Global Warming, Climate Change -- Wake up Sydney - life is only going to get thirstier

From: Psalm 110 (Melchizedek_at_USA.com)
Date: 06/20/04 

Date: 19 Jun 2004 17:28:52 -0700

Wake up Sydney - life is only going to get thirstier
June 19, 2004

Draining away . . . the low water levels in the Warragamba Dam. Photo:
Robert Pearce
Related - http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2004/06/18/rhs_warragamba430,0.jpg

    * Sydney Water ditches $110m recycling scheme
    * Warragamba Dam - ariel view (large file) --
http://www.smh.com.au/media/2004/06/19/1087595769577.html

Rivers are shrinking, the dams are drying up and it never seems to
rain any more. But there are signs, finally, that hard decisions are
being taken, writes James Woodford.

It only takes a boat trip from one end of Lake Burragorang to the
other to realise there is a water scandal in Sydney that has got
nothing to do with whether a new dam should be built.

The 50-kilometre-long reservoir behind the Warragamba Dam wall is a
vast body of pure fresh water - one of the biggest of its kind in the
world. It holds more than 2 million megalitres when full - more than
four times the volume of Sydney Harbour.

Even after one of the worst droughts in memory and several summers of
huge evaporation it still holds twice the harbour's volume. And yet
every week its level falls about half a per cent, meaning it could be
entirely drained in just over two years. Two more summers without a
big fall from a monsoonal trough will spell disaster for Sydney and
the nation's economy.

At the heart of Sydney's water crisis is a simple question: how has
such a stunning feat of thirst been possible?

A series of expert reports provides damning evidence of the way our
water has been squandered. Generations of state governments have
encouraged massive waste, allowing the construction of infrastructure
that pours hundreds of billions of litres of high quality drinking
water through the sewerage system and into the ocean. Many billions of
litres of pure water are also used in factories every year. Until
recently even the most basic water conservation measures, such as
rainwater tanks and grey water systems, had been discouraged.

The crisis is especially severe as some scientists suspect the current
parched catchment may be a sign that climate change is tightening its
grip.

Since Sydney was first settled its residents have overexploited and
befouled one water supply after another, expanding the city's reach to
the point that pressure is now on to flood another massive valley,
this time Welcome Reef, on the Shoalhaven River.

Suburbs have been built with no consideration to the fact that
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth. Worst of all,
say experts, Sydney residents have been encouraged to believe that at
the other end of their taps is an endless supply of pure water.

Scientists, water engineers, bureaucrats and conservationists are
warning that a head-on collision between population growth and the
environment - and our water - is inevitable.

Nearly 1000 people a week move to Sydney, each of them accounting for
hundreds of litres of water every day.

In the next few weeks a specially appointed Government panel will
present the Premier, Bob Carr, with advice on how Sydney can reuse and
better use its water. The panel's deputy chairman, Clean-Up
Australia's founder, Ian Kiernan, says bluntly that calls for a new
dam are "bull***".

"There is enough water in Sydney already," Kiernan says. "It's just
that it is so badly managed. There's no respect for water because it
is so cheap. We need to look at pricing. We need to look at marketing.
We have got to look at innovative, clever reuse of waste water and
better design of homes.

"We are taking crystal-clear drinking water and pouring it onto roses
and lawns, flushing it down toilets, feeding it to stock and using it
in industry and that is just crazy."

Bob Wilson, the head of a State Government-appointed panel of experts
on rivers in the Sydney region, says: "We have come to a critical
point where Sydney has to solve the problems with the health of its
rivers and its water supply."

The two were inextricably linked and could no longer be managed in
isolation.

"There's plenty of water but we have to use it better ... we have to
change the way we do housing. We can still have a good lifestyle, we
just have to be better at what is permitted to be connected to the
water supply system."

He says money needs to be spent immediately implementing the
recommendations of a new report, Water and Sydney's Future, Balancing
the Values of Our Rivers and Economy.

Adopting the report would mean ending wasteful habits such as watering
in the middle of the day, and hosing driveways would become illegal
under low-level restrictions that would never be lifted. Compulsory
efficiency labelling of appliances would be introduced as would
pricing aimed at encouraging conservation and there would be an annual
cap on how much water can be extracted from the city's dams.

A more dramatic decision would be to reduce the reliability of
Sydney's water supply system. This is presently set at 97 per cent,
which means residents should on average have to expect water
restrictions only three months out of every 100. By reducing
reliability to 90 per cent we will on average have more water
restrictions. In other words, when the reservoirs are full, managers
allow more water to be used rather than storing it to safeguard
against drought. One immediate benefit: more available water to
restore the Hawkesbury-Nepean river to ensure its health.

The report also allows for water to be transferred from the Shoalhaven
to supplement Sydney's supply, a last-resort option.

It is expected that the panel of which Kiernan is a member will
recommend major changes to the use of effluent, especially the
practice of pumping sewage out to sea. Instead, the hundreds of
billions of litres of effluent that is wasted each year could be
treated and reused for agriculture.

FROM next month, developers will be required to design homes to be 40
per cent more water efficient. They can score points towards obtaining
building approval by landscaping with native plants instead of lawn.
As landscaping accounts for nearly a third of household water use,
there is even a suburb-by-suburb list of best natives to use.

Under the regulations, new homes would eventually have to use 75 per
cent less water than existing homes, and water controls would be
mandated under planning legislation to ensure developers comply.

Bob Wilson estimates that implementing the report will cost about $1
billion. "But if we don't do it now it will cost us $3billion
[later]," he says.

He says the worst use of money would be to build the Welcome Reef Dam,
on the Shoalhaven River.

If built, the dam, which has been on the drawing board for more than
three decades, would flood 15,000 hectares and have the largest
surface area of any dam in the state. But with a capacity of up to
2.68 million megalitres, it would hold 600 billion litres more water
than Warragamba Dam's Lake Burragorang. But planners fear the dam
would have dire ecological consequences for the Shoalhaven River,
especially on the people of Nowra who bitterly oppose such a water
grab from their river by Sydney. As a very shallow reservoir it would
suffer massive evaporation and some fear that its catchment is so dry
it would not be easy to fill.

"Welcome Reef is a simple political answer that won't be the real
answer," Wilson says. "If we want to save our rivers and our water
supply we are going to have to spend this billion dollars fixing the
current system."

Industrial, commercial and government users account for more than a
quarter of Sydney's total water consumption. Manufacturing alone
swallows up nearly 50,000 megalitres of Sydney's purest drinking water
every year, much by just a few companies. Blue Scope Steel, formerly
BHP Steel, is SydneyWater's single biggest customer, annually
responsible for 12,700 megalitres. This water is simply used and then
discharged. However, the company and SydneyWater are now working
together on water reuse and are achieving some major savings.

Massive amounts of water are also squandered in the commercial
property sector, which uses 33,000 megalitres every year. Huge losses
come from leaking and inefficient cooling towers. About 10 per cent of
Sydney's water simply disappears because of leaks in the city's 22,000
kilometres of mains. The utility is trying to identify where
businesses and homes are wasting water and is checking 7000 kilometres
of pipes every year.

WHEN the variability of rainfall is taken into account the amount of
water that is available to Sydney on a sustainable annual basis is
600,000 megalitres. Our current usage is 634,000 megalitres, which
means that some day soon, either during this drought, or one in the
next few decades, the city is going to run out of water. Unfortunately
that might not be the worst thing that could happen, warn experts such
as Bob Wilson. Every drop of water in excess of the catchments'
sustainable yield is one less for the environment.

The Hawkesbury-Nepean River system is the sickest that many scientists
have ever seen it. Anyone who doubts that Sydney is killing the river
that keeps the city alive should stand on its banks near Richmond,
upstream of the Yarramundi Crossing.

As far as the eye can see are noxious weeds that cover the waterway in
a mat of green that looks thick enough to walk on. Where the water is
visible it is foul and polluted, full of introduced mosquito fish and
carp. The riverbank is strangled by exotic species and weirs choke the
waterway's natural flow. There is rubbish everywhere, painting a
picture more of a neglected, polluted drain than a river.

The Hawkesbury-Nepean is arguably Sydney's single most important
economic asset; more than 4 million residents and many tens of
billions of dollars worth of industry would not survive without it.
The agriculture on its floodplain alone is estimated to be worth more
than $1 billion.

In the coming months, just as during every other time Sydney has faced
a water crisis, decisions will be made that will have vast
consequences for future generations. The drought has provided a chance
for politicians to make sweeping changes to water management.

Many, like Wilson, hope the moment is seized.

"If we lose the opportunity now," Wilson says, "I don't know how we
will ever recover it."

For information and images about this research on the Internet, visit:

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0602hurricanebloom.html

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

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