xcel
01-25-2007, 06:53 PM
Down Under, lake beds are dry and just flushing a toilet can feel vaguely scandalous. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0701160158jan16,1,3690655.story?ctrack=1&cset=true)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Australia_Drought.jpgLaurie Goering - Chicago Tribune - Jan. 16, 2007
WATER prices in Victoria's Murray-Goulburn irrigation districts have climbed to yet another record high of $950 a megalitre for temporary trading.
WOY WOY, Australia -- The name of this little seacoast town means "much water" in the language of its former aboriginal residents. But water--at least fresh water--is in short supply these days in Woy Woy, a resort village an hour and a half north of Sydney.
With a nearly countrywide drought now in its fifth year, reservoirs along Australia's central eastern coast are down to 14 percent of capacity, and restrictions on water use are getting tough.
Summer vacationers have arrived to find beachside showers turned off, and the lawns of rental houses are crispy brown because of a ban on watering . Local authorities have handed out four-minute shower timers and low-flow shower heads to every household, and most people now shower with an array of buckets underfoot to catch the precious "gray" water, the only thing that can be used to wet gardens or wash cars.
Just flushing a toilet these days feels vaguely scandalous.
"WATER RESTRICTIONS APPLY," warns a full-page ad in the local newspaper, urging visitors to brush their teeth with the water off and wipe rather than rinse the sand off their feet and their surfboards after visits to the beach.
Australia has long been the driest continent, and droughts are anything but unusual. But the one under way is the worst in the country's short 114-year history of record-keeping and, some authorities believe, the worst in a thousand years.
In parts of rural Australia, emaciated cattle and sheep have been turned out to forage on what's left of dried-up crops. As supplies of irrigation water dry up and legions of farmers haul their animals off to the slaughterhouse, prices for mutton have fallen by 50 percent and harvests of key crops like wheat, barley and canola are expected to fall 60 percent this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Debt-strapped farmers are committing suicide at the rate of four a day in the nation, according to Beyond Blue, an Australian organization that deals with depression issues.
In parched Melbourne, where the once verdant hills are now a consistent baked yellow, officials started this month issuing on-the-spot fines of up to $335 to flagrant car washers, swimming-pool fillers or anyone else showing "obvious disregard" for water restrictions. The worst offenders see their water pressure temporarily cut from 10 gallons a minute down to a trickling half-gallon a minute.
The past resurfaces
In South Australia province, the ground is so dry that the soil is contracting and sucking moisture out of homes enough to crack nearly half of those surveyed by an architectural service. And across southern Australia, drying lakes and ponds are slowly revealing a wealth of long submerged relics, from houses once drowned by man-made dams to rusty guns tossed away by fleeing criminals. Police are dutifully collecting the weapons and taking a new look at old crime files.
Water levels in Lake Corangamite, in southeast Australia, have dropped so much that authorities were astonished last year to spot a missing World War II plane in the lake bed.
Whether Australia's big dry is a result of climate change is a matter of debate. Barrie Hunt, a researcher with the government's science agency, insists that over the past 10,000 years, Australia has seen at least eight long droughts like this one. And El Nino, a cyclical change of Pacific currents now going on near South America, regularly brings Australia dry spells.
But the scale of the current drought has pushed Australians to begin making plans for what many believe is a permanently drier future. In Sydney, the government is offering rebates of up to $700 to homeowners who install rainwater-catching tanks and plans to build a $1 billion desalination plant to turn seawater into drinking water if dam levels continue to drop. In perpetually parched southeast Queensland, voters will decide in March whether to begin allowing their purified sewage to be added back into the drinking water supply.
Even the politicians in Canberra, Australia's capital, are feeling the pressure. For the first time, the heated pool at Parliament was shut for a month over the holidays and lawmakers are slowly agreeing to cut off sprinklers that have kept Capitol lawns lush while the rest of Canberra bakes.
1 green spot left
The only green spot may soon be the foreign embassy lawns. Afraid of provoking what the government water spokesman calls a "diplomatic incident," the foreigners, so far, haven't been asked to roll up their hoses.
Thanks PalominoJ.
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Australia_Drought.jpgLaurie Goering - Chicago Tribune - Jan. 16, 2007
WATER prices in Victoria's Murray-Goulburn irrigation districts have climbed to yet another record high of $950 a megalitre for temporary trading.
WOY WOY, Australia -- The name of this little seacoast town means "much water" in the language of its former aboriginal residents. But water--at least fresh water--is in short supply these days in Woy Woy, a resort village an hour and a half north of Sydney.
With a nearly countrywide drought now in its fifth year, reservoirs along Australia's central eastern coast are down to 14 percent of capacity, and restrictions on water use are getting tough.
Summer vacationers have arrived to find beachside showers turned off, and the lawns of rental houses are crispy brown because of a ban on watering . Local authorities have handed out four-minute shower timers and low-flow shower heads to every household, and most people now shower with an array of buckets underfoot to catch the precious "gray" water, the only thing that can be used to wet gardens or wash cars.
Just flushing a toilet these days feels vaguely scandalous.
"WATER RESTRICTIONS APPLY," warns a full-page ad in the local newspaper, urging visitors to brush their teeth with the water off and wipe rather than rinse the sand off their feet and their surfboards after visits to the beach.
Australia has long been the driest continent, and droughts are anything but unusual. But the one under way is the worst in the country's short 114-year history of record-keeping and, some authorities believe, the worst in a thousand years.
In parts of rural Australia, emaciated cattle and sheep have been turned out to forage on what's left of dried-up crops. As supplies of irrigation water dry up and legions of farmers haul their animals off to the slaughterhouse, prices for mutton have fallen by 50 percent and harvests of key crops like wheat, barley and canola are expected to fall 60 percent this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Debt-strapped farmers are committing suicide at the rate of four a day in the nation, according to Beyond Blue, an Australian organization that deals with depression issues.
In parched Melbourne, where the once verdant hills are now a consistent baked yellow, officials started this month issuing on-the-spot fines of up to $335 to flagrant car washers, swimming-pool fillers or anyone else showing "obvious disregard" for water restrictions. The worst offenders see their water pressure temporarily cut from 10 gallons a minute down to a trickling half-gallon a minute.
The past resurfaces
In South Australia province, the ground is so dry that the soil is contracting and sucking moisture out of homes enough to crack nearly half of those surveyed by an architectural service. And across southern Australia, drying lakes and ponds are slowly revealing a wealth of long submerged relics, from houses once drowned by man-made dams to rusty guns tossed away by fleeing criminals. Police are dutifully collecting the weapons and taking a new look at old crime files.
Water levels in Lake Corangamite, in southeast Australia, have dropped so much that authorities were astonished last year to spot a missing World War II plane in the lake bed.
Whether Australia's big dry is a result of climate change is a matter of debate. Barrie Hunt, a researcher with the government's science agency, insists that over the past 10,000 years, Australia has seen at least eight long droughts like this one. And El Nino, a cyclical change of Pacific currents now going on near South America, regularly brings Australia dry spells.
But the scale of the current drought has pushed Australians to begin making plans for what many believe is a permanently drier future. In Sydney, the government is offering rebates of up to $700 to homeowners who install rainwater-catching tanks and plans to build a $1 billion desalination plant to turn seawater into drinking water if dam levels continue to drop. In perpetually parched southeast Queensland, voters will decide in March whether to begin allowing their purified sewage to be added back into the drinking water supply.
Even the politicians in Canberra, Australia's capital, are feeling the pressure. For the first time, the heated pool at Parliament was shut for a month over the holidays and lawmakers are slowly agreeing to cut off sprinklers that have kept Capitol lawns lush while the rest of Canberra bakes.
1 green spot left
The only green spot may soon be the foreign embassy lawns. Afraid of provoking what the government water spokesman calls a "diplomatic incident," the foreigners, so far, haven't been asked to roll up their hoses.
Thanks PalominoJ.