Running Out Of Water

Discussion in 'Weather & Natural Disasters' started by Craig Wilson, Dec 16, 2019.

  1. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    I picked up my Sunday morning newspaper and there in bold print is "Sydney at risk of running out of water". What a shock it is to hear as you kinda take having water at your disposal for granted.
    Yes if my beautiful but dry Harbor City does not get sufficient rain by May next year a large majority of the city will not have water for everyday use. The reservoir supplying two thirds of Sydney homes is at its lowest ever levels.There is even desperation talk of having to use a mothballed pump to extract the low storage water dregs from the dam. The government has now applied the strictest use of water restrictions ever. We have a desalination plant but this supplies a mere 15% of the 5 million population. We need to build several more evidently. If worst comes to worst we may have to drill for underground aquifer water and pump it to my state. A more sensible solution is to harvest 'wet season' water from the Top End (northern Australia) and pipe it to our parched interior and wherever it is most needed say.. our farms that feed us cityites and also to the cities themselves. This is a far less expensive solution to the aquifer one as you do not need to desalinate wet season water. But this is too simple an idea for politicians to grasp. Well continue to bury your heads in sand and this great city will surely run dry and hungry.

    Good to see I have an ally Bess. You make a good point about reducing rising sea waters thru desal. It is a no brainer.

    Australia.. like America I expect.. has both annual catastrophic floods as well as dry spells. What an irony that is. One of the most astounding aspects of this whole subject is when these extreme storms hit why are governments the world over not harvesting more stormwater..
    Australia had a series of massive monsoonal like storms/cyclones early this year in our tropical north. In fact we have them almost every year. I wonder how much of that groundwater..and there must be millions of litres of it.. were actually harvested. Not a great deal if what I am reading is correct.. that a majority of actual urban groundwater is permitted to simply flow into our oceans. Asia should never run out of water with their annual monsoons drenching many countries for months at a time. But prior to this years annual storms I was reading that Chennai In India..think it was..was almost out of water.

    This waste of such a vital resource shows gross stupidity by our governments at all levels.
     
    #1
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2020
    Bobby Cole likes this.
  2. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    This really grinds my gears. Sydney is a real chance of running dry and I read about this lunacy.

    A new recycled wastewater pipe built under Sydney's CBD and designed to drought-proof our capital city.. remains empty months after completion..thanks to bureaucratic red tape. The mayor's plan for the city's own grey water pipeline has been dashed by govt regulators placing a premium charge on business reusing recycled wastewater. This is madness. Not certain how many other nations do this but Australia currently uses drinking grade water to flush our toilets and water our lawns and gardens. With our dams at their lowest levels ever and less rain to produce stormwater runoff for harvesting.. this pipeline is the water lifeline Sydney so badly needs. Yet we are pi**ing it down the gurgler literally.
     
    #1
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2019
  3. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    It is official 2019 was Australia's hottest and driest year on record.
    The National Bureau of Meteorology says this trend is likely to continue as the earth continues to get warmer so we must expect even hotter and drier summers. This carries with it a pressing concern: a water crisis.

    As lakes and rivers start to dry up, those living in the rural interior of our massive island continent are already finding themselves rationing water just to survive, according to a report in the New York Times — and Australia's water crisis likely to only get worse. Australia's rural communities are already preparing themselves for Day Zero..the moment when water is turned off entirely.

    Unlike cities on the coast of the country, which can convert seawater into serviceable drinking water, there are not alternatives available for cities sitting in the middle of Australia watching water sources run dry. As fires continue to burn, towns have to make a choice between allowing citizens to continue accessing rations of their water reserves or using it to douse approaching flames. The situation is untenable at best and could leave large portions of the country completely uninhabitable.

    According to a report from the Guardian earlier this year, Australia's longest river, the Murray, has been severely affected by this sudden lack of rainwater — shrinking to just 910 gigalitres (GL) entering the system in the past 12 months when its annual average is 5,000 GL. Similarly, Macquarie River has seen a massive drop off in water inflow, going from 1,448 GL annually to just 97 GL in the past two years.


    [​IMG]
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]













     
    #2
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2020
  4. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    Divine providence or Mother Nature.. whichever. Sydney is about to be drenched (100mm est.) by almost a week of thunderstorms.. the first of the summer and the probably the most vital in our history. In addition to topping up our drinking water reservoirs and hopefully some stormwater harvesting.. the storms.. being called rain bombs, may just extinguish our lingering wildfires.. at least those closest to Greater Sydney. This is undoubtedly the best news we Australians could have had. Good news for those of us living in the cities.. not so sure for those regional Australians living west of our ranges. that need water more urgently than us city dwellers.
     
    #3
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2020
    Yvonne Smith and Bess Barber like this.
  5. Bess Barber

    Bess Barber Veteran Member
    Task Force Registered

    Joined:
    Jun 8, 2019
    Messages:
    3,760
    Likes Received:
    7,600
    I don't know where you stand regarding prayer, but one of the larger churches in Australia (Hillsong I think), asked the churches worldwide to stand in prayer with them. Many churches in the USA even had special prayer meetings.
    So, maybe luck.
    Or maybe answered prayer. :)

    Either way, it was a much needed rain. I'm so glad you guys finally got some good news.
     
    #4
    Craig Wilson and Yvonne Smith like this.
  6. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    Then it is Divine providence or intervention @Bess Barber. The power of prayer..Australians thank you all.
     
    #5
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2020
    Bess Barber likes this.
  7. Janel Jones

    Janel Jones Very Well-Known Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2019
    Messages:
    207
    Likes Received:
    423
    Reminds me of when parts of California went thru this last year Craig....sending thots of rain to Australia as I type :)
     
    #6
  8. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    This horribly long dry spell has shocked our politicians into action @Janel Jones with several large desal plants to be constructed asap with existing ones doubling capacity. We Australians live on the world's largest island so taking water from a rising sea level ocean is a no brainer. We are also looking at wave energy. The first new dams in 30 years are to be constructed across the continent plus others are to be ungraded. To be brutally honest I am not sure what good new dams will do if there is no rain to fill them. Our politicians..ha ha. The water catchments needs to be actually where the most rain falls.. and that is our tropical north which has a annual monsoon wet season. Then the water needs to be piped south to the dry regional areas of our continent.. as a matter of urgency. In addition, it was announced yesterday that we are drilling for underground bore or aquifer reserves if the expected rain this week is seen as insufficient to top up the major Sydney reservoir. Funny how it takes a crisis for politicians to get off their fat bums and do something.
     
    #7
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2020
  9. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    Our sudden but so oh vital thunderstorms have dumped much needed water into our dams/reservoirs and on fire grounds.. completely extinguishing some. Our parched inland is also copping a lesser drenching.. but some towns were almost dry.. so a little is at least something. More water is expected from the heavens in the next three days. Will keep you posted.
     
    #8
    Bess Barber and Thomas Stearn like this.
  10. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    [​IMG]
    Bone dry conditions through our Central West coupled with some severe thunderstorms in the area caused this dust storm phenomenon captured bearing down on the large township of Dubbo.
     
    #9
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2020
    Bess Barber likes this.
  11. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    Most fire hit areas have had good rain falls over our weekend but the southern areas appear to have missed most of it. I have been monitoring our radar and no heavy rain has fallen over Greater Sydney's main reservoir/dams in the last two days. We did have some heavier falls on Friday so vital water level top ups then. Further thunderstorms are predicted today..
     
    #10
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2020
  12. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2015
    Messages:
    55,628
    Likes Received:
    23,289
    That's an amazing picture, @Craig Swanson . It must have been horrible to live through, though.
     
    #11
    Bess Barber and Craig Wilson like this.
  13. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    Well you are freaking out watching that monster about to wallop your town.
     
    #12
    Bess Barber likes this.
  14. Bess Barber

    Bess Barber Veteran Member
    Task Force Registered

    Joined:
    Jun 8, 2019
    Messages:
    3,760
    Likes Received:
    7,600
     
    #13
    Craig Wilson and Shirley Martin like this.
  15. Milla Jonas

    Milla Jonas Very Well-Known Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    Jul 9, 2019
    Messages:
    539
    Likes Received:
    203
    I was going to ask the same question @Craig Swanson what fires are still burning ? after that wallop of hail / thunder storms
    Boy that hail did allot of damage I know what I’d prefer .........the cars can be replaced ..the roofs repaired ..damaged trees can be cut up and removed power lines repaired

    just put the fires out anyway we can even if it’s help from the sky

    The fires are causing far more damage to human health than the rain / hail ever will
    I’m sure there are people in bended knees saying ....THANK YOU for the rain

    Sad some missed out in much needed areas hopefully the rain will come their way soon
    It’s still pretty dry here as well
     
    #14
    Bess Barber likes this.
  16. Craig Wilson

    Craig Wilson Veteran Member
    Registered

    Joined:
    May 7, 2019
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    6,490
    This is the Running Out of Water thread @Milla Jonas. I have seen plenty of hailstorms in my day but none quite with the ferocity of this last one. I have large lawns and both were almost entirely covered with hailstones.. looked almost like a snow cover. While most stones were golf ball size and smaller a few were as big as a cricket ball. The residual downpour washed at least a wheelbarrow load of dirt into my pool. It now looks like a swampy pond. The bottom line is this rain is a godsend for our farmers, firies and hopefully out dams and other catchments. I also hope our governments have been harvesting the stormwater.
     
    #15
    Bess Barber and Ken Anderson like this.

Share This Page