What the Murray Darling Plan would mean to Canberra

Skidbladnir said :

WTF is a SDL?

Sustainable Diversion Limit

IE: Establishment of a ‘healthy’\’sustainable’ limit on water available to be removed from the catchment.

The recent imperfect-but-still-broadly-useful Sydney Uni Environmental Footprint report for the ACT suggested that our biggest problems really came from Canberra being comparatively wealthy and particularly the more wealthy among us spending too much money on stuff we probably don’t really need. Sadly, this makes a great deal of intuitive sense.

One of their suggestions was that we divert some of our discretionary money to useful things rather than buying more crappy toys…

Maybe we could institute some kind of pretty steep sliding scale for household water usage: up to a certain, fairly modest amount, it’s reasonably cheap, but it starts to get expensive in a steep climb once you go beyond that amount. The money could be used to develop smart water saving systems – maybe things like proper, workable grey-water systems for garden watering that are shared amoung a block of houses – that kind of thing. (By the way, neuroses aside, I think there’s a pretty strong case to be made for the safety of recycling even black water to potable quality – despite the campaign that was run against the proposal a while back in, was it in Towoomba?)

There will always be equity concerns with charges of this kind, so you might want to apply some modifiers related to income or household size – but, as EvanJames points out, you want to be careful about going very far down that road.

Canberra has a need and, therefore, some degree of right to an adequate amount of water. But we can and should live with fairly strong permanent water restrictions and we can and should pay for systems to improve our water efficiency and recycling capacity.

We absolutely have to save the Murray Darling and, frighteningly, the cuts recommended by the commission’s report appear to be, if anything, too little. We have no choice but to ask our already hard-pressed and comparatively smart and efficient farmers to take a hard slug. The least we can do in the comparative comfort of Canberra is to take our share of the pain and cost of adjusting to the future.

WTF is a SDL?

Sustainable Diversion Limit

With you, Postalgeek !

Obviously the guvment don’t want to mention ‘water’, ‘increased charges’ or anything of that sort (regardless of the merit).

Too many people might be interested and read it and then comment. ‘No, no, no – the people should trust their government’ …

WTF is a SDL?

Sustainable Diversion Limit

WTF is a SDL?

The cat did it said :

Why do I suspect this is all about positioning for future negotiations?

Very much so, on both sides I suspect.

Why do I suspect this is all about positioning for future negotiations? The way this is presented is that there is some finite amount of water available, and we will ‘hit the wall’ in 2026 (or 2035). Shock Horror! Panic in the streets!

Wrong. We can buy additional water, and we can recycle what we have- it comes down to how much water we want, and how much we are prepared to pay for it.

To paraphrase Herman Goering’s comment about culture, whenever I hear the words ‘consultant’s report’ I reach for my bullsh*t detector. First things we need to know are the assumptions that were used for the growth of Canberra, and per capita water use. Select the ‘right’ assumptions and demand grows rapidly, making the issue a more urgent one to hit the other parties to the negotiation with.

chewy14 said :

We are a major regional city who has proven to be good managers of our water resource.

The largest city in the Murray Darling catchment would you believe.

I don’t have any issues with people growing crops, but sucking out water for personal gain in a way that is irreversibly destroying a national asset for everyone else is extremely selfish and should not occur.

All I can say is when the next long drought arrives and Canberra dries up again dont light a match.

Skidbladnir said :

Charge like wounded bulls for any excessive consumption, and let the market function.

It’s the only way. And no, there should NOT be exemptions or subsidies for Families or whoever the entitled group du jour is. If you want to limit consumption of something, and have it valued, then measures to limit consumption apply to all.