Grant.
----- Original Message ----- From: <uvj at vsnl.com> To: "lbo" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 9:01 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Sydney's Water Shortage
> The Hindu
>
> Friday, May 28, 2004
>
> Bleak prospects
>
> By Ben Sandilands
>
> Some blame global warming but whatever the reason the reality of severe
> drought has bitten home in Australia's largest city.
>
> THE STARK possibility that Sydney, Australia's largest city, could have no
> water in its dams in less than two years' time has finally dawned on its
> four million inhabitants. It took an attack on the freedom to fill
household
> swimming pools - something of nearly sacred significance to urban
> Australians - to ram the message home.
>
> Until late last year, the four-year drought that is ravaging the land just
> beyond the city limits, on the other side of its famous Blue Mountains,
had
> hardly affected city life.
>
> Stories of farming families of many generations being driven off the land,
> and whole communities withering away, had little impact other than higher
> food prices in the green and pleasant 50-km-wide tract of sprawling
suburbia
> that stretches from the surf line to the encircling mountain ranges.
>
> But as New South Wales' Utilities Minister, Frank Sartor, kept warning,
> little, if any, rain was falling in those ranges, which contain Sydney's
> water catchments.
>
> And now, along the vast labyrinthine flooded gorges of the Warragamba Dam,
> which supplies 70 per cent of Sydney's water storage capacity, the `lost'
> valley of the Burragorang has reappeared. The rotted foundations of
bridges
> and townships and long silent church bell towers are basking in bright
> sunlight that has not fallen on them since 1960, when they vanished under
> the rising waters of a project touted as supplying Sydney for 600 years.
>
> The Warragamba Dam was full to almost overflowing in August 2000, when a
wet
> spell ended an earlier less serious decline in dam levels. But by August
> 2003, it was only 65 per cent full, and by May this year it slipped under
46
> per cent, its lowest ever level.
>
> The culprit was not so much wasteful use of water by domestic and business
> users but evaporation. Although initial water restrictions late last year
> cut the rate of consumption by more than 10 per cent, remorseless dry
> westerly winds began to suck the moisture out of the catchments at an
> unprecedented rate.
>
> The Sydney Water utility's hydrologists advised the Government that even
> when (rare) good showers fell, the soil had become so dry and to such a
> depth that falls that might normally cause useful runoff were completely
> absorbed into the parched earth.
>
> Current estimates are that about 50mm of rain a day needs to fall
> continuously for two weeks to trigger the opening of the automatic
> floodgates that would stop a replenished Lake Burragorang surging over the
> top of the dam wall. To date though, every promising forecast has seen
> clouds pass over the city and rain either on the beach line or a few km
out
> to sea.
>
> The Bureau of Meteorology admits to be being stumped by the weather
pattern,
> as the usual rules of forecasting that indicate a high probability of
> rainfall no longer seem to apply to the Sydney region.
>
> Since late last year, new `water police', in bright yellow cars, have been
> raiding backyards busting illegal garden-hosers. The initial restrictions
> affect hours of hosing, ban most types of fixed sprinklers, and forbid the
> use of hoses to wash down hard surfaces such as driveways. Yet fines have
so
> far had little effect.
>
> With car washing by hose virtually outlawed, Sydney has become a city of
> dirty cars. Suddenly, a clean car has become a sign that either its owner
is
> a water cheat or has waited in a long queue for the use of exempt car
> washing services.
>
> The new stage two restrictions from June 1 will be much tougher. People
> cannot fill any of the thousands of new swimming pools without a permit
> proving they have fitted water-saving devices such as reduced flow shower
> heads or washing appliances inside their homes.
>
> Stage three restrictions, if needed, will involve paying serious sums of
> money for water usage, with threshold triggers that will cause all the
water
> used within a fixed period to be charged at a maximum penalty rate.
>
> Figures produced by the Australian Water Association, which is calling for
> compulsory codes of water conservation, show that the average Sydney
> household regardless of number of people uses more than 400,000 litres of
> water a year on outdoor uses including pool, garden and car washing. With
> additional indoor consumption varying between 193,000 litres a year for
one
> or two persons, or 398,000 litres for households of five or more persons,
> some typical larger homes consume more than 800,000 litres of water
> annually.
>
> - Guardian Newspaers Limited 2004
>
> Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>