Category: Drought

Rainwater tanks save the day Part II

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I had so much correspondence on this topic last week I took up an offer from guest blogger and rainwater tank owner NEALE GENTNER. He writes about his water filtration adventures working in the PNG Highlands and the hard yakka maintaining concrete tanks and plumbing over a 30-year period. I totally agree with Bob’s piece last week on water tanks…except for paying extra rates to council for maintenance “compliance”. Theoretically, under various “Health Acts”, tank…

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Rainwater Tanks Save The Day

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Yay – the dams are full, creeks and gullies are running; rainwater tanks are spilling over. Everyone’s happy. Our three rainwater tanks are full, as you might expect of a region where two water-starved dams reached 100% capacity in just two days. Not so long ago (2018-2019), things were dire on the Southern Downs, with Warwick’s Leslie Dam at 7.66% (it’s now 28%), and the Granite Belt’s Storm King Dam virtually empty (now 100%). In…

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Water theft a sign of crumbling civilisation

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As communities across drought-paralysed Australia patiently wait for rain, reports of water theft, ranging from relatively trivial incidents to a 25,000-litre heist, are troubling. Can we be far from outright anarchy when dishonest (and sometimes honest but desperate), people help themselves to other people’s water? There are precedents for this – just think back to Cape Town‘s ‘Day Zero’ crisis in 2018 when a city of 3.74 million was set to run out of reticulated…

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Resolution: we all want to save the world

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Blame it not on the Bossa Nova but on the ancient Babylonians, who, 4,000 years ago, invented the dubious practice of making New Year resolutions. The Babylonians were the first to hold New Year celebrations, although held in March (when crops were sown). The Babylonians pledged to pay their debts and return any borrowed objects (thinks: whoever borrowed Murakami’s ‘IQ84’ and Cohen’s ‘Beautiful Losers’, give them back!). An article in <history.com> cites these rituals as…

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