Appropriate Water Use -we need a charter.

[kimbo.parker]

There is a serious shortcoming in our deplorably decadent white capitalist consumer society,,(Yes-another one).

We have no charter of 'Appropriate Water Usage'.

you can call it what you want,,, but this 'thingy' would spell out "what water" you can use for "what jobs".

As we all know (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here because you're permies) water ain't just water- it comes in types.
Salty, fresh, rain, dam, flowing, still, bore, scheme, de-sal....and on and on.

The types of water are dynamic - they change - they change on their own (like when rain becomes dam).
but what is missing in the 'group think' is that the stuff changes with use. Scheme becomes grey, grey becomes black etc.

It is no 'stretch' to link different types of water to different water uses.

Drinking Water is a 'first use' water of the 'best type' available.....availability is critical here...this is a rare and prime commodity.
...............................................(un less you are a water god like Sepp Holzer- (search these posts))
First Aid & Medical water ditto.

Garden water is maybe 'fifth use' water, grey water or black water. (now pay attention here).
If you irrigated your garden from your dam,,you would be using 'First use' of type 'Dam Water'...there are two descriptors...use and type.

If you used Dam water for cleaning your dishes, then used the grey water for the garden,,,you could be said to have used 'Second Use' of type 'Dam Water'
or you could say 'First Use' use of type 'Grey water' ...............
right ,,so some conventions would be sorted out by 'the boffins' ,,,,we won't bog down with that yet.

If you were ever turned on by 'stacking' (a permaculture system),,,look at this water usage thingy,,,,

I have got 'third use' 'black water' !!!!!!!!! and
'fifth use' 'dam water' in my system............talk to me about water harvesting friends.

To conclude:

The charter will be part of social programming to show the average stupid mainstream bastard why they can not wash their car with first use scheme water.
In Perth W.A. that scheme water is De-Sal....only a madman would wash their car in it....'step up mainstream Perth'.

The fixated and fanatical among us know just how much this thinking can take over your head-space,,,,,do it, we need it ,it is tough but you're a pioneer right, always have been, strength & honour :wink:

regards, Kimbo

[kimbo.parker]

more on topic..Appropriate Water Usage

There is only one sealed road, about 10km from my joint,,and that was the road I was on when a cop pulled me over to check out my car.. and tell me to wash it

So I said to him;
" how long you had this post pencil neck,,clearly you're a city boy,,,ever seen a gravel road son?
I said; 'how smart do you have to be to be a cop'....do they teach you about climate change in the Academy?
How about current affairs, you realize there is a drought on?.....
(friends I was doing me hippy quince)
I suppose where you come from you just turn on a tap and water just comes out a hose...well listen son,,,even if I had a tap and a hose that water came out of ,I would not be using it to wash me bloody car."

sure that' what I told him :wink:
but guys we need this Appropriate Water Use Charter...
to end this hippy persecution thing forever :lol:

regards, Kimbo

[ave a go]

I have got 'third use' 'black water' !!!!!!!!! and 'fifth use' 'dam water' in my system............talk to me about water harvesting friends.

Hi Kimbo,

Would be interested to hear what each use is.....(ie Dam Water 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and Black Water 1, 2, 3)

[kimbo.parker]

I have got 'third use' 'black water' !!!!!!!!! and 'fifth use' 'dam water' in my system............talk to me about water harvesting friends.

Hi Kimbo,

Would be interested to hear what each use is.....(ie Dam Water 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and Black Water 1, 2, 3)

Hi "ave a go"'
thank you for your reply.
Dam Water first use- DW1- Washing Us, Baths & Basins.- all collected
Dw2 Cleaning (much recovered), DW3 Irrigation of Suspended gardens (in sinks) - all collected.

At DW4 it often is used to flush our toilet (always by bucket) where it becomes BW1 Black Water 1 and hits the septic system.

After passing to the secondary tank all solids have settled..the water is green and it smells 'active'. It is intercepted prior to the Leach Drain where it would be lost.We pump our secondary tank into our garden distribution lines where as BW1 it first irrigates suspended gardens (sinks with buckets under), recovered BW2 is used on Worm farm (suspended) resulting BW3 is often used then on the compost heap where the drained liquid (sheets of tin under the compost heap) direct the now BW4 onto gardens.

The system deepens with my preparedness to run buckets everywhere....if I can't find a bucket of water for a flush, I may grab a bucket of BW4 and flush with that...therefore arriving at a BW5.

The trick is to have no plumbing which causes water to become in-accessible.

Rainwater is drinking water - but we use all our urine thus recovering it.
Loosing water from the system through careless disposal of urine is a waste. Rain water is also cooking water - Recovered as RW2 and used for dishes? It is commonly hot, so I recover heat as well.

Water Harvesting is a passion.

regards, Kimbo

[janahn]

hi kimbo
out of interest re water, where did u gain the opinion that rising water tables are the cause of salinity. granted may be true in a few % of cases, but only a few.
salinity is caused more by soil collapse I think. but u may know a bit more. Good dam water is good cooking water.

Janahn

[paradisi]

Kimbo

I'd be starting with councillors, state politicians and federal politicians

despite the myths, Australia is overloaded with excess fresh water. The problems come when people down south whinge there is no water.

Move the water to the people or move the people to the water.

In WA the ord river evaporates more water than is used in all the major southern Australian cities.

A pipeline funded by users could be run from the ord to the perth area and a fork out to adelaide, sydney, melbourne... the users would be the irrigators along the way, The pipeline could go in ten or hundred km stages - sell off the irrigation land along the way and it gets to perth within 50 years and the rest of aus in a hundred and then no one has to worry about water

true what you say about frist and second and tertiary use water, but if the water we have is sent to the users we have, then the problem is going if not gone.

[gardenlen]

yeh hey well su qlders can now sit back wipe our hands together and relax our feerless leader has all but delared the drought over the dams are 50% full by their figures, so endeth the drought dunno what people west of the range and into western nsw and the murray/darling system have to say about that?? the headwaters for the m/d start out at the downs and unless you get a tropical low X-cyclone like 1974 water will never flow down all that way to s/a.

users up here from easter weekend can now use 200 litres per day per person up from 170, heck we flat out using 80 litres per day per person, a lot of encouraged waste in there hey? we use all water at least twice. oh also must point out we use our own water from the substantial tank we invested the gov' rebate in.

len

[ho-hum]

Hiya Paradisi,

I would be interested where this comment came from...


In WA the ord river evaporates more water than is used in all the major southern Australian cities.

I have been to Kununurra a number of times and I have heard some fanciful claims but nothing quite like this. I believe there are a number of opportunities available in Northern Australia that should be prospected.

Cheers,

[Michaelangelica]

Some interesting discussion on water issues in August 2008

Water, water everywhere





References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.


Jonathan Chenowetha

aJonathan Chenoweth is at the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, UK


Available online 22 August 2008.

There's plenty to go round, so why is the world facing a water crisis, asks Jonathan Chenoweth

Article Outline
Trading virtual water
Low water mark
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... e02e74373b (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B83WY-4T8K6F1-1N&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b148c8544289817aac697de02e74373b)

* New Scientist (23 August) has a cover story on water by Jonathan Chenoweth of the University of Surrey. It makes some useful points including the argument that “virtual water” (a term evidently coined by Tony Allan of King’s College, London) can be an efficient way of distributing water resources around the globe. For example, fruit can be grown in a wet country and exported to a particularly dry one. It is probably easier in most cases to ship fruit around than move large quantities of water. Therefore trade allows for the more effiicient allocation of water resources at a global level.

Chenoweth also makes the point that desalination is falling in price. It can now cost as little as 50 cents per 1000 litres. “All but the world’s least developed countries can afford to supplement their water supplies as long as they have a coastline,” he says.
http://www.danielbenami.com/2008/08/wat ... where.html (http://www.danielbenami.com/2008/08/water-water-every-where.html)
I would love to see some references and/or support for that figure of 50 cents per 1,000L thats seems far too low a price.


From Bob Williamson, www.greenhouseneutral.net (http://www.greenhouseneutral.net)

As the driest inhabited continent, suffering the catastrophe of the dying Murray Darling river system, Australia requires a major rethink of water practices. Chenoweth, in quantifying needs and consumption, misses a drier point on virtual water. Much of this water lies below our perception, embodied in the products we consume and often discard once their intended single use has been fulfilled. We thus dump billions of litres into landfill daily. In Australia, the government then provides inappropriate, out of date, short-sighted subsidies for industries whose continued operations and theft of this precious resource should be outlawed.

Even Fred Pearce, looking in detail at the cost of his beer can on his environmental blog (New Scientist online, 8 May 2007), missed the water link in calculating the full environmental impact footprint of his six-pack. The Australia Institute in 2002 reported that of the country's output of 1.76 million tonnes of smelted aluminium in 2000, 1.42 million tonnes was exported. This industry consumes 15 per cent of Australia's total annual energy output and exports embodied water unabated while the Murray Darling dies.

Stoneville, Western Australia

From Harro Drexler

Jonathan Chenoweth failed to discuss the water needed just to maintain ecologially sensitive areas such as marshes, which are all under stress in Australia.

He also claims that food self-sufficiency is no longer important because of the virtual water trade - but the cost of transport will increase with energy costs, and subsidies to farmers cannot be afforded for ever.

Roseville, New South Wales, Australia
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... where.html (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926730.100-water-not-everywhere.html)

Another ethical issue is how we develop the coast of all continets including Australia.
SEE
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... tml?page=1 (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227024.400-rainforests-may-pump-winds-worldwide.html?page=1)

i have just posted bits of this article in the
How can we save the Murray Darling thread
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8082&p=52771#p52771 (http://forums.permaculture.org.au/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8082&p=52771#p52771)

[kimbo.parker]

Hiya Paradisi,

I would be interested where this comment came from...



I have been to Kununurra a number of times and I have heard some fanciful claims but nothing quite like this. I believe there are a number of opportunities available in Northern Australia that should be prospected.

Cheers,

me too,
regards,
kimbo

[gardenlen]

with the ord statement i would imagine that water held in dam catchments is subject to evaporation, our dams up here suffer from it and soakage some of the reasons the levels drop so dramatically, being shallow dams over arrable land. can't imagine from down here that evaporation in the ord is going to cause any great concerns unless of course they have a decade of dry seasons, they always seem to get a cyclone or 2 up that way.

anyhow just to update our states water use regulations in the face of the deepening drought (remember the drought that was broken last year, after being in place for a decade +). wel!l within that 200 liter max' water use per person allowable, you can now water the lawn/garden anytime between the hours of 4pm one day to 10am the next day, no odds or evens, bound to encourage conservative water usage. we are now down around the 30 to 50 litres per day per person now in our home.

len

len

[Don Hansford]

There are equations (ain't there always?) that deal with evaporation rates from large bodies of water. Basically the deeper the water, the less the evaporation rate (water stays cooler). The rate really ramps up once the water depth is less than 4.5 metres. The proposed Travesty, oops... Traveston Dam would have had over 70% of its area less than 4 metres deep when full, so was doomed to be a white elephant right from the word go.
Problem with moving water via pipeline for long distances is friction - you need a really wide pipe and some really big pumps interspersed along the way. Amortising the cost over the expected life of the piping/pumps would make for some pretty expensive water.
Having said that, tho, I believe one way to save water, is by increasing the price for usage above (for arguments' sake) 100 litres/person/day. Make it $1 per litre above that point, and bill people for it weekly - might smarten them up a bit!
I am also a bit of a nut about water wastage - I used to work as a windmill expert, and can't stand to see the stuff wasted. I've even been known to enter peoples yards and fix leaking taps, just because it irritates me so much.

[paradisi]

can't find the link so here comes some maths

ord river dam is 714 square km http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ord_River
evaporation is minimum of 2m a year http://www.travelling-australia.info/InfsheetsO/Ordriverscheme.html

that equals 1,428,000,000,000 litres evaporated each year (thats 1,428 giga litres) and this doesnt take into consideration the evaporation from the irrigiation systems

the only figure I could find for water use was melbourne - approx 500,000,000,000 litres a year (thats 500 giga litres) http://melbournecatchments.org/catchment-logging/location-of-melbourne-catchments/
Sydney would be similar maybe a bit more, adelaide a lot less