Its Time To talk About Water...

jlew24asu wrote:

well thats the question. why is it expensive (or difficult) seems like a rather simple thing to do. remove salt from water, filter and clean water, drink water.

but what do you mean it isnt in our part of the world?

I've always wondered about that too. I mean, where I come from... my county is the lakelands of Ireland, a lake for every day of the year all within about an hour and a half of driving... the longest river in Ireland and Britain (the Shannon) rises here... not to mention the fact that we're an inland county on AN ISLAND... a small island surrounded by OCEANS of fucking water! And they tell us not to water our fucking lawns if it doesn't rain for two weeks :eek: Don't be fucking ridiculous... if it doesn't rain for two weeks, it's not like it's never gonna rain again... it's fucking IRELAND... it rains all the time :eek:

Also, ya know those outside taps on houses for watering lawns and washing cars and stuff? Well it doesn't NEED to be fresh water pumped into them or even clean water

Truthmonger wrote:

Its hard to read an article like this and not be concerned (I've seen many like this):

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html

As for desalinisation, its expensive and there's the question of what to do with the piles of brine that result from the process. Dumping it back into the ocean presents just another problem.

Tuna fish

hippiemom wrote:

I don't know about the rest of Europe, but every toilet I saw in Cologne and Amsterdam had two flush buttons, a large one and a small one ... the small flush uses about half as much water as the large one, and after all, for most flushes you don't really need much. I thought it was a clever idea.

Yep, most NEW toilets here have them too. I'm not sure if they're mandatory in new houses but any new houses I've been in have them... by new I mean maybe 3 years

Heineken Helen wrote:

Also, ya know those outside taps on houses for watering lawns and washing cars and stuff? Well it doesn't NEED to be fresh water pumped into them or even clean water

Um, Helen. . . why don't you try washing your car and watering your lawn with seawater and report back to us. I'm really curious to see how it works out for you.

Jeanie wrote:

Yeah, Bracksy has already signed us up cate. And as he was fairly convinced it was signed, sealed and delivered and he wasn't planning on backing down, He's already gone, so the credit won't be his on completion but I'd say that Brumby will continue on with the plan. Not that I'm thinking there will be much credit because there are already a lot of people not in favor of it.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bracks-49bn-water-plan/2007/06/19/1182019116320.html

i can see it now. what d'you mean it's not a done deal, bracksy swore to us before he skedaddled with his fat pension, the ink was dry.

i dont wanna drink poo water. i dont care how much it's been recycled. though if they chock it up with chemicals then i won't know will i?

Scubascott wrote:

The fear of recycled water is all in your head. I dare you to taste a sample of recycled water and a sample of treated water fresh from the storages and tell me that you can tell the difference. Recycled water is safe as far as I understand. The only potential risk that I've ever heard anyone argue is that some things like hormones might not be destroyed by the treatment process. That's easily fixed with ozone treatment anyway.

I for one, would be very happy to drink recycled sewerage water. . . and I'm a microbiologist . It makes far more sense to recycle water in the cites than to try to send it to agricultural areas. I'd need to see some numbers to be sure, but I can't imagine that it would be more efficient to send recycled water from Sydney or Melbourne to the irrigation areas in the M/D than it would be to keep it in the municipal water system.

As for growing rice and cotton. . . you're probably right, but until there are incentives for farmers to make a living doing something else, they'll continue to do what they can to produce a crop that is worth something.

No Scott. It's not all in my head. I have very real concerns about the efficacy and efficiency of recycled water. My main one being that like everything else even if the plan starts out as a government initiative it will fast become privatised and I'm sorry but given the track record of these private companies when it comes to infrastructure and the public good, not to mention successive governments continual refusal to hold private companies accountable for the havoc they wreak I really have NO CONFIDENCE in the recycled water program as it has been presented to me at this time. And that's not saying that I have no confidence in the science of the process, although I'd like to see some statistics on the long term health ramifications. It's our water, we need it to sustain life, and SO FAR the governments both state and federal have made a dogs dinner of the whole water issue. So you'll forgive me for not having a lot of confidence in them now.

Now if someone wanted to present a plan that was to be kept in public hands, for recycled water that WASN'T added to the drinking water, I might reconsider. But until such times as we can be 100% certain that there will be no side effects or ill health from this process then I cannot get behind the plan as it stands. I've watched this kind of thing get completely screwed over before and it's the little people that suffer. If I thought for one minute that this was THE BEST OPTION for the public benefit and not for the interest of some multinational awaiting the opportunity to line their pockets then I'd be in. Perhaps not drinking water that had been recycled from your effluent but I'd consider giving my own a go.

As to the farming issue as far as I can see they've been screwed over by successive governments too and it's only the big companies that can turn a profit now. Well one that is worth the effort they put in. And most of those are foreign investors anyway. So basically the way I see it, some asshole, sitting up on high, somewhere else in the world is pulling a whole lot of strings in this country and making a shit load of money out of it and screwing the bloody lot of us ordinary battlers into the bargain.

Jeanie wrote:

What I wanna know is this cate. How come both Bracksy and Beatty resigned recently at the height of their careers? BOTH had been involved in controversial water programs and BOTH had been involved in the Murray Darling Basin stand off with the Federal Government. I'd kill to be a fly on the wall to know what was being held over them to get them both of office. I truly believe that it's no coincidence and the timing of it was highly suspicious.

what i want to know is why they didn't take iemma with them.

can't imagine what the queensland premier has got to do with the murray-darling. admittedly there are some tributaries that flow from the darling into qld, but nothing i think of any great consequence.

jlew24asu wrote:

well thats the question. why is it expensive (or difficult) seems like a rather simple thing to do. remove salt from water, filter and clean water, drink water.

but what do you mean it isnt in our part of the world?

It just isn't as simple as it seems and is expensive.

All I meant is that things aren't as bad in the US where they are having to consider doing desalination.

Heineken Helen wrote:

should money really be an issue though? If it's as urgent and drastic as certain groups should have us believe, should this not be something they should start preparing for the near future?

Too often we hear the response 'but it's expensive' so... we're only looking for cheap alternatives? And these seem to be something along the lines of producing fresh water out of thin air? (and by 'thin air' I don't mean literal... I mean what the fuck are we supposed to come up with?)

I agree with you 100%. But that is one of the things that pisses me off about the world right now. Everything is about money and bullshit politics. Since this is an expensive alternative and people won't make billions of dollars and large companies aren't lobbying for it then it won't happen. Just the sad reality of things.

MakingWaves wrote:

I agree with you 100%. But that is one of the things that pisses me off about the world right now. Everything is about money and bullshit politics. Since this is an expensive alternative and people won't make billions of dollars and large companies aren't lobbying for it then it won't happen. Just the sad reality of things.

Yep... I mean it's only really now in the US where it's becoming fashionable to become eco friendly... the multinationals MUST have had enough time by now to figure out how exactly they can become rich from it??????

Urrrrrrrrrrrggghhh... are we REALLY letting these people run OUR planet? :mad: It just fucking makes me mad.