On a side note i love it how the government spends millions telling us when and how we can use water, but then will water their parks and verges in the middle of the day in a howling breeze. No wonder we are in this mess!

Political talk about water rationing is all the go. We are even having save the Water Week. Water Minister Malcolm Turnbull has not once mentioned the word dam. But he talks a lot about spending $10 billion on water rationing of the Murray Darling, which is about the only river system in Australia he seems to know about.

There would be something between 35 and 50 times as much water as is in the whole of the Murray Darling system running into various oceans north of the tropic of Capricorn.

Not a single word from any politician about that. And nobody talks about plans to harness and use it either. But in recent times entrepreneurs have been denied the right to do so.

Consider the magnitude of the available water in northern Australia’s river systems, against that of the Murray Darling Basin:

* The Murray Darling Basin (MDB): 22,700 gigalitres.

* Queensland’s north-east coast: 91,500 gigalitres – 4 times that of the MDB.

* Gulf of Carpentaria: 130,500 gigalitres – 5.7 times the MDB.

* The Timor Sea rivers: 81,200 gigalitres – 3.5 times the MDB.

* MORE GREAT WATER PROJECTS
1. Fitzroy River in WA.: The Fitzroy’s catchment area is larger than the state of Victoria; in full flood the Fitzroy’s volume of water is second only to the Amazon. It has an annual run-off of 8 to 11 million megalitres; by comparison, the Sydney metropolitan area has around 4 million people and uses one-half million mega litres a year.

2. Ord, Victoria, Daly Rivers: The Ord-Victoria Project could be one of the greatest irrigation projects in the world, right on the doorstep of Asia’s huge and growing population centres. Water expert Prof. Lance Endersbee recommends that the Ord and Victoria be developed in combination, on a vast scale; the Daly River has huge potential as well.

3. The Roper River has significant development potential.

And there are many more including the Fitzroy here in Queensland. It pours an enormous volume into the ocean almost every year.

327 words. Sent 19.10.07 [I sent this to that useless pest Malcolm Turnbull and he did not even acknowledge receipt of it.]

Luv alwayz…rose xo

They are not inefficient for storing water if the water is pumped from a river when the river is above average level.

What we want is to charge for water coming from rivers on the basis of how high the river is. So that when its above average all the pumps start running. And people everywhere are filling up their tanks.

Dam owners are water wholesalers. Whereas the river itself is like the primary product that needs to be priced according to its level in the first place.

The price of water (from the various rivers) ought to be going up and down all the time in accordance to the various river levels and this will likely be reflected even at the retail level.

So potentially even people in the suburbs, seeing that the water price has suddenly dropped, could be rushing to turn the water on to fill their tanks, in the same way that people in the past have run to get the clothes off the line when it rains.

Plus, these advantages are artificial (since the water restrictions are artificial), and there’s no guarantees there won’t be restrictions/penalties/whatever applied to tanks in the future. That’s the problem when you have a system of arbitrary government intervention.

The cost of water needs to go up – even if this was offset with price reduction in some other government service so as to remain (mostly) cost-neutral, it would be a positive step… they could then eliminate restrictions, and with water charged at a rate higher than what it costs to produce more, you’d have companies falling over themselves trying to find solutions/new water sources.

So they are good. Compare eating at a restaurant to eating at home, or buying food solely from large supermarkets compared to food vendors at sporting games.