The SIMPLE PERMANENT
SOLUTION to our
water crisis.
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to HAIG REPORT home frames]
We should take our lesson from biomimicry.
Firstly we reduce our need for water by using waterless toilets, as
promoted by The
Australian Government and the Adelaide Hills
Council in South Australia, where composting toilets are approved
by the South Australian Department of Health. What is ESSENTIAL
is an OVERALL
PLAN. The BLIND BEATTIE BLIGH
[that's repeatable] "team" should read my OPEN LETTER to
them.
The drinking water we need is simply rainwater.
We will not need any more dams.
In fact we already have more than
enough dammed water in SEQ. Let's do some sums. Consider a
smaller than average suburban house block, say 400sq mts. The
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology site shows that for the
much drier than average, year 1
September, 2005 to 31 August, 2006, the Brisbane district and most
of the coast of Queensland had 900 to 1200 mm or more, of rain. We can
work with 900mm to allow for an even drier year. 400sq mtrs X
0.9mtr = 360cu mtrs ot 360,000 litres of water; about 1,000
litres per day. Now, you may say that it is only the rain
on the roof that is collected. Maybe that is all that is
necesssary, but if more is needed, movable sails/concertina roof
structures could be employed to collect more water. Water falling
on the soil could be collected for gardening purposes, and residents
can prevent any run-off from the block. You can see from my record that I
use about an average of 60litres per day. A ball park figure
for Australians at present is about 300 litres per day. That
would be without recycling grey water and using a water flushing
toilet. With waterless toilets and full recycling of
greywater, the daily usage would easily drop to 100 litres per
day. When people have their own water and other are not
using it so only they are responsible for its use, those people are
likely to budget their water usage far better.
Apropos a permanent
solution: Importantly, as the population of
Queensland grows with migration from southern states, causing more
homes to be built so demanding more drinking water and human waste
removal services, the supply of drinking water and human
waste removal increases incrementally, as it is built into each
home. As for that increasing the cost of housing development, it
is just a matter of replacing the cost of supply of sewerage service to
the block and sewerage "headworks"and charge for water
"headworks". In fact, the supply of the composting toilet
may be comparable to the cost of a toilet and sewer pipes installed to
the main sewer running past the block. Then, it would be far
cheaper to develop as there would be no cost of provision of sewers
running past the block nor cost for sewerage headworks. The
rainwater system would be comparable to the cost of reticulating water
to the site and then running pipes on site. We should interest building developers and housing
subdividers to embrace this PLAN. It will reduce the cost
of new homes. It will also reduce the ongoing cost of rates for
sewerage and water reticulation.
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to HAIG REPORT home frames]