Pensioners - vote for the ETS and you'll get more money

She was just talking with John Burgess on ACA. Burgess was asking what she was going to do about the pittance that pensioners were living on.

She said, paraphrased, that 'lectricity is going to rise more and, when the ETS comes in pensioners will find that they will get more money back.

Yeah.

My Aunt and Mum were discussing the plight of pensioners with the cost of electricity rising all the time. My Aunt pointed out that pensioners living as they do on very limited income, would cut back on their electricity usage - I read recently about pensioners who think they're saving money on electricity by turning off their hot water systems, and I've heard of pensioners turning off their water to their hot water system to keep their bills down. There are problems with these practices.

Domestic stuff

1. Remember, don't pull start the mower when it's stopped in the gateway... avoids incurring large, painful elbow bruises when your elbow hits the gate. Owch!

2. Try not to run over things when using the ride-on, you can break it. Wire and bricks are the worst things to run over. *sigh*

3. Install snake repellers - Floyd's been a bit nervy lately, and today I checked at the back of the pergola and there is an ENORMOUS snake skin there (probably a python or a tree snake as some of the skin is caught in the top of the pergola). *tick*

4. Must assemble spare 40cm pedestal fan... old fan has died - motor goes, but blades won't turn. Need a philips head to undo the cage. I think it will be easier to just put the new one together. I really dislike "some assembly required" things. *tick* I reckon that thing'll blow me out of the bed! What a beast - and that's only on low!

5. Stormwater through shed has damaged some flat pack furniture which is yet to be assembled. I hope it's not growing.....

6. Colonoscopy booked for 10 Feb. Cardiologist booked for 10 Feb. *sigh*
Timing is hopeless. Colonoscopy in Toowoomba, cardiologist in Brisbane, can't do them both. I'm choosing Toowoomba for 10 Feb. Lucky me. Must reschedule cardiologist.

7. The hose out the back blew some time ago. A huge split in it. I've been bucketing the water from the laundry down to the dog's water buckets for months. I'm over it. I forgot to turn the tap off and since the hot water system has been replaced there's no pressure relief and the hose is the weakest point. The hose is only about eight years old... Couldn't find my multipurpose kitchen scissors. Hmm. What to cut the hose with? Ahh, hacksaw. Hacked the hose near a split... then went along the hose looking for where the hose was good, after about three feet with splits every 3 to 8 inches. I gave up. Grabbed a new hose from the shed. It's 30m long, but it's very skinny.... and takes forever to fill up the buckets.

8. Must ring the mower place and get them to pick up the mower. The seat has a broken weld and the cutting deck has something wrong with it, probably a piece of wire caught in the thing. I have no idea what the wire was doing where I was mowing, I had mowed there before and it was fine. Grrr!

I'm sure there's more to note/complain about, but I'm tired!

Aftermath - from the sublime

Water water everywhere, yet not a drop to drink...

The latest is that there is damage to the infrastructure which provides the Lockyer Valley residents who have town water.... so they've been asked not to use too much water as there is fear the water will run out.

There has been a press release from the local council to that effect.

And then I heard the Lord Mayor of Brisbane talking about the water situation, warning people not to use too much water because they might run out, and Bligh chiming in with the plan that should there be a shortage of water the Tugun desal plant can be brought online to provide fresh water...

O.M.F.G.

I can understand that there might be damage to water infrastructure because of the flooding but it's just crazy! And you need to be able to use water to get rid of the river mud deposited through all your stuff, if you don't wash it as soon as possible the stink cannot be removed.

Raining for days and I want more

Rainy days have become boring and I was looking forward to them ending. I had to race out thismorning, dodging the raindrops, to fill up the poochies water buckets. I was hoping to have a dry patch to do some grass retardent work.

However, thisafternoon I arrived home to find a minor spoke in the works. After unloading a few things from the car and feeding the dogs a small afternoon treat (couple of bikkies each), I sat inside for a while, faffing on the computer. A bit later I went outside, it was about an hour after I arrived home.

Heard a funny noise. Unusual.

Oh NOES!

There's water spraying.... is it coming from the neighbour's place? No. It's my pump. Going like the clappers. Water squirting out of a split in the hose...I have no idea how long the pump has been going. Usually when I arrive home my first stop is the toilet. I went before I left work, so didn't go to the end of the house where the pump is and so didn't hear the pump going, or the water spraying. Danggit!

Don't know how much water has gone out of the tank or how long the pump was going... and didn't check, grass is a bit high near the back of the tank where I can look into it (with a torch) and see how low the water is, I had no shoes and no torch, it was still raining.

Didn't know that the local creek had been flooding until yesterday when I went into Ipswich and saw the "water over the road" signs, and heard people asking how to get to X without going through W as the road/bridge was flooded, and then today seeing the "final flood warning" alerts!

Now I'll have to fix the hose, cut out the split bit and join it - or check the whole thing, it's got a few bulges so I might need to replace it completely. Anyone need some old hose? (Handy for syphons!)

E-coli in contaminated desal plant water - NSW

Yikes again!

Ms Keneally said that she had sought clarification from Sydney Water and she understood it was "human error" that caused the incorrect findings to be published.

However, NSW Shadow Minister for Natural Resource Management, Katrina Hodgkinson said the confession of errors in the reporting process should prompt an independent contamination review of both inputs and outputs from the Kurnell Desalination Plant.

"The Keneally Labor government has an appalling track record, and to now simply come out and say 'I'm sorry about this, it's all okay and must have been human error' is just not acceptable and from this Government, not really believable," Ms Hodgkinson said.

"Most appalling is the admission that they haven't even been testing the seawater inputs and desalinated outputs from the desalination plant for Cryptosporidium or Giardia, because they claim these pathogens cannot survive in seawater," she said.

Read more.

Keneally insists the water is safe.

Well, of course, it appears that the watchdog has ditched 'unrealistic' E.coli zero-tolerance target on water quality... read it here.

A little reading:

We won't build dams because of misplaced environmental concerns, so instead we are reduced to drinking our own sewage. Welcome to the absurdity of Australia's headlong rush into desalination, with Melbourne's

$3 billion mammoth Wonthaggi plant due to open next year, just as the skies open, and another brand new plant on the Gold Coast remains mothballed for - you wont believe it - rust!

We won't build dams because of misplaced environmental concerns, so instead we are reduced to drinking our own sewage. Welcome to the absurdity of Australia's headlong rush into desalination, with Melbourne's $3 billion mammoth Wonthaggi plant due to open next year, just as the skies open, and another brand new plant on the Gold Coast remains mothballed for - you wont believe it - rust!

Continue reading Miranda Devine.

7:30 Report - Murky waters...

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: A call to tighten the health standard for drinking water in Australia has been rejected by water suppliers, who argue this country already has the safest water in the world.

But a leading expert on infectious diseases claims the public has a right to be 100 per cent sure that there are no bugs in its water and the need for tighter scrutiny is even greater if water has been recycled or contaminated by sewage.

By next year, two of the country's desalination plants will be ingesting seawater within three kilometres of sewage outlets.

Matt Peacock reports.

MATT PEACOCK, REPORTER: Australia's one of the few countries in the world where it's still safe to drink water out of a tap. But now there's a dispute about whether our drinking water standard should be tightened.

(I think Matt Peacock's got it arse about there, they want to loosen the drinking water standard... how long until there isn't one?) Read the interview/report here.

Desal plant not protected from E.coli

Australia, November 12 - Desalination plants built near sewage outfalls are not protected by the natural purification that occurs in dams.

Who knew?

Read more here.

Record September rainfall fills SEQld dams

Wivenhoe is at 100%. Somerset is at 100%.

But the prices charged for water will not fall as the expensive drought infrastructure built by the ALP because of alarmist predictions that it wouldn't rain again (and because the dams were below 20% in total)

Part of the infrastructure. Water baby's comment is a good read.

Wivenhoe dam was built as a flood mitigation measure after the 1974 record floods in Brisbane.

Wivenhoe is so full they will be releasing water from the dam next week because while it is full it will not provide the capture required should we have more rainfill like that in 1974.

More on Wivenhoe and the Tugun desal plant here.

Cuppa

I love my cuppas.

I have been drinking Dilmah for a long time at home as it goes well with the water. At work, I try to find whatever brand, whether Dilmah or Twinings or whatever, which tastes good with the water.

Recently I noticed that Dilmah wasn't tasting so nice at home, but tasted OK at work. I had to find other decaf types of teabags to use - because of my SVT I've developed a supersensitivity to caffeine, and I like to drink a LOT of tea when I am in the mood or have visitors. I bought Liptons decaf for home because the Dilmah wasn't so good any more. I took all the Dilmah to work. I ran out of Liptons at home and sometimes it's hard to get decaf tea from the supermarket... I found Tetley I could get 100 bags for a little more than they sold the boxes of 50 of the other two.

Last night I made gravy using the boiling water/gravox/microwave method. The water had bits in it. The old kettle, which is really old, has a coating of gunk in it from the water, and it's all discoloured. The plastic of the kettle itself is brittle and you can scrape it away in places... I decided that it was time to buy a new kettle very soon.

At lunchtime today I had my pilgrimage to Aldi, and lo, 1.5L electric kettle autoboil/cutoff for only $15. Yes please.

Tetley teabags which tasted OK a week go have suddenly taken on a yuk taste. I suspect that it's the lack of added flavour from the gunk in the old kettle and the decaying plastic. The new stainless one has left the water tasting as it usually does.

So, I'll have to break out the other teabags and see how they go. Shame really, there are plenty of the Tetley ones left.

*sigh*

Water rates

Oh goodie. I just got my land rates. Well, last week. Since the council amalgamations it now costs me about $300-400 pa for my land and water rates. My water rates were phenomenal before. The delivery charge was something like $250, and the water was about $36. For the year. I use very little.

Anyhoo, today, a few days after the land/water rates arrive, I get another envelope from the council. With a letter which, paraphrased, said "These inserts were intended for your rates notice however there was a cockup* at the mailout centre and the enclosures weren't enclosed".

So, the unenclosed enclosures tell me that the local government will no longer be in charge of the water supply, the state government will be in charge... and as of 1 July 2010 our water will be managed by private companies.

Great. They've done it to power, and the price of power has gone up well over 30% in three years. Or is that less than three years?

Lucky us. Queensland used to known as the low-tax state. Now we're just the low wage state. God help anyone who is not on a Federal award, and the state awards are pretty abyssmal, too. The rate that the state government is scooping money out of our pockets is just amazing. And the statutory services, law and order, health, infrastructure, are falling away. I've never been on such a good income in my life, and for what I do it's the lowest... but I can see it vanishing into the state coffers in no time.

And that's another thing... today I heard that there's talk of raising the medicare levy on high income earners who are not paying into private health funds. The extra money raised has been baggsed by someone wanting to provide better mental health services. Well, if all the money raised from the medicare levy actually went to pay for medical care (instead of "consolidated revenue"), I don't know that health would be in such a critical (parlous as one GP described to me), state.

/rant

* cockup? Well, they called it an equipment failure (a bit like the students on community service who were instructed to stuff window face envelopes with inserts for students/parents prior to inclusion of the account... too dumb to notice that they were windowface envelopes and so needed a piece of paper with the address on it... meh... you can't chain-gang good help any more!)

The Warragamba Dam catchment has received rain

Water flowing into Warragamba Dam, Sydney's main water supply dam, has raised the water level by more than one metre, or five percent.

Pollies are asking questions about paying for a desal plant.

The pictures shown on the late news on Nine were great, the Blue Mountains are awash.

South-East Queensland's not exactly dried out, either, although there's been a price paid.

The (RSPCA) estimates around 100 cattle and a large number of horses drowned in the Coomera River after the northern end of the Gold Coast received more than 360mm of rain in 24 hours over the weekend - the most intense day-long deluge in a century.

and

More rain on the way

Weather bureau senior forecaster Ben Annells said an unstable northeasterly air flow had brought heavy rain to the southeast coastal region.

"A lot of places in southeast Queensland have had the majority of their average monthly rainfall in 24 hours," he said. "Places like Southport and Logan have exceeded their monthly average already."

Mr Annells said other parts of the state could now look forward to rain.

And I've had a bit of rain here, too. An inch. But added to the four inches the other week it's been wet - and the grass is getting really, really long! People have been trying to mow between the showers over the weekend and today.

Fountains

I miss fountains and decorative art including water features.

When the drought breaks, when more dams are built, when AGW/CC is proven to be a crock, will we get our beautiful, cooling* fountains back?

And our lovely public gardens?

*Update: cooling, not cooking. Arrgh

A new dam in Queensland, work commences

Preconstruction activities on the Wyaralong Dam Project have begun, following Project approval by the Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.

Construction of the Project will be undertaken in three works packages - preconstruction, the Beaudesert-Boonah Road realignment, and dam construction.

Due for completion in 2011, the Wyaralong Dam will supply 21,000 million litres of additional water each year (when operated in conjunction with Cedar Grove Weir).

The Wyaralong Dam is located on the Teviot Brook, approximately 14 kilometres northwest of Beaudesert in the Logan River Catchment.

Read more here.

The Qld ALP is pushing this dam as an employment sink - they're not pushing the water supply aspect so much

Other projects mooted in Qld - and many opposed by Bob Beige and other "No Dams" idiots.

Something I found about Wolfdene Dam...

An observation of the confluence of statistical aberrations, dam ratios, timing and uncommon rainfall events that combined to present our dams as victims of a severe drought. This is not the case. Their influence on conclusions reached and actions taken.

Author : J. V. Hodgkinson F. C. A. Chartered AccountantAugust 2006 to April 2008

From the home page of that same site:

UPDATES : November 2008

Official statistics of this website indicate that in excess of 20,000 separate computers have accessed this site not all being by this "home" page. Over 50% have added it to their "favourites".

It would have become clear to the readers that the Wivenhoe/Somerset System has been living with the prospect of Dam Failure since 1992. Summer rainfall was clearly inadequate from that year onwards (see dam level graph below). " Uncommon events" not only filled our Dams in 1988 and 1989 causing the cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam, construction of which was well underway, but refilled it a further 4 times to February 2001 when they went on their quite natural walkabout. This led us to believe that we were experiencing "the worst drought in 100 years". It was not. 48 years of the 20th Century in 6 year lots had the same result. The Summer Rainfall for the last 7 years since the dams were last full compared to the long term average were 99.1% in the Wivenhoe and 91.4% in the Somerset. We just missed two uncommon events. August 2007 brushed the coast and May 2008 stayed out to sea. January 2008 Monsoon devastated Central Qld.

ABC Catalyst 12/3/09

Hmm.

Catalyst brings you the science behind...

"the science"

Why does this turn of phrase, and the use of "the science" ring alarm bells with me?

OK. The progamme has a segment "Water Recycling - From Toilet to Tap".

I guess they'll be telling us that the science is settled... and it sounds like it may be a condemnation of the idea of recycled treated sewage water.

UPDATE: Pipeline from monsoon flooding in north Australia to southern states... why not?

Please help!

I recall some time ago reading something about this suggestion and the reasons why it was unworkable.

There were two main reasons if I recall correctly, the first being that there would need to be power to run pumps all along the pipeline because it was so long, and this wouldn't be possible as there would be too much loss running the power from the powerstations to remote pipeline sections. (Something to do with the loss of power over distance in the wires... I know it's not a high-tech explanation, but in lay terms that's what it is.)

I can't remember the second one, whether it was to do with the power and the length of the pipeline or what.... can anyone point me to something about this on the net?

Thanks!

Update: Received a long email from a commenter here who put his engineering hat on, here it is:

In principle anything can be done and when it comes to pipelines, I recommend having a browse through this site: The Golden Pipeline. I was unaware of this pipeline until I visited Kalgoorlie some years ago. It is an interesting story.

Now I will put on an engineer's hat and discuss for a moment the idea of pumping water south in the Australian continent. It is not the first time the idea has been raised, but here are the issues ( at least as I see them). Not in any particular order

The terrain over which of through which the water is to be pumped

The distance over which the water is to be pumped (hydraulic design - pipe friction losses, pump efficiencies etc)

The actual route across the country - fun and games with access, pipe locations, pumping stations, intermediate reservoirs etc etc

The energy supply along the route to power the pumping stations (it would have to be electricity)

The water supply and the nature of that supply, i.e., the water head and the end reservoir location

The design of the route which almost certainly would require storage reservoirs along the way to act as buffers and allow the system to be managed. Just think of a mass of water being pumped along a pipe - there are major control issues involved in shutting down the water flow if / when required because of the momentum of the moving water.

There would need to be a 'good' reliable water source (a dam) and there would need to be a decent sized storage source at the end of the line (another dam).. I'd have to guess that once these dams were built (and they would need to be properly positioned) they would be used where they were. It is most likely not feasible to design a system to collect storm water or monsoon water unless there was enough water and it could be channelled into a decent storage reservoir (a dam again) where it could feed into a pumping system.

Evaporation may be an issue for the exposed parts of the water system - intermediate reservoirs and to minimise evaporation the reservoirs would need to be either covered or built with a relatively small surface area.

Then there is the cost of the system and the cost to man and run it.

And finally there would need to be a use at the end point for all the water that is pumped.

Mind you I think this has been tried locally, e.g.how about the Ord River Scheme and it would be worth perusing that scheme to see why it has not gone very far. I don't know enough about it and have not put in any research but I have a gut feeling that it has not been viable.

A bit soggy

It's been a bit wet here tonight...
After about 58mm since Sunday's effort here (only a few mm fell, with a bit of wind), tonight I've had 40ml in only 15-20 minutes. No wonder this happened...


And it's still pouring an hour later! (After a short intermission...)

The flash flooding, heavy rain, high wind warnings are running across the TV screen.