According to D Roddan from Dalby in a letter to the editor in Queensland Country Life, (24/05/2007, p.20), a source of water in southern Queensland were the gas and coal fields having evaporation ponds, of about 200ha which could be used as giant stills, using the power of the sun and collecting the condensation from under the covers without any electricity being used to pump the water to where you want it.
Getting water from ‘roofs’: Another method of assisting in the supply of water would be the creation of ‘roofs’, or scaled areas in the catchment area of our dams.
100pc runoff even in drought: Ordinary timbered country only had about one percent runoff, and that would only start after a heavy downpour of 100mm-150mm of rain. A roof, on the other hand, would have an almost total runoff and even in light falls of 10mm-20mm or more under drought.
90,000L annually under 700mm rainfall: About 20ha of carefully-graded contoured and sealed, would equal the runoff from about 2000ha and could use some of the poorest least productive land. This, of course, would lead to households having their own water tanks. In a 700mm rainfall area, an average-sized roof would yield 90,000 litres a year.
Queensland Country Life, 24/5/2007, p. 20
Author: admin
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Mine the Water Mining Wastes
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Barron River water releases challenged
Barron Rivers plan needs revision, badly flawed: This was because the Beattie government’s own Barron River resource operations plan, which was the bible of water management for the Barron River below Tinaroo Falls Dam, said so. It was the regulatory arm of the Barron River water resource plan, which was approved in 2002 and would not usually be looked at again for 10 years. But it was already showing that it was badly flawed and needed to be reviewed far sooner than 2012.
No guarantee of rainfall: As was been demonstrated by the current drought in the south-east and also in the drought in far-north Queensland in 2002-03, there was never a guarantee of any future rainfall. Water captured by dams should be preserved and released for very specific and productive purposes only.
Billions on desalination : Yet these massive releases from Tinaroo Falls Dam happened at the same time as the Beattie government was spending billions of dollars on desalination plants, diversionary pipelines, recycling facilities and so on. This was because for nearly 20 years, ALP governments in Queensland have failed to keep up with the times and to keep up population increases in this state. They have repeatedly failed to understand that drought and flooding rain have always been part of nature and need to be planned for.
Water must be captured: "In this dry state, water must be captured when it falls so that it is available during the dry times. That is only common sense," Long said. Under the water management decisions of the government, Tinaroo Falls Dam was being drained at a phenomenal rate while the south-east was being told to preserve every drop.
Reference: First Session of the Fifty-Second Parliament, Tuesday 22 May, 2007, E-mail: hansard@parliament.qld.gov.au, Phone: (07) 3406 7314 Fax: (07) 3210 0182, http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/hansard/
Erisk Net, 29/5/2007
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Global scheme only solution – Garner
Population-based quota allocations: Garnaut argued that an international cap and trade carbon trading regime could begin with emission quotas allocated mainly to the rich greenhouse gas producing nations, such as Australia, but probably would gradually move towards a quota distribution based on population. That would favour the developing nations.
Target energy user emissions, not exporters: The "smart way" to structure the regime would be to target emissions of energy users rather than energy exporters. "If Australia exports a lot of coal to Japan, that’s part of Japan’s emissions," he said. "The issue for our coal producers is not what we do in Australia but what other countries are doing." The coal industry, "which has figured prominently in the discussions so far", has a very strong interest in the development of a good international regime, he said.
Global coal demand could fall: "On the whole our coal exports are relatively clean. We may find global coal use falls a lot but our place in the total coal economy improves." However, in the absence of a strong international regime, countries will be tempted to protect their own coal industries. "The easiest coal for China to exclude will be the imported coal. The easiest coal for Germany to exclude will be the imported coal," he added.
The Australian Financial Review, 1/5/2007, p.8
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Ziggy backs Labor’s emission targets
"When it comes to global climate Australia’s policies have got to be focused on influencing international policy and ensuring Australia has a position at the main table."Dr Switkowski says Labor’s target needs to be part of a global framework.
"If the world, the community of high emitting nations in particular, achieve that target then we will collectively benefit from a stabilisation of global warming and leave the global climate in reasonable circumstance," he said.
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Bushfires to wreak havoc
Monday’s first public hearing comes after bushfires last summer ravaged more than one million hectares, mostly in the state’s north and east.
Mr Esplin said days of extreme fire risk were expected to increase by between 25 per cent and 50 per cent by 2050, adding drought and bushfires would become the norm and wet years the exception.
While fire response capabilities were vital, the focus must be on prevention and mitigation strategies, he said.
Fuel loads had accumulated over the past 50 years and prescribed burning, while not a panacea for tackling bushfires, was a critical tool, the inquiry was told.
"Prescribed burning is not without its own inherent risks yet it’s a critical tool in the firefighter’s tool kit," Mr Esplin said.
"Much research indicates that it can significantly assist bushfire suppression activities by reducing fire’s rate of spread."
Communications and public education were also crucial, Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief executive Neil Bibby said.
He told the inquiry the public had shown a thirst for knowledge during times of bushfire, with 53,000 calls logged to a bushfires information line last summer and the website receiving 2.3 million hits.
But some sections of the community were disengaged.
Mr Bibby said a new threat had emerged with the "sea change and the tree change" putting a large number of people and houses in the line of fire.
"We may have been lulled into a false sense of security, none of those large fires (in these areas) had the intensity or the speed that the Canberra fires had or Ash Wednesday had," he said.
"You add the demographics changes of the sea change and tree change and you see the potential to have a disaster which is significantly like Canberra."
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Turnbull entraps Tyalgum pensioners
The National Farmers Federation, the World Wildlife Foundation, and The Greens have all damned the proposal as unviable and backwards looking. The considerations encompass many of the same issues that appear to have successfully scuttled the plan to dam the Mary River. A report prepared for 9 Queensland mayors affected by the Traveston Crossing dam, identifies rainwater tanks and local water recycling solutions as the most cost effective way to address South East Queensland’s water issues. “With the [implementation] of these demand side options, there is no need for … additional supply infrastructure.” The report concluded that managing water better would cost less than half building a new dam and the requisite piping, as well as creating far less greenhouse gases and social impact.
“Turnbull has thrown a grenade into this community and walked away,” Bennett told the Ebono Institute.
“If this is an example of how the Federal Government plans to use its proposed water powers, then State Governments should back right off and protect the constitutional rights of their constituents.” Bennett noted that it is supposed to require a referendum to change the constitutional arrangements about State and Federal Powers.
Sources close to the NSW Department of Primary Industry believe that the government knows that the dam is economically unviable, but the proposal will win votes in South East Queensland and put the Labor State governments of NSW and Queensland in the awkward position of having to explain why the dam is impossible to build.
Residents can make submissions to the Traveston Dam Senate Committee through the Secretary of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, known as RRAT for short. Documents should be sent as email attachments to rrat.sen@aph.gov.au. Current submissions and information about the enquiry can be found at The Australian Parliament House website under Senate, Committees, RRAT. http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/rrat_ctte/
The committee is meeting now but submissions will be processed until the end of the week. Earlier submissions will receive preferential treatment.