I moved to Sydney around the time of the story and was (and still am) shocked at the way that water is wasted here. I have to tell people off on a weekly basis that they must abide by the water restrictions in order to assist the community in avoiding worstening the situation.
All I get in return is smart remarks indicative of the selfish masses. After all, you have to keep that car shiny (Too many cars are 4 wheel drives and most of them never saw a grain of dirt).
I even recycle my laundry water and although I live in a flat, it can still be done. Planet Ark promotes ‘Aware’ washing powder that is safe to use on plants. It contains no petrochemicals and is biodegradable. It has no phosphates and has not been animal tested. When collecting the rinse water, you can also scrub the floors and the balcony (maybe even wash the car). I believe the government will need to tax other powders, that way the penalty for wasting resources will be included in their price.
Time for the catch cry to be put to work:” Come on Aussie”

My family farm cereal crops and run sheep for wool and meat. We’ve been on the land in this area for about 70 years, but my family have always been farmers, ever since they came out from England in the early 1800’s. So yeah, it sucks to think that we could lose it all, as so many farmers already have in 2006. SA sure is a dry little place; most of it’s desert, but the bit that’s not still doesn’t get enough rain.

I wonder if this is due to just dry weather, el nino, or climate change? Because I don’t think anyone’s sure yet exactly what is causing all these nasty droughts.

What do your family farm? And have long have they lived on the land? Must be rough given that SA is already the driest state of the driest country.

Yeah, the ruddy irrigators’ll know about it first when their high-pressure sprinklers stop working and their troughs run dry. Not that that’d be good, seeing as non-irrigators like my family would know about it a close second, when the sheep started getting thirsty. Let’s hope the prices get too high for the irrigators to do it sustainably, or the government puts a cap on it before that happens.

The downpour the other day was pretty incredible, Justine, I don’t know if you got it like we did here in SA. An inch and a half in 15 minutes, our paddocks looked like rushing lakes! It filled up our dam that’s been dry for a year, but a lot of it was runoff, so it wasn’t as good for filling up tanks with drinking water. It’s given the paddocks a bit of a green sheen, though, which is good. And novel!

We had a little rain the other day. Actually, more than a little, it was more than we’d had the WHOLE year in 2006. You know it’s bad when you start breaking records like that. It turned our farm into a rushing mudslide for a few hours, and well all got out and paddled in it as if we’d never seen it before.

Justine, I agree wholeheartedly with Scott. The sound of rain is the most beautiful thing in the world! I love hearing it on the currugated-iron roof, especially when teamed with the smells of hot dry earth and moistening gumleaves.

I know the drought is hitting all of Australia hard. Every city’s catchments are down way too low, everyone’s on high-level water restrictions. Maybe this drought’ll wake governments up and force them to start treating water shortages as a major problem. Maybe they’ll start investing in water purifying plants and *ahem* stop the irrigators from draining our underground reservoirs. Or at least restrict them.

Wouldn’t that be great? I mean what do they think is going to happen to their farms when the underground water runs out?

There’s been a lot of talk about water purifying plants and recycling sewage water which sound like a fabby idea to me. I can’t believe some premiers are all nay saying about it on account of they think the idea of drinnking recycled water is icky. Sure it sounds icky but you don’t call it drinking water unless it’s been okayed by health authorities.

I don’t think Australia has that much of a future unless we’re recycling sewage and grey water. I don’t find survival at all icky.

Yup, rain on a corrugated iron roof is one of the world’s best sounds.

Were you able to use much of the water that came down?

Have a lovely day!

My only equivalent experience is discovering the price of heat per unit last winter, when it spiked, and the creative ways of keeping a house warm that did not involve thermostats. My wallet being affected, I sure did respond quickly to whatever coping mechanisms I could think of — probably more quickly than the law or civic guilt-tripping ever could have done.

(Boy, did I get tired of long johns!)

When we have water restrictions, it was always about taking short showers and not watering your lawn and etc. (lawns are stupid in florida, anyway. grass is not natural here). But I remember once in manhattan, the water restriction was that they wouldn’t give you water in a restaurant unless you asked for it!!! and THAT was how they saved water. Was that really saving anything?

they need to make water more expensive. charge us normally for a modest amount, then when you hit a cap, it gets x100 more expensive.

if you have a bath-shower, you can just leave the plug in, instead of the bucket, then use your bucket to get rid of the water when you’re finished. (or a pump, if you’re being fancy)

i also collect the rinse cycle from my laundry – the cumquat tree loves it!

Diana: We’ve had a fair amount of rain this summer. Some excellent storms. Problem is while the city of Sydney gets the rain, the catchment area doesn’t. The rain isn’t falling where it’s needed. That said it’s days since it rained. Feels like it hasn’t rained this January, but I can’t find anything online to verify that.

David: I’d love to be able to tell you golf courses aren’t being built here . . . .

The next time we were in sydney it was summer (March 2004), and my strongest memory of those days was a time when the wind came from the west, and it was dry and hot like an oven door opening in your face. I’d jump in the pool at the caravan park and by the time I pulled my dripping body out and walked to my towel, my bathing suit, my body and my hair would be equally dry.