12 July 2005

Water Tank rebate madness

| johnboy
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Vicki Dunne has put out a media release attacking changes to the water tank rebate scheme.

The whole thing is very confusing. The Government seems to have belatedly realised that only people with money can take advantage of a rebate scheme. The changes make watertanks economical only in new houses. In any event watertanks are uneconomical with the current government price of water and bring only warm fuzzies. Hence their predominant use by those who wish to cheat water restrictions in their gardens.

Vicki does make some interesting points about their use in general.

“If every household in Canberra had a tank we would store less than 1 per cent of the water we could store in the Tennent Dam. The cost of the tanks would build that dam twice over.”

But who cares about practicalities when there are warm fuzzies to go around.

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How can you see people’s email addresses if you’re just an ordinary jo(sephine) blow user?
K

Not at all. The plants cost far more than the water. It might make me consider a water tank for outside though.
Plants are like an investment – a tiny magnolia in a 10 cm pot will cost 6.00 and take years to be able to look after itself. a Bigger one in a 20 cm pot will cost 10.00. One that you can plant straight into the ground and actually see (1 metre tall) will cost 45.00. ONe that is a couple of metres tall costs 300.00. So once you have nurtured the tiny plant into something big, you don’t want to see it die due to the lack of a bit of water.

OK Seepi,

so if water rpices were doubled how would that affect your thinking on the garden?

But back to the govt subsidy – I don’t see why it is any different to have a tank for water ing the garden OR a tank for usinghte washign machine. Assuming you were already doing both, then you have saved the same amount of water.
And before anyone tells me to stop watering my garden – mine is 40 years old, and I would not choose those plants now, but I think it is really sad if 40 year old trees die because I couldn’t get them through the drought.

OpenYourMind is just about bang on the money.

Once the proposed pipeline into the snowy scheme (where our environmental outflows end up anyway) we can pay for water at the same rates the cotton farming bastards are and within that market we’re a tiny drop.

so long as ACTEW have the sense to price properly who cares?

personal watertanks should be left to individual choice and lets get government policy out of it.

but can we stop pretending there’s a water shortage when we’re selling the stuff at ridiculously low prices?

my name is contained within my email address young padawan.

I always preferred Chocolate Mousse.

As in “Maybe he IS Mel Torme”? One of my favourite movies.

maelinar you arent paul lowry are you ?

OpenYourMind1:54 pm 13 Jul 05

Now IANAWE (I am not a water expert), and will happily stand corrected. My feeling is that few of us properly understand our water cycle. It’s my understanding that the worst thing we can do is water our gardens as much of that water will be lost in evaporation. As much of our used water is processed and returned to the river system, having a long shower or whatever is simply moving the water from above the dam wall to below it. You really aren’t ‘wasting’ water as such, specially when one considers that our dam storage system includes a substantial environmental outflow. All we are really doing is temporarily using that water before it is returned to the environmental flow.

So, having a tank collecting stormwater and using that for gardens is probably taking more water out of the system than having that stormwater return to the river system.

Mind you, I also gather that much of the water that we return to the river system ends up being used for agriculture – sometimes used wisely and sometimes not.

ACTEWAGL web site has plenty of information on our water cycle.

Too late to shut the gate after the horse has bolted.

The beaurocrats are to blame for our ‘worsening water crisis’ due to piss-poor management and planning.

Googong is fubar, has been fubar for some time and will remain fubar for a very long time. This is due (I have been told by two mates at ACTEW and CSIRO) to the ACT and Queanbeyan drawing a large proprtion of their water from it since the fires.

Apparently the cotter and corin dams were polluted by the ravaging blazes, thus the water was unsuitable for consumption (still!).

Now back to you AJ’s; you will all surely know what floculants are. For all you other players, floculants are a non-toxic chemical additive which will attract all the nasty shit to the dam/river/canal/sea floor and break them down in record time, thus making water suitable for drinking, bathing, car washing, lawn watering etc.

The CSIRO hit the ACT government up in March ’04 with a proposal to add floculants to the water in Corin and Cotter dams which would enable an even distubution of water usage between three dams (meaning that we would not be in such a shit state now) at a cost of about $300,000. The Government said ‘no thanks’.

Why the f*ck should the government NOT be subsidisng rain tanks and grey water conversions for all of the ACT residents, when it was their lack of foresight which has vastly contributed to the problem.

I’ll tell you why players;

It’s because it’s all about revenue. Why throw money at a problem when you can charge the users more?

Here endeth the rant of bulldog.

T500 Slim – 2,281 L Slim Line Domestic Tank.

This is the largest and now most popular of the slim-line tanks available today. With a realistic capacity of 2,281 L this tank has an overall height of 2.02m, a width of 2.31m and is only 0.62m from front to rear so it will fit beside the house and usually under the eaves. Our T500 comes complete with an inlet leaf strainer and overflow ready for use. We can supply a multiple tank system with 2, 3, or 4 x T500 slimline tanks, connecting fittings and a pressure pump or any combination. The T500 Slim tank can easily be installed with a drip irrigation system for fully automatic irrigation of gardens or patio pots. Delivery included in this price!
Price:
$1,353.00
inc GST within Australia
at 50% cost = 676.50 per household
100 Households will have 228,100 litres
1000 Households will have 2,281,000 litres
10000 Households will have 22,810,000 litres @ $13,530,000 (govt liability of $6,765,000)
The daily consumption rate from http://www.actewagl.com.au/default.aspx?loc=/water/dailyConsumption.htm is about 100,000,000 (megalitres) a day. Of which 39% (http://www.thinkwater.act.gov.au/calculators/water_calculators.shtml) apparently is going onto gardens, that’s 39,000,000 litres of potable water a DAY.
Although I dispute these figures, they come from the ACTEWAGL and Government websites, I prefer the latest CSIRO documentation and line of thinking that states that the main culprits are light industry and primary production.
I think you’ll find that to replace the daily ‘potable’ water intake for a single day rather a cheap investment and quite a good bang for your buck.
What the ACT government don’t want you to know however is that the water situation won’t change when you eliminate their throwaway comment that 39% of potable water is being wasted by householders, and that they infact are covering up one of the biggest, nastiest and grossly mismanaged projects they have ever been involved in.
They also like to slug us with nice little regular water bills to keep the bank balance rolling.
That’s their problem.

The cat did it12:14 pm 13 Jul 05

Can we get this thread back to water?

La Dunne appears to be just doing her usual populist ‘give us a dam’ rant- the kind of thing you would expect from someone with the breathtaking vision of an Alan Jones or John Laws. Her argument seems to be full of daft hypotheticals like the quote in the original post, trying to make an underlying appeal to those who believe that having a large green lawn is a sacred right and government is obliged to provide them with as much water as they want at a cost that bears no relation to the cost of supply. It’s unfortunate- she once seemed to be one of the brighter Libs.

Thumper’s comments are interesting, but ignore the ultimate criterion in this game- the delivered cost of the water. Government (any government) is expected to use its available funds in the most effective and efficient way. why should government. The delivered cost of water from tanks is likely to be high, much higher than from reticulated supply (although I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise by hard evidence). Similiarly, Ms Dunne’s beloved Tennant Dam is apparently located in a rain shadow, so it’s unlikely to ever operate at planned capacity, ie its delivered cost will be higher than expected. Taxpayers expect government to get best bang for the buck, so grant schemes that in fact make negligible contribution to outcomes can’t be justified on economics- but perhaps on demonstration or catalytic grounds.

Apart from bolt-on items like low-flow showerheads, retrofitting more efficient technology into the existing housing stock is usually expensive, with unrealistically long payback times. Installing things like gray water systems and alternative supplies are usually only practical for new construction.

There are no easy answers on this issue, but Ms Dunne’s comments are less than constructive. Maybe she needs an environmental advisor. And an engineering advisor. And an economic advisor.

Thank god for Google !

rainwater tanks in Canberra are now appearing in the dynamic advertisments 🙂

I only know one Jo, and last I heard she was posted to Darwin 🙁

Mael: lolololol

I was only a Sig in the Aus army, I was Infantry in NZ, however we learned RATEL in that role.

Actually it’s just exposing loophole terminology like ‘Military Intelligence’.

or ‘Say again over’
‘again over’

ooh! I might know him then!

Out

Out

Over

Figure that one out out 😛

Over.

you end every sentance with “over” EXCEPT when you are ending the conversation, when you use “out”. We learnt that on day 1. Anyone who used “over and out” had to do 50 pushups.

Perhaps the conscripts can be put to good use installing water tanks..

Actually the saying comes from a problem with military etiquitte and doctrine.

On one hand, you must end every sentence with ‘Over’

On the other, you must indicate that you have finished your conversation with ‘Out’

Hence the creation of the term ‘Over and Out’. No real reason to use it personally other than to add a little flavour to the end of my sentence 🙂

QRU AR then.

LG gets very cranky about over and out. It is a contradiction. Either you are “over” (waiting for the other person to talk) or “out” (ending the conversation.

No one uses this except on the tv or the ignorant.
Bring back conscription!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having read the media release, I must say poor Ms Dunne is BADLY informed!

What the hell are these people thinking? – A water storage capacity at every house in Canberra would cause less drain on the dams, and water would be more appropriately utilised around the common household.

Given the current construction rate of housing in Canberra I don’t think that the capacity would be too far off what a dam could hold either. I have also been out to the dam in Queanbeyan just before the rains started and it could best be described in brewing terms as ‘the dregs’. (generally the stuff you wouldn’t drink).

So just how did we make this leap of intelligence to be comparing ‘empty’ dams with storm water catchment and use ?

I’d actually sleep more soundly knowing that the water which came off my roof was put to better use than running into a stormwater runoff and eventually out to sea, which is a criminal negligence waste of our most precious resource.

I have actually been looking recently at installing a rainwater tank at my house, it would appear that there is absolutely no reference to how to get one, where to get one from, or even being able to purchase one via rates or ACTEW billing. If there is, I would appreciate a link ;P

There is plenty of garbage about the benefits of getting one, and how to set one up – here’s a novel thought; If I’m thinking of installing a rainwater tank I’ve probably already thought of how it will be used, what I’m looking for is how and where to get one!

Over and Out.

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