Stop Wasting Water By Viv Forbes
Almost every river in Eastern Australia is now pouring surplus water into
the sea.
But only two dams have been built in Queensland in the last 20 years - the
<https://www.seqwater.com.au/dams/wyaralong> <https://www.seqwater.com.au/dams/wyaralong>> Wyaralong Dam built 13 years
ago and Paradise Dam built 19 years ago.
Droughts will come again and we will wish for another dam-builder like Joh
Bjelke Petersen whose government built at least eight dams in Queensland -
the Burdekin, Wivenhoe, Hinze, Beardmore, Haig, Fairbairn, Bjelke-Petersen
and Eungella dams.
But that all came to a halt in 1988 when the plans to build the Wolffdene
Dam were scuttled by all the usual suspects.
Taxpayers also spent some $460 million on preliminaries for the Traverston
Dam, but then cancelled it when the infamous Peter Garrett got the
Commonwealth to interfere. And recently it was revealed that the Paradise
Dam in the Bundaberg Region had faults in the wall and a new wall would have
to be built.
So while our water storages are stagnant or declining, our politicians
support dangerously high levels of immigration as well as promoting tourism,
games and circuses, all of which add to the demand for water. The population
clock managed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that
Australia's population increases by one person every 50 seconds. They all
need water.
And some fools want to use more of our precious stored fresh water to
produce hydrogen fuels (every tonne of hydrogen produced by electrolysis
consumes at least nine tonnes of fresh water.) The "green hydrogen" cycle
needs lots of water and will always be a net consumer of electricity.
The climate alarmism of Tim Flannery and others resulted in a rash of
artificial desalination plants being built in Australia about 15 years ago.
Just recently, Hunter Water announced that it was going to spend $500M on a
desalination plant south of Newcastle. All desal plants are costly to build
and operate, and many stand idle most of the time. And of course green
politicians want the power to be supplied from wind-solar adding greatly to
the costs and environmental destruction.
To let surplus fresh water escape to the oceans and then try to recover it
using artificial desalination plants is the ultimate water stupidity.
Here is our pictorial comment::
<https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/more-dams.jpg> <https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/more-dams.jpg>>
https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/more-dams.jpg <https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/more-dams.jpg>
Feel free to use this cartoon with no alterations
Right now, Cyclone Kirrily is demonstrating nature's power of desalination -
sucking moisture from the Pacific Ocean and dumping it on land. This is free
fresh water with no costs to taxpayers.
Sensible people have their water storage facilities ready - new dams and
weirs built, silt cleaned out, dam walls and overflows checked, no leaves
clogging the tank strainers.
Australia must build more dams for flood mitigation, urban water supply and
irrigation. Most East Coast Rivers have surplus water that races to the sea
during floods. It could be conserved.
And it is time to apply our engineering skills to building the Bradfield
water scheme - it will certainly provide better returns to Australians than
green energy dreams like Snowy 2 or powerlines from Northern Territory to
Singapore.
A sensible society would identify the best dam sites and have a long-term
plan for acquiring and preserving the land rights needed for them. We do the
reverse. Decisions are postponed until the need is critical. Then landowners
with vested interests, green busybodies and media stirrers manage to scare
the politicians, and the water conservation proposal is killed.
Then the "No Dams Ever" Mafia takes over, trying to sterilise the site for
all future dams by quietly changing land-use or vegetation classifications.
Then they search for (or manufacture) evidence of native title or endangered
species, and declare national parks over critical areas.
Green destroyers have also grossly mismanaged stored water by insisting on
excessive and ill-timed "environmental" flows. This is a scheme where you
build a dam to catch water and then try to manage the water as if the dam
did not exist. It is very slow and expensive to get this lost water back
from the sea using the Flannery desalination plants.
Existing dams have two great enemies - silting which gradually steals their
water capacity, and evaporation which continually steals the water itself.
Our engineers can manage "desilting" and CSIRO could divert some resources
from climate alarmism to reducing evaporation from water supply dams.
But most of all we need more stored water. The wet La Nina will inevitably
be followed by a droughty El Nino.
Let's find a new Joh who will build more dams.
Viv Forbes is a geologist/pastoralist who has walked along or been flooded
by many rivers of Qld and NT. He and his wife have fed starving stock in the
droughts and carted water for them. They have built, deepened or repaired at
least 23 farm and station dams and managed construction and operation of
mine dams. When Viv was employed by the Queensland State Government as a
field mapping geologist they inspected the Nathan Gorge Dam site in 1964, 60
years ago. This dam was first proposed in 1922. It is still undeveloped over
100 years later.
Further Reading:
Be Like the Beavers - Build more dams:
<https://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/build-more-dams.pdf> <https://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/build-more-dams.pdf>>
https://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/build-more-dams.pdf <https://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/build-more-dams.pdf>
The No-Dams Movement:
<https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/03/franklin-river-dam-p <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/03/franklin-river-dam-p>
rotest-blockade-four-decades-on-tasmania>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/03/franklin-river-dam-pr <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/03/franklin-river-dam-pr>
otest-blockade-four-decades-on-tasmania
Desalination - will it work this time:
<https://saltbushclub.com/2024/01/20/desalination-will-it-work-this-time/> <https://saltbushclub.com/2024/01/20/desalination-will-it-work-this-time/>>
https://saltbushclub.com/2024/01/20/desalination-will-it-work-this-time/ <https://saltbushclub.com/2024/01/20/desalination-will-it-work-this-time/>
Troubled Dam needs a new wall:
<https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/troubled-dam-to-be-reb <https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/troubled-dam-to-be-reb>
uilt-after-repair-hopes-sink-20240111-p5ewky.html>
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/troubled-dam-to-be-rebu <https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/troubled-dam-to-be-rebu>
ilt-after-repair-hopes-sink-20240111-p5ewky.html
The Water Wasters:
<https://saltbushclub.com/2018/12/17/water-wasters/> <https://saltbushclub.com/2018/12/17/water-wasters/>>
https://saltbushclub.com/2018/12/17/water-wasters/ <https://saltbushclub.com/2018/12/17/water-wasters/>
Comments