lesleym: Turnbull\'s big solution: He was a member of the Sustainable Cities Inquiry, report here , which recommended:

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6 Water

Recommendation 12

The committee recommends that COAG, as part of the National Water Initiative, fund an education campaign educating the public about the benefits, economics and safety of using recycled water.

Recommendation 13

The committee recommends that the National Water Commission, in consultation with the States and Territories and the public, prepare an independent and transparent report on water options for each of the Australian capital cities and major regional centres.

Recommendation 14

The committee recommends that the Department of the Environment and Heritage undertake a public education campaign to increase community awareness of the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Scheme.

Recommendation 15

The committee recommends that the Australian Government ensure research and development regarding water resource management takes into account Water Sensitive Urban Design principles.

Recommendation 16

The committee recommends that the Australian Government commission research, either as part of the National Water Initiative or separately, to consider the economic viability and environmental benefits of decentralised water management systems.
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Maybe he\'s been too busy in other areas to have actually got anything moving yet.

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cam: Thanks.: The best I could find was the National Water Initiative. So the recommendations were education, report, labelling and research into decentralised technology. Again nothing concrete. I was hoping that he would have identified a \"first best\" way that could be looked at in some detail.

As I said, I am genuinely interested in what he has to offer, but without a concrete alternative to desalinisation, it just becomes a well crafted media troll.

cam

lesleym: Turnbull\'s big solution: Why?  I don\'t believe we should be looking for a one-size-fits-all answer. What will work for northern Oz won\'t be the same as what is best for south and west , eg.

cam: He didnt have a big solution for the Sydney: region. Not that I could find anyway.

cam

lesleym: Turnbull\'s water solution: Sorry, I keep forgetting where the centre of the universe is<g>.
That said, I can\'t help feeling that plonking a desalination plant at Kurnell was the best way to kill it.
The recycling idea being proposed for Toowoomba surely could be a winner for the Sydney region -  either the recycled water is put back into the dams in acceptably low concentrations, or else there is a dam/s set aside for such water for an appropriate length of time.
I do think, however, as with electricity, we ought to be considering a range of solutions, so that a) we don\'t put all our eggs into one basket and find ourselves stymied by an unfortunate uninteded consequence b) we minimise the unavoidable effects on the environment of whatever system is used.

cam: I cant think of any easy answers either: Again which was why I was interested. I was out in Goulburn in October last year, and they were relying on rain to solve their problems.

The other problem with a heavily centralised system, apart from high capitalisation, is that it is vulnerable to systems disruption. Iraq has shown a new style of en-masse systems disruption of key centralised infrastructure. It has also shown up how vulnerable the infrastructure is to those kinds of attacks.

I suspect our electrical, water and sewerage systems are going to have to become more nodular, if not internet like in their ability to route around damage.

The only systems like response to water I know of in Australia was PA Yeoman\'s book; \"The City Forest\". Unfortunately I have never secured a copy of it. He advocated;

City effluent and waste are considered as valuable commodities. He proposed the creation of tropical, and sub tropical rain forests, within the city boundaries, as park lands , as sources of exotic timbers and as the means of economically utilising city effluent for the benefit of all. The City Forest has now become a textbook for landscape architects and urban designers.

Basically at the centre of every development would be a dam which would accept the rain, water and sewerage run-off. The forest would cleanse the water so that by the time it got the dam it was water ready to be used again by the development.

This wont help the major cities, but if water is to become scarce, it would be interesting if these types of developments sold water back to the likes of Sydney and Melbourne. It is also a decentralised solution.

Government has a penchant for heavily capitalised engineering works, so I dont know if they will ever go for that style of town planning.

Woah, looks like \"The City Forest\" is published online now. Cool.

btw funniest comment about Sydney I have seen in a long time .

cam

lesleym: Yeomans online!: Wow! I had never read this particular book, although there is another describing his keyline system which I read when we were farming. Just a pity our farm was a bit small to incorporate his ideas properly.
Many thanks.