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June 23, 2006
Although there is a lot of political talk about the importance of water in Australia and water restrictions in capital cities, the National Water Initiative, just like the Living Murray Initiative, has stalled. Water politics has become bogged down in squabbling amongst the states and the commonwealth over money, whilst the politicians address the need for water recycling in terms of the poo factor--true blue Aussies just won't drink shit!
Sure, there is a need to address the underpricing of water use given the low levels of the dams in Queensland.
 But (purified) water recycling in a warming world offers the possibilities of long-term sustainable water use.
Yet state governments in NSW and Queensland duck and weave on this, even though parts of their states will run out of water in the near future.
A good example is drought-stricken Goulburne in NSW and south-east Queensland (some areas excepted), which will run out of water if the next two rainy seasons fail to drop rain on the catchment sites. With Brisbane's three dams already falling below a combined 30%, the Queensland capital was in as severe a water predicament as Toowoomba and searching for answers – that will be found in recycling.
Isn't it time to question the deeply held assumption that there will be an endless supply of water for agricultural, industrial and domestic use. Wouldn't that be taking the effect of climate change ---a warmed up world---seriously? That we need to to live with less water.
Since water conservation is now an everyday reality in our capital and regional cities we need to get smart in the way we use it. That is something the Queensland and NSW state governments have yet to do. The Beattie Government in Queensland still thinks that the water crisis of South East Queensland is best addressed by building two very expensive and unreliable dams; and it reckons that this is better than recycling fully treated water back into our water supplies and catchments. Unreliable because the water crisis in southeast Queensland is substantially caused by the reduction of rainfall in Brisbane, Toowoomba and Gold Coast catchments, which then affected inflows into the reservoirs of southeast Queensland.
Meanwhile the number of trees and shrubs that have died from lack of water will continue to rise.
Update: 25 June
And in the Murray-Darling Basin the irrigators who rely on the Murray and Goulburn irrigation schemes are being forced by their banks to sell their water rights or face foreclosure and financial ruin.These dried fruit, wine grape and citrus growers are succumbing to pressure to permanently or temporarily sell their water, even though this will make family farms unviable and practically unsaleable.The report in The Age |
Gary - too true. And FYI, people are waking up and fighting back. The Qld Greens are planning to converge on Toowoomba for the water recycling referendum next month - all of Australia should be watching carefully as this will soon likely be coming to a resevoir near you in many parts of this wide brown land.