How concerned are you about the drought. Living in Sydney and not depending on it raining for my livlihood its easy to forget how bad it really is. But now Waragamba damn is below 40%. I watched on telly and if Goulburn doesnt get decent rain they'll be out of water by Christmas! What happens then? How does a town survive without water. The same could happen to Sydney. Imagine, a city of four million people running out of water. I think its a bit scary and I just keep hopeing it rains.
hmmmm if sydney runs out of water then they'll just tap into newcastle's endless supply... suprising they havent done so already... beautiful town of rain and no water restrictions. i mean its all nature taking control and everything, basically its BAD to settle in the one place for a long time because you become attached and then get hurt when a drought destroys your lifestyle or a tsunami destroys your country. rainfall in australia has actually been steadily increasing for a long time so move out into the desert, INVEST and be the first to take this opportunity... for in a thousand years it'll be rainforest and you'll be a bloody billionaire
In Renmark, South Australia (where I'm living), we produce 30% of Australia's fruit. The main industries here are citrus and wine. As you may know, citrus & vines need a LOT of water, and ALL of it is taken from the Murray. We rely on irrigation. You may not know this, (I wonder why?) but there is a huge ecological disaster happening here. Every year the growers take more and more water out of the river. It hasn't flooded since the late 70s - it used to flood every 4 years without fail. I've seen the high-water marks, back at the start of the 1900s it used to flood its banks a good 20 feet. The trees are dying, the fish are dying... and the river itself is dying, because the farmers use pesticides and inorganic fertilisers which then make their way back to the river. You may not know this either, but the Murray-Darling is the third-largest river system in the world. Some more scary facts: (from Anita Roddick's book "Troubled Water: Saints, Sinners, Truth And Lies About The Global Water Crisis") - Water covers 70% of the planet - 97% of that is undrinkable seawater - another 2% is locked in the polar ice caps - leaving 1% available for human use - over half of that is polluted. - 60% of the world's rivers have been dammed. Sorry, not trying to be negative ... but when it comes to water the situation is really much worse than most people realise.
Intelligent use of water is something I learnt about when I was very young so I find it very frustrating how most suburbanites use water and how stupid the Western Australian government is. Plus, they lie to us and mislead us about how our water situation REALLY is. I'm not going to say anything else.
Ok how many of you use a front loading washing machine? Mine uses about 60L /cycle. This is far less than even a small top loader.They also use far less electricity.Also hot water for the wash cycle so ther is an additional saving.
Well did you know that irrigators use 2 1/2 times as much water as the rest of Australia put together? Having said that water supplies are largely a local thing.You cannot for instance take water out of the Murrumbidgee River and give to people in the Melbourne.Water grids do not exist anywhere in the world.
Im wondering what the solution to the water crisis is? I wouldnt mind seeing the price of town water double or triple! What about the farmers planting more eco friendly crops? And ofcourse education! (you see the goverments arent that keen for the people to learn about these things because it detracts from its economic performance when they spend)
