My working week took me to Philadelphia and Baltimore - two very historic cities that take a dominant place in American political history. Philadelphia was home to the Continental Congress when the Revolutionary War was going on. Baltimore is the location of Fort McHenry which was getting pounded by the British while Francis Scott Key paced the deck of a British ship in concern. The experience led Key to write the "Star Spangled Banner". They are large cities now, but back then they were much smaller.

Philadelphia in 1776, despite being one of the larger cities in colonial America, was a small regional town dominated by Quakers. When fevers hit the streets of Philadelphia the few main streets would empty as people fled to the countryside for fresher air. When I think of Revolutionary War Philadelphia, I think of it in the same exotic, mythical forms I see many of the Australian regional towns in the Southern Tablelands, Western Plains and along the Murray.

One of those towns, Goulburn, has a looming crisis. Philadelphia, and the brilliant minds of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton combined in post-revolutionary war Philadelphia to change how we think about political systems. Will Goulburn rise to the challenge and change how we view water?

Non-Sydney Australia

When I was an ankle-biter, one of our regular family holidays was to visit Aunty Nell in Narooma. It was a good six hour trip from Sydney that wound its way through the Southern Tablelands before ending up on the south coast. There were many highlights along the way. The first of these being either Mittagong or Goulburn. Depending on whether we, as kids, voted for the spaceship play-bars in Mittagong or the McDonalds and Big Merino in Goulburn.

The other majorly anticipated stop was the meat pie ship in Braidwood. Other than Maroubra Bay Pie and Cake shop meat pies, I still consider the Braidwood pies the best in Australia. The major highways have largely by-passed the towns like Goulburn, Mittagong and Braidwood. But these historic old towns are impossible to ignore for anyone interested in non-megapolis Australia. I have a fondness for the Southern Tablelands and Western Plains - each time I return to Australia my travels end up taking me through their beautiful landscapes.

Goulburn

The regional centre of Goulburn has a population of about 23,000 and was one of Australia's first inland cities. Deriving its importance from a thriving wool industry and a rail-head which enabled it to connect to the southern agricultural economies. The railway played a large part in Goulburn's development, being the first rail-line to connect Sydney to a regional centre.

William Bradley was responsible for it, setting up the Sydney Railway Company and becoming the member for Argyle in NSW Parliament to achieve it. There was contention over where the rail should end in Sydney. Ultimately those that wanted it to end at Cleveland paddock won. This is modern day Central Station.

Bradley and other agricultural businessmen wanted the rail to end at Darling Harbour - right on the docks. The wool industry was export oriented, and NSW was a free trade colony. Producers and distributors saw the extra handling of the product between Central and the Harbour being an added and unwanted cost. Eventually the rail was extended to Darling Harbour. It remains a fact however, that the rail system was a Goulburn initiative.

Goulburn's wealth grew from its thriving agricultural industry and it indulged itself in competing with Sydney for extravagance. The Coast and Country magazine records some of this;

In February 1884, British organ-builders Foster & Andrews shipped to Australia what remains today the largest organ of its type in the country. You would not be surprised to find such a majestic instrument in a cathedral in a capital city like Sydney or Melbourne, but it is unexpected, to say the least, to discover it in the midst of sheep-growing country, in a place which, though technically a city, is really a country town of only 23,000 or so. That place is Goulburn in south-eastern New South Wales, and the church in which the organ thunders out each Sunday is St Saviour's Anglican Cathedral, itself an unexpectedly grand building for a rural community.

Goulburn has a strong political and Republican history as well. When Dan Deniehy found himself in dire fiscal straights and his law practice floundering in Sydney, he set off for the town of Goulburn to re-establish himself. In 1854, Goulburn was a small town of approximately 3,000 people, but significantly for Deniehy's compulsory literaryism, it had one of the first regional newspapers in the Goulburn Herald - a media outlet that Deniehy was soon writing for.

From Goulburn Deniehy established his political and media base of thwarting nomineeism and inequitable land distribution. Deniehy having routed William Wentworth's hope for an Australian aristocracy with his bunyip aristocracy speech, Deniehy worked for the removal of the Wentworth's squatocracy which had established itself in the NSW Legislative Council.

Deniehy ran for government, and was elected into the NSW Assembly, representing Goulburn. Members of Parliament were not paid, and Deniehy, already fiscally precarious, had great difficulty absorbing the cost of constantly travelling to Sydney and leaving his law practice in Goulburn unattended. Sadly, his responsibilities in parliament left him little time to publish his editorials into the local newspaper either.

Through prominent figures such as Bradley and Deniehy, Goulburn has a history of economic and political activism that connected to wider issues confronting the country, the cities and ultimately, Australia.

Water, Water ********* And Not A Drop To Drink

Goulburn lies within Sydney's Warragamba Catchment area [PDF Warning] being fairly close to the Wolondilly River. It appears to have its own water supplies outside of the Warragamba Dam which are faltering. From the NSW Parliament's Hansard for May 5th, Katrina Hodgkinson;

As at last Monday Goulburn's usable water supply was 11.9 per cent of full capacity. The last time that Goulburn's water supply was close to 100 per cent was five years ago. Goulburn has been on water restrictions since 2002, and on stage five restrictions since October 2004. I believe that stage five restrictions would be unheard of in Sydney. They are severe. The use of any town water out of doors is totally banned, which means no outdoor watering, no filling or topping up of pools, and no washing of cars or outdoor surfaces. The target average water consumption in Goulburn per person per day is 150 litres. In June 2004 a Sydney Water annual report showed that water consumption in Sydney stood at a climate-corrected 367 litres per person per day. Sydney Water's target to reduce water consumption for the year 2011 is 330 litres per person per day. Compare that with Goulburn's target of 150.

Goulburn certainly is doing it tough, but the city is saving water. The weekly water consumption figures to the end of March show that Goulburn is using about one-third less water, only some 6.6 megalitres a day on its five-year average consumption, but, unfortunately, that is not enough. Some 10 days ago the level of potable water in Goulburn's water supply was 14 per cent. Last Monday it was 11.9 per cent. If this usage rate continues there could be as little as six weeks worth of water left. In September 2003 I wrote to the Minister for Energy and Utilities requesting funding to investigate the provision of emergency water supply bores. Unfortunately the Minister did not grasp the gravity of the situation and he wrote back to me on 3 February 2004 stating that he was unable to provide funding for this investigation as the funds available for drought-related works had been provided to severely affected areas elsewhere in the State.

I could not find where Goulburn's water supply is coming from, I presume it is somewhere local, as opposed to coming through Sydney Water (and the Warragamba Catchment scheme). Goulburn is intending to get through the crisis by dropping a bore;

A special council meeting will consider tenders for the construction of a new borefield system.

Councillors will today consider tenders from engineering firms wanting to build a borefield transfer system at Kingsdale to ensure ongoing water supply.

Coupled with ongoing restriction measures, and an eye to further conservation;

"We have a lot of large buildings here with a great catchment area and we are costing the installation of large tanks to harness that water and direct it back into the jail," Mr Folpp [manager of Goulburn Jail] said.

As another longer-term measure, Mr Folpp is seeking emergency funding from the Department of Corrective Services to explore the feasibility of sinking bores and using this water in certain parts of the jail.

But in the meantime, he said management was implementing more immediate measures.

Restriction devices are being installed on all showers to reduce flow from 12-15 litres per minute to 5-7 litres per minute.

"When you're looking at 570 to 580 inmates, it is a huge saving," Mr Folpp said.

"We're also restricting the time limit of showers to five to six minutes in some parts of the jail by installing a solenoid.

Goulburn is also looking to either trucking in water by road or rail. A highly expensive solution. As Gary Sauer-Thompson points out, there will remain a continued reliance on rainfall to supply future water, as opposed to recycling existing water supplies. This is part of the big-dam mentality. As Sydney expanded westwards forty years ago into Blacktown, Penrith and the Hawkesbury, Sydney Water told people to get rid of their water-tanks as they were now on the Sydney mains and the inexhaustible water supply from the Warragamba. A system which hitting record low levels.

Responding To The Crisis

In 1776, a small group of patriots established the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to keep the continental army funded, clothed and operating while providing the framework of laws and procedures that would grow into the world's most successful republic. A small provincial American town provided the backbone for some of America's greatest minds to change how we view political systems.

Goulburn is in the same situation today. Will it be short-term politics of public satiation and instant gratification, no matter the cost or unsustainability of the solution? Or will some of Australia's greatest minds respond to the Goulburn water crisis and change how we think about water, its use, and collection? Will that permeate solution permeate through Australia effectively changing our culture?

At this stage I am only seeing dig holes, truck water in and pray for rain. Hardly responding to the challenge in a way that will set the basis for the future; it is just more of the same mentality. So where are Australia's great minds on this issue that can secure Goulburn its future water usage? or will it just be the people of Goulburn saying, "bugger this for a joke" and setting up their own decentralised water catchment system to remove their reliance on the failed centralised water system?

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