Thread: Damn the damn dams or be dammed!

Originally Posted by Waldo

I'm out of this now. Said my bit to set the record straight, so I'll have a poke somewhere else.

Answer to Al's question, there's a lot a flat land out there, a heck of a lot. It's the dams that are below the water table of the rivers.,

But you didnt set the record straight, if it was below the water table it would be a lake or a dam, which is exactly what Cubby has done, built large dams..


Al :confused:

Why can't we recycle water? Poor old Goulburn has SFA water, Morry thinks it's a swell idea for them to drink recycled water, but not for snobby Sydneyites. :confused:

And another thing, Cubbie station stopped the water becoming runoff, if it runoff to the river it'd be Ok, but the money hungry mongrels don't give a stuff about anyone but their stake holders. And don't even get me started on bloody cotton, biggest environmental nightmare since some bright bugger decided to import cane toads.

Originally Posted by outback

Why can't we recycle water?

One way or another, ALL our water is recycled.

Town supply gets filtered, flocked to get the suspended solids out, aerated, then injected with chlorine to kill the nasties. This gets rid of any poo that turns up in it.

Then the press get onto "recycled" water... the stuff that had a bit more poo in it at the beginning. It's been filtered, flocked to get the suspended solids out, aerated, then injected with chlorine to kill the nasties, then tipped into a river somewhere 'cause it's going to addle our brain if we drink it.

But we swim and fish in it anyway.

P

Originally Posted by outback

Why can't we recycle water?

All water is recycled, where do ppl think it comes from?


Edit: Midge beat my by a nano minute.

Al

Originally Posted by outback

And another thing, Cubbie station stopped the water becoming runoff, if it runoff to the river it'd be Ok,

Isn't that what every farm dam does, to a lesser extent? They all must impact on the catchment.

I heard on the radio (so it must be almost true) that the Mary River currently runs at 92%, and after the big new dam it will be 85%. Does that mean that the big new dam will take 7% of it's water, and all the piddly little ones on farms currently take 8%??

See there's more to this than meets the eye, the have's want to stay having I think!

cheers,

P

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

See there's more to this than meets the eye, the have's want to stay having I think!

cheers,

P

Shouldnt that be.
See there's more to this than meets the eye, the have's want to stay having a drink?

Al

All this talk about being short of water, and the govt is selling the snowy????

What the:confused::confused:

Originally Posted by Waldo

Cubby Station's dams, as massive as they are, do not take any run off from the Diamantina/Cooper Rivers nor do have they damed Diamantina/Cooper Rivers. Cubby's dams only take the runoff from their property and nothing else.

I don't think Cubby takes water from the Diamantina/Cooper, they do take it from the Murray/Darling system. I've never worked in Qld, but my understanding is that above certain flow levels, they pump from the river to fill their dams. Unless they're right at the top of the river, some of that water is coming from land upstream of them. But, if they didn't take it, someone in NSW would take it for cotton, rice, oranges, or flowers. You can bet it wouldn't get to South Australia, and certainly not to Adelaide or the Murray mouth.

Don't think that building a dam to catch water flowing to sea is using wasted water. Sure, you could build a whole lot of small dams on the NSW coast, but you'd put a lot of fishermen out of business, and it wouldn't be long before the beaches all down the coast started receding. Were would you build dams for Sydney? I don't think there are any eonomically viable dam sites left in NSW, but perhaps you might get one in at Berowra.

The trading of water rights has been put forward as the answer to water shortages. By putting the price of water up to a market value, only efficient water use would be viable. That's fine, except that the environment (that's where we live, remember) hasn't got the money that Cubby or any of the other big irrigators have. When I talk about the environment, I don't mean the lesser spotted lungfish, nice as it might be to have around, but the natural things that we like and need to have around us to live.

There aren't many engineering solutions left. Recycling is the big one, and despite the huge capital cost in established areas, it's one we have to go with. The technology is there, and if they could keep the industrial waste separate, it would give the by-product of extremely fertile sludge. The only other solutions with current technology are changing our water use habits and planning. There's a strong argument that we are at or approaching the population we can support. The amount of irrigation we undertake is not sustainable - salinity problems are present in just about every irrigation area, and in the recorded history of irrigation (about 5000 years) no irrigation scheme has been sustainable for more than about 200 years.

Just my 2 bob's worth, but at least it's something I know a little about.

People in the 21st century are spoiled. Our water level is running low but how many people really care. Sure we can build dams, purify sea water or filter poo water but what about teaching people to use less water? Can't we change our life style a little bit?

I am sick and tired of seeing people spraying their footpath:mad: , watering their lawn every morning:mad: . Some bastards are just hate to be told. People keep having 15-20 minutes showers:mad: :mad: , bathing their kid with a full tub of water every day:mad: :mad: , leaving the tap running while brushing their teeth:mad: :mad: :mad: , etc…

Oh hell, stuff them all. I will keep having my 2 minutes shower, bathing both kids with small amount of water and use it for the garden.

Remember one day there will be no water, no oil, no paper and no electricity left for our kids. We are trying our best to reach that day quicker.

Glad I got it off my chest.

Originally Posted by Wongo

People in the 21st century are spoiled. Our water level is running low but how many people really care. Sure we can build dams, purify sea water or filter poo water but what about teaching people to use less water? Can't we change our life style a little bit?

I am sick and tired of seeing people spraying their footpath:mad: , watering their lawn every morning:mad: . Some bastards are just hate to be told. People keep having 15-20 minutes showers:mad: :mad: , bathing their kid with a full tub of water every day:mad: :mad: , leaving the tap running while brushing their teeth:mad: :mad: :mad: , etc…

Oh hell, stuff them all. I will keep having my 2 minutes shower, bathing both kids with small amount of water and use it for the garden.

Remember one day there will be no water, no oil, no paper and no electricity left for our kids. We are trying our best to reach that day quicker.

Glad I got it off my chest.

Feel better now Scott?

I think the dam crowd are forgetting one big point and that is we only drink around one percent of reticulated water, the bulk is used to water gardens and the like and a very large percentage is used to wash ourselves and our clothing and to flush toilets. Getting rid of waste water is an ever growing problem and if recycling reduces our need for dams and does something for the huge volume of sewer waste disposal then it is a win on two camps.

While listening to the run off argument consideration is being given in Victoria to the amount of run off that farm dams collect and prevent from reaching the water courses. This is a touchy debate and one that needs balance, there must be enough for stock watering and for some irrigation but rivers canot be starved either.

Whilst the once mighty Snowy gets a mention the enviromental cost in that river is not just depleted fish stocks but heavy silting in the river as low flows generally allow sediment to fall rather than scoured out and eventually moved out to sea. What this means for those down stream is very heavy flooding as the river does not have the capacity to carry away runoff from heavy downpours in the lower catchment. The run off argument lacks substance as a percentage, it is where the run off occurs that counts and how it improves the flow and quality of the water course itself.

There is a lot more that can be done to reduce water use, I am sure it is not just our area where the summer sees brown lawns when once water would have been squandered through the summer months to keep things green. Rainwater tanks in Vic are encouraged as a reserve for toilets and gardens, so it doesn't matter to much about the odd dead animal or build up of muck and wigglers. Generally we are reducing average water consumption, but we are still wasteful and I reckon the damn brigade should address first the fact that we have one of the highest per capita water consumption rates in the developed world on the driest continent.
There are two sides to the water equation and before we jam another dam on another stressed river isn't about time we had a good look at ourselves and the demand/supply equation and kept the emotional crap to one side.

John

Originally Posted by

Feel better now Scott?

Yes .

I do my 1.5km run every morning and I see it every day. It was raining 3 Sundays ago and this bastard watered his garden for 15 minutes. I stoped and told him that it had been raining so why waste water. I ran away but I don’t think he was too impressed.

There is a shortage of water in Australia. Water is going to be in short supply. Global warming will mean that we will have to make do with less water.

The answer is not to build more dams. There are many ways to recycle water that lands on our roads and roof tops. These options need to be investigated.

Dams reduce biodiversity. Us humans are not separate from the environment but we are part of it. We need biodiversity to survive. (http://www.greenfacts.org/biodiversity/)

We have to stop increasing our population. We can't continue to grow for ever. It's a finite world you know.

Chris