The News Review:
- Water, water everywhere…
- Urgent water rethink urged
- Encroachments on water bodies will be removed, says Collector
Water, water everywhere…
Guardian – Apr 29, 2007
Since moving here a few weeks ago I have been flabbergasted by all the rain that has fallen. Last night I was woken by yet another deluge, hammering on the roof of my rented apartment, but sadly barely a drop of all this rain will find its way into the public water supply. In an explanation worthy of the old British Rail, the water authority says that it has been raining on the wrong side of the city. While we in the eastern suburbs have had torrential rain, in Warragamba, an hour’s drive west of Sydney, near the dam that provides 80 per cent of the city’s water supplies, there were only a few measly drops. With all this rain going to waste, it’s easy to have an air of unreality about the Big Dry that is causing so much misery for farmers in the interior. Darling Point, where I am temporarily living, is a green oasis. My neighbours have sympathy for the farmers struggling to survive in dustbowls around the Murray-Darling basin, but they can’t help but be detached from it…
An organisation called the Farmhand Foundation has re-examined weather-engineering schemes put forward over the past century to see if they have any relevance now. There was a proposal to build an artificial mountain range in Western Australia to create rainfall, until it was pointed out it would take 40 million million cubic metres of material – five times all the earth moved in the whole of human history – to construct it. But the idea I liked most was to chip off an iceberg in Antarctica and tow it to Australia, where it could be melted in treatment plants and fed into the public water supply. The idea was rejected when it was pointed out that the iceberg would dissolve before it had completed the journey. Shame, because it would have been fun to see a big, blue iceberg floating in Sydney Harbour. Weight watching on the catwalkAustralian Fashion Week kicks off in Sydney tomorrow and inevitably the issue of size-zero models has come up. Show organisers say they will leave it to the local fashion industry to act responsibly about weight guidelines, but already one model is at the centre of controversy.
Urgent water rethink urged
NEWS.com.au – Apr 29, 2007
"Waterproofing Adelaide needs an urgent review to take into account the River Murray water supply is no longer reliable," said Prof Young, who researches efficient water management at Adelaide University. "When the strategy was formulated there was no discussion about dealing with prolonged water restrictions or possible zero water allocations to irrigators, as is now the case. "The drought had made a review of Adelaide’s future water supplies an urgent priority, with an emphasis on a more "aggressive" approach to making the city a centre of water management excellence and expertise, he said. Given the water supply crisis, Professor Young said it was frustrating to see millions of litres of stormwater dumped by recent rains running out to sea. Only 4000 megalitres of Adelaide stormwater is harvested each year, while another 160,000 megalitres – equal to the city’s draw on the River Murray River – flows into the sea. "We need a significant rise in the price of water to properly reflect its value as a precious resource and get private enterprise to invest in infrastructure, such as stormwater harvesting," Professor Young, who is also in the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, said. But Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald said the cost of Government investment in schemes to secure Adelaide’s water supply based on regular droughts would be astronomical…
"When the strategy was formulated there was no discussion about dealing with prolonged water restrictions or possible zero water allocations to irrigators, as is now the case. "The drought had made a review of Adelaide’s future water supplies an urgent priority, with an emphasis on a more "aggressive" approach to making the city a centre of water management excellence and expertise, he said. Given the water supply crisis, Professor Young said it was frustrating to see millions of litres of stormwater dumped by recent rains running out to sea. Only 4000 megalitres of Adelaide stormwater is harvested each year, while another 160,000 megalitres – equal to the city’s draw on the River Murray River – flows into the sea. "We need a significant rise in the price of water to properly reflect its value as a precious resource and get private enterprise to invest in infrastructure, such as stormwater harvesting," Professor Young, who is also in the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, said. But Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald said the cost of Government investment in schemes to secure Adelaide’s water supply based on regular droughts would be astronomical. "We have to be realistic when talking about severe droughts and that doesn’t include planning for one every year," she said.
Encroachments on water bodies will be removed, says Collector
Hindu – Apr 29, 2007
They claimed that rampant encroachments on the channels of the Avadhanapatti tank had blocked the flow of rainwater, which resulted in the water going waste into nearby fields. Water supply Mariappan, a farmer from Arasampatti, said that a total of 36 Combined Water Supply Schemes (CWSS) were being executed from KRP dam to Arasampatti. With a severe drought in the district, the drinking water supply has been hit in Arasampatti and surrounding villages. The district administration should take up water conservation measures to streamline water supply in the affected areas. Collector Santhosh Babu replied that a proposal had been sent to the Government for construction of check dams on the Thenpennaiar River bed. The works would be taken up shortly. Govindappa, a farmer from Denkanikottai, requested the district administration to disburse fresh cooperative loans to commence agricultural activities.