turn on our taps and have them spew forth a torrent of brown thick sludge.

Also, I am sure that water that is now drunk has had many things die in it, small animals, kangaroos, fish, algae blooms.

If anything, I believe that recycled water would be cleaner than current water at our taps – just on paranoia value alone.

I have my summer crops coming up and can say honestly that I abide by water restrictions, and have no problems with them so far.

I reckon ease the current restrictions when the new cotter dam is built and filled.

I say lets be responsible and wait till our dams hit 100% before changing much! And that’s coming from a home owner who is very proud of their big and sometimes struggling garden.

I wouldn’t be averse to easing water restrictions off slightly. We have sliding scale, so maybe we should be making better use of it. Of course, we don’t want to go nuts and hose our driveways with drinking water.

Are we allowed to water lawns at the moment?

what would you rather, drinking recycled water (shudder) produced from a need after we have relaxed restrictions and everyone goes nuts with water usage, or waiting until our dams are at 100% before we even think of relaxing restrictions? – are you including the incumbent Government and their ‘Environmental flows’ releases in the above statement about people going nuts about dam water storage ?

sepi said :

Gum trees along Mt Majura and even on Madigan st are up to 1m wide. The ones on limestone are only about 30cm wide. So I don’t think they are dying of old age.

I doubt that the gum trees on Mt Majura that are up to one metre wide have ever been fortunate enough to have been watered by the government. To get to that size they must have weathered the odd drought or two.

Maybe the Limestone Ave trees are dying for some other reason – bugs perhaps, or even poison. I see where you’re coming from though, I have noticed that they are looking rather brown and wondered why.

what would you rather, drinking recycled water (shudder) produced from a need after we have relaxed restrictions and everyone goes nuts with water usage, or waiting until our dams are at 100% before we even think of relaxing restrictions?

grey water works well on gardens, so do tanks. I water my gardens once a week from the tank, and after every wash cycle.

I don’t even contemplate running the hose from the house taps.

I can’t agree much with this, sepi, though having said that, I have to qualify it by saying that I don’t have a lawn or garden (they’re out the back and front but they’re not mine to worry about — that’s the owner’s ball of wax). And while my car’s overdue for an internal clean-out, I never get to worried about its external appearance much. So long as all the stickers are showing, that’s fine by me!

From memory, ACTEWAGL/govt got all relaxed and unrestricted a while ago when the dam levels rose and then suddenly everyone went nuts and surprise, surprise, surprise — they dropped dramatically.

I don’t have any hard data to support this, but I suspect that the long term prognosis is for less rain and more water use, so we’re going to have to get used to doing more with less. I like the fact that we need to modify behaviour, like think twice about the constitution of lawn/garden/etc.

And modify others’ behaviour. I have several challenges in the household I’m in at the moment, and while I’ve stopped mentioning the dripping shower, I’ve changed tack today and put a bucket under the drip! One of the owners has just returned home so it will be interesting to see if the bucket gets mentioned!!

Stop the drop! Vegetable rights and peace, meat-freaks!

Gum trees along Mt Majura and even on Madigan st are up to 1m wide. The ones on limestone are only about 30cm wide. So I don’t think they are dying of old age.

I don’t think moving hand watering hours from 7PM to 4PM would use all that much more water. Similarly with allowing people to use a trigger hose to wash thir car instead of a bucket.

It would just make people’s lives a bit easier.

They can always scale restrictions back again if the summer is really bad for rainfall.

I think the idea of easing water restrictions, just as we are starting to make head-way really is madness – please don’t take offence Sepi, this is not an attack at you.

Humans being humans, as soon as the restrictions are lightened, then people will just go nuts – wasting water and using it like there was never a water problem. Cue less water in our damns than ever before.

Slightly off-topic, but I think somewhat similar will be in the near future when those with mortgages start to finally catch up and maybe get a little in front – I’m sure they will go nuts again – spend, spend spend, then interest rates go up, people can’t afford their mortgages…history repeats itself.

I would not be comfortable with easing restrictions until the supplies are much higher.

Agreed. Seems a mite short sighted to think just because our dams are at a tad over 50% that our water supplies are secure for the future. Who’s to say that this summer will be any better for rain than the last. The restrictions we currently have aren’t terribly onerous, so lets stick with them I say.

keep in mind that our dams are at 50% at the start of summer, if its another dry summer we would be looking at a pretty dire state come february if everyone went back to their old ways again.

If i were you i would think of the restrictions as a new way of life, rather than a temporary stop gap to get the dams beck up to full again.

Keep in mind that water tanks are outside the watering restrictions

I wonder if the the large street trees dying because of lack of water or because they are very old?

Surely just because dams are over 50% doesn’t mean our water supplies are safe. I would not be comfortable with easing restrictions until the supplies are much higher.