Thread: Damn the damn dams or be dammed!

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

......................We proposed a grey-water harvest system (with tertiary treatment) which would have enabled the buildings to be self sufficient, but there is no way of getting that approved in Qld at the moment.

My "next" project is on an island which is a national park in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, water is created through desalination, and even though sewer has to be treated to a potable standard before the "waste" water is sprinkled on the airstrip (under very controlled conditions), it's illegal to drink the stuff though?.................

Midge,
Green Island Resort (Cairns) has a tertiary treatment plant and uses treated water for irrigation (around buildings, near accomodation) and for flushing of toilets. Site safety induction told us it was safe to drink (but not legal) but wasn't suitable for mixing concrete as it had too high a salts content (I believe there was also some sea water in the equation somewhere). Rainwater collection isn't allowed as it's a National Park (as you'd no doubt know) so water is shipped in every day. This isn't too much of a drama as they've got a regular fleet of boats ferrying in tourists every day. Does make for very expensive water though, which explains why, after having 48 huge bathtubs custom made, and the bathrooms practically completed the whole lot was ripped out and replaced with standard tubs, Someone had crunched the numbers on the cost of a tub full of imported water, heated by electricity locally generated with imported diesel .

On the whole subject of water usage, I don't think anyone who lives on a town water supply really knows the value of water. When we moved into our place the tank was near empty with the driest year on record. The bore pump was playing up so I removed it for repairs, securing the foot valve/venturi assembly with a rope. Got the pump back and found that the venturi was suctioned into the silt at the bottom of the bore. Tried real hard to pull it up until the rope came off the pipe. :eek: . Took me more than two weeks to get the thing free. Had to fetch a few loads of town water with the fire truck (4 x 1500L).

I don't water the garden much, just the fruit trees, the lawn can die as it will come back when the rains do. With just the two of us we can make our 26KL tank go for 3 months without any rain or having to top it up from the bore.

Maybe we need more dams, or maybe we need to harvest stormwater in urban areas and maybe we shouldn't be wasting drinking grade water on washing cars, watering lawns and industrial usage.

Mick

even Cairns is complacent again now that copperlode is full, only a couple of years ago that we were running out of water in one of the highest rainfall areas of Australia...

They're planning on taking water from the barron river to supply future needs even though another dam was planned years ago at Flaggy creek, the growth in population in the Cairns region means there will be water problems again in the future. Its only a matter of time.

Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Maybe we need more dams, or maybe we need to harvest stormwater in urban areas and maybe we shouldn't be wasting drinking grade water on washing cars, watering lawns and industrial usage.

Mick

Spot on!

Originally Posted by AlexS

Originally Posted by journeyman mick

Maybe we need more dams, or maybe we need to harvest stormwater in urban areas and maybe we shouldn't be wasting drinking grade water on washing cars, watering lawns and industrial usage.

Mick

Spot on!

At the rental house we just left there was a small high set 1500 litre gal tank. I wouldn't have drunk the water but certainly used it to wash the car and water the garden. The yuppie neighbour thought I was strange using tank water to wash the car. "Why don't you just go down to the car wash?"
Mind you, we are currently on level 4 water restrictions here ATM too! So anything I can do to minimise water usage I do. The kids share the bath water, I have a 4-5minute shower tops, never wash small loads of clothes and let the gardens die. They'll come back when it rains.

Originally Posted by womble

.......................even though another dam was planned years ago at Flaggy creek, the growth in population in the Cairns region means there will be water problems again in the future. Its only a matter of time.

Womble,
the dam on Flaggy creek was going to flood the old Seventh Day Adventist mission at Mona Mona so they moved everyone out. Around about '84 the local Aboriginal community was given permission to start using Mona Mona again. I was there for all the speeches etc when the relevant minister and public servants came for a visit. While the majority of people living there are itinerants I seriously doubt that any government would push the project through now after more than 20 years of indigineous use of the land. Also some of the area is under the Wet tropics Authority and surrounding areas are under World Heritage listing. Dams aren't a vote catcher (but they may be, down the track if/when we start to run out of water) I did notice though, that when they were exploring avenues of supplying Cairns with more water a dam at Mona Mona wasn't on the list. .

I'm thinking that a partial answer to water supplies for large urban areas would be a dual system, a large system of recycled sewerage/grey water/harvested storm water for fire fighting, industry, irrigation, toilet flushing etc etc and a parrallel system of potable quality water. Or maybe we need intensive re-education programs for city/town dwellers where they get to live for a few months on a rural property where they need to run down the the river to fire up a (hand cranked ) diesel pump in order to irrigate, wash cars or fill the kids wading pool and where the drinking water comes out of a rain water tank with the closest refill, if required comes from 30Km away at $150 for a truck load.

Mick

I've lived in severe climates without reticulated water, and to me there's nothing romantic about fishing a dead animal out of the tank, or trying to strain wrigglers out of your glass of water..... but maybe I'm missing something?

Yep you will no argument from me on this one. Some of these people live in a world of no dams and plenty of water, Which in Australia is an oxymoron.