From: Miron Mizrahi <mironmizrahi@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Water consumption (NMC)
To: "david earle" <canadavros@yahoo.com.au>
Received: Tuesday, 3 August, 2010, 11:13 AM

thanks for the interesting info

tbh - i think that the biggest hurdle is political will.

cost - is always an issue with every infrastructure project. but desal plants have cost too. labor just promise a railway link in SE QLD. it will take them 6 years and $1.1B to build 12km (yes ... 12km) of railway. cost is a matter of prioritization, but it is solvable. governments juggle this ball all the time

engineering - really? we can build a gas pipeline from PNG, so I am sure we can build a water network. other countries (US, Israel) have done so. we don't have to get it all the way down. we have the Murray-Darling as conduit. we just need to get it to the boundaries of the catchment area

env damage - the damage down in the South is born out of bad management and policy. if we have good management and policy this can be addressed

necessity - this is true. however when I look at the order of magnitude, can this be the only answer? we are now at 30% capacity. let's say we reverse some of the effects of bad management and increase efficiency, can we double or triple our capacity? I don't know the answer to that, but it seems unlikely. and even if we do get significant improvement, the demand will only grow. if there is no rain then soon enough you will run our of steam with increased efficiency. it can only buy you so much

so here is where the issue lies IMO - our political system. water management is done by the states. they are unwilling and unable to do anything. why should QLD spend a dime to help VIC or SA? with infrastructure projects, scale is the name of the game. the fragmentation of resources and decision making pretty much guarantee no action.

I am an immigrant to this country. it dismays me that Australians only behave as a nation when we play England for the ashes. when it really matters, everyone looks after their own interests and we lack the leadership to look high.

 

Miron

How could people get so unkind?

From: david earle <canadavros@yahoo.com.au>
To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au; Miron Mizrahi <mironmizrahi@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, August 3, 2010 10:25:33 AM
Subject: Re: Water consumption (NMC)

Hi Miron, There is plenty that could be done in terms of improved water efficiency. Here in Adelaide, there is considerable disquiet about the desal plant given the amount of storm water which flows out to sea via our drainage system and waterways. In addition, our leaky pipes are an issue, with some streets facing frequent flooding as a result. The northern rivers idea has been around for about a century - the Bradfield scheme (named after the designer of the Syd harb bridge) which proposed turning the northern rivers back inland is the best known. Sydney radio broadcaster Alan Jones strongly supported trying to get it going earlier this decade. As a result, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists was formed under the  auspices of the WWF, and is still active on sustainable water issues. (http://www.wentworthgroup.org/) They had a number of concerns with the general idea: -its impracticality- the engineering problems and the economic costs -the environmental problems of (in a nutshell) doing to the northern eastern water courses what has been done to the south eastern ones -the idea that if water is managed better in the high population and intensive agriculture areas in the south east, it is unnecessary. See also these sites: http://www.wwf.org.au/publications/blueprint_national_water_plan/ http://www.wentworthgroup.org/docs/Chartres_&_Williams.pdf Cheers, David   desal is definitely an option but we have other choices too. my last quarterly water bill was $270. the breakdown (rounded) is as follows water usage - $30 sewage disposal - $32 services charge - $96 waterways and drainage charges on behalf of Melbourne water - $40 annual parks charge - $70 my ACTUAL usage is 11% of the bill. if you exclude the annual charge it is 15%. I don't want higher bills but one has to wonder. Yarra Valley Water is a govt owned retail provider and this is IMO the worst of 2 worlds. the inflated machinery (reflected in the 8x ratio of service to usage cost) and the rigidity in pricing structure. surely there is room to optimize. the other choice is conservation. the Melbourne target is 155 litres per day per person. my household uses 68. and I am honestly not doing anything special or sacrificing my quality of life. we are just paying attention. I am not suggesting families need to bear the full burden but we can make a difference. what I am really curious about is how many of those "saying no to desal" are doing their bit. i don't know the answer to that but it sure would be interesting to find out last but not least - Australia has water. just not where we need it. North Queensland has plenty. Even parts of NSW are not doing badly at all. now ... the problem of moving water from point A to point B has been solved. so what's stopping us?   Miron How could people get so unkind? From: david earle <canadavros@yahoo. com.au> To: powderworks@ yahoogroups. com.au Sent: Mon, August 2, 2010 4:02:55 PM Subject: Re: [powderworks] Peter Garrett protection of whales Bullshit   Thanks RM- on the basis of a quick read of the intro and conclusions, a couple of things are apparent from this article: desal as a concept is one of the few options the ever increasing population and ever increasing per capita consumption of the world and Aust in particular have to fall back on it's pretty expensive economically and a thus far unknown quantity environmentally (though my own suspicion is the env cost is likely to be high) Really, it's just one example of the dilemmas of endless human demand bumping up against ultimately finite capacity of the earth to provide. Cheers David --- On Mon, 2/8/10, RM <rob10@liveonthe. net> wrote: From: RM <rob10@liveonthe. net> Subject: Re: [powderworks] Peter Garrett protection of whales Bullshit To: "Powderworks@ yahoo" <powderworks@ yahoogroups. com.au> Received: Monday, 2 August, 2010, 1:25 PM   This is worth reading - at least it is formed up as a proper research paper. http://ses.library. usyd.edu. au/bitstream/ 2123/1897/ 1/Desalination% 20Plants. pdf Many sources of further decent reference material are cited in it if you want to go deeper. My browse of the conclusions and recommendations infer that the brine plume seems less than likely to incur a major impact on sea life in comparison to the greater natural and unnatural influences in the ocean at present that the full and final scenario had not yet been fully modelled and tested so the outcome is still reasonably indeterminate at a scientific level that it still needed (in 2007) a comprehensive research/model to draw more certain conclusions. About the author: http://www.aclca. asn.au/young- achiever- award http://au.linkedin. com/pub/rashad- danoun/1b/ b09/43 I've sent the author a note that I've cited their material here, for if they want to have a look in. RM On 2/08/2010 8:50 AM, david earle wrote:   Hi Phil, More info please - a link to a news article or something. Cheers David --- On Sun, 1/8/10, phil sartorio <oilsrule77@yahoo. com> wrote: From: phil sartorio <oilsrule77@yahoo. com> Subject: [powderworks] Peter Garrett protection of whales Bullshit To: powderworks@ yahoogroups. com.au Received: Sunday, 1 August, 2010, 5:01 PM   Its not news the pappers wont , its been like that since day one trying to stop this thing along this coast , The victorian government have rolled pete on this and this will come back and bite him for years to come , this desal plant will be here for 30 years so look out whales sharks seals sea loins birds and surfers and phillip island penguins