Australia's Driest City Comes Back From The Brink

Great news from Goulburn, as the rains fill the city's vastly depleted dam and the locals are freed from the harshest water restrictions faced by any city dwellers in Australia.

The dam was down to 14% capacity earlier in the year, but the rains began to fall in June and water restrictions started to be eased back in July. The rains have kept falling and now the Level Five Restrictions have been wound back to Level Three.

Goulburn's water restrictions became infamous when we learned that many showered surrounded by buckets to collect every splash, so they could try and keep their gardens and lawns alive.

But the ultra-tight water restrictions have had an interesting effect on Goulburnians. Even though they don't have to conserve every spare drop of water like they once did, the years of restrictions have ingrained a conservatism when it comes to water that will delay the day, if the regular rains fade away again, when they have to go back to Level Five once more.

Goulburnians are using less water than they did before the drought hit their city, and the water they do use, they are using more effectively :

For three years, Goulburn in southern NSW endured the tightest water restrictions in the country. But as rains continue to bring relief to swathes of eastern Australia, the town's dams are more than half full, kids are playing on the ovals again and the deputy mayor even has his vegetable garden growing again.

Under Level 5 restrictions, residents were allowed only 150litres a person a day, but they were so water conscious many cut their use to closer to 100 litres a person a day.

Under Level 3 restrictions, residents are allowed to water for an hour a day by hose, and there is no limit on watering cans.

Sally Nelson, from Goulburn's Gehl Garden Centre, said the business had had a good spring. Townspeople had stopped buying plants during the severe water restrictions, she said, but after the June rain they began to garden again, opting first for vegetable and annual flower seedlings.

Playing fields that were rock hard and closed at the height of the drought are now green and in use again. (The mayor) Mr Sullivan pointed out the local racecourse and soccer fields were being watered with recycled water, and there were plans to increase recycled water use on all sports fields.

Goulburn's water supplies are now at 60%. There were predictions earlier this year they would run out of water completely by May, 2008.

By the time the next drought arrives, if it actually does, Goulburn should have a new pipeline in place, but even then they won't use as much water as they did before the drought began in 2004.

These are lessons in water conservation that are, and have been learned, in towns and cities all over Australia in the past few years.

For the world's driest country, these are lessons we probably should have learned a long time ago.

July 2007 : The Skies Finally Open Over Australia's 'City Of Drought'

The Skies Have Opened, And The 'City Of Drought' Eases Back Water Restrictions

Many residents of Goulburn, in the NSW southern highlands, used to shower with buckets around their feet to collect every spare drop of precious water. Water was precious they weren't allowed to wash their cars or water their gardens.

For more than two years, Goulburn was the largest 'dry' town in Australia, and the savage drought that almost emptied local dams looked like it was never going to end. Lawns turned to dust, gardens died and people all over the country saw in Goulburn a dawning reality that they feared they would soon have to deal with themselves, in their own towns and cities.

But the skies have opened up over Goulburn and the primary dam for the city's water supply is now more than 50% full, after a low of a mere 12% capacity.

Goulburn residents may not be dancing in the streets, but they are watering their gardens.

In a number of interviews with locals aired on television and radio today and tonight, Goulburn residents talked about how they would never take water for granted again, and how the drought and increasingly harsh water restrictions had changed their lives.

Many seemed to think the changes are for the better.

They said they had learned that water could not be wasted, and some shook their heads in disbelief at how, years before, they had treated water as a commodity that would never run out.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The NSW southern highlands city, which had come to symbolise the plight of the state's drought-stricken rural areas, will go from level 5 to level 3 water restrictions following June's heavy rain.

But one nursery owner said it wouldn't make much difference to his business as most residents had already adapted to the dry conditions.

"When it first started [in 2002], well, you could stand in the store and there would be no one around,'' said Shane Nelson, 42, who owns the Gehl Garden Centre & Wholesale Nursery in Goulburn.

"As time has progressed people have actually seemed to have adapted pretty well to the restrictions. People started adjusting to the conditions and got water-tanks on their houses, used grey or bore water. We definitely diversified ourselves into other things like garden furniture and pots.''

Mr Nelson said the restrictions had meant his customers moved towards plants that were less thirsty and more able to cope with the dry conditions.

"Roses have done very well as they actually seem to thrive a lot better in the dry conditions,'' he said. "They are very disease and pest-prone in moisture.

Plants such as camellias and rhododendrons, which favour moist positions, are not as popular now, Mr Nelson said.

"I talk to customers now and they use more water than they've ever done because of their tank supply,'' he said. "The first couple of years of the restrictions, if I could have picked up my plants and left, I would have. But soon we were holding our own.''

After strong June rains Goulburn's dam levels more than quadrupled, with one of its storages spilling over for the first time in six years.

Major Australian City Running Out Of Drinking Water

Vegetable Crops Destroyed By Drought, Production To Drop By Two-Thirds

The primary dam supplying the majority of Melbourne's drinking water is only weeks away from draining down to a level regarded as critical.

Within a year, and without heavy rains, the Thomson dam is expected to be dry.

The Victorian government is weathering a storm of criticism for relying on rain falls that are clearly not guaranteed to occur.

But extremely low levels of fresh water are not only the problem with the dam. According to this story in the Melbourne Age, "equipment needed to pump the dead water from the dam is not ready, meaning Melbourne could face a water crisis in quality and quantity...."

At the same time as harsh water restrictions are expected to become a reality across the state, more than half the dam's water washes down river to meet irrigation demands.

The claims are made by former Melbourne Water hydrologist Geoff Crapper and engineer Ron Sutherland. Their latest predictions follow their forecasts about the Thomson dam last year, which contradicted Melbourne Water's projections but were later proven true.

"The Government is taking a punt on the weather to solve the crisis … while an outrageous amount of water is being wasted every day," Mr Crapper said.

Also from The Age :

Water supplies in Melbourne's main dam are set to fall below 20 per cent for the first time.

Rural water levels have fallen to 25 per cent, with paddocks turning to dust in parts of the state, a separate Government report shows.

Melbourne storage levels are estimated to fall by an average of 0.5 per cent a week.

The water restrictions due to come into effect within weeks are referred to as 'Stage 4' and will see Melbourne residents banned (under threat of heavy fines) from watering gardens and lawns and they will also not be allowed to use fresh water to wash their cars, except "car windows, mirrors and lights".

Rural farmers are facing a drought unlike anything in living memory. Production of vegetable crops is predicted to fall by two-thirds in the coming months.

The city of Melbourne could realistically be facing severe water and fresh food shortages by the end of 2007.

AUSTRALIANS TOLD TO GET USED TO ONLY THREE SHOWERS A WEEK

60 SECONDS IS "IDEAL LENGTH" FOR A SHOWER

Australia is suffering through the worst drought on record, and numerous towns and cities are close to running out of fresh water.

Outside of the towns and cities in the upper Northern Territory and far north Queensland that is, where rainfalls of two to three metres a year are not exceptional.

But for massive sprawls of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, water restrictions and recycling measures are set to become the year round norm.

One proposed solution to stopping the waste of fresh water pouring down the drain is an effort to convince Australians they have to cut back on their showers.

A dermatologist has claimed that daily showers are luxuries we can no longer afford, and that we can get by with only three or less a week, with a duration of only 60 seconds or so.

The national average time for the daily shower is supposed to be seven minutes. An average family is estimated to "waste" some 60,000 litres of water each year, straight down the drain.

The Victorian government is planning an awareness campaign to get people to cut their shower times in half.

Another awareness campaign.

Don't smoke, don't drink and drive, don't speed, don't eat shit food, get more exercise, remember to vote, don't run down motorcyclists who get in your way, be nice to old people, don't abuse alcohol, eat more vegetables, don't abuse drugs, watch your cholestorol, watch out for arse cancer.

For fuck's sake, Get Off Our Backs!

Whatever happened to towing icebergs in from the Antartic? Massive ice shelves are supposed to be breaking up, huge bergs drifting into shipping lanes. Lasoo some of those ice blocks and bring them to the coastlines and carve those suckers up.

The 'three-showers-a-week' dermatologist also suggested we could get by with no showers at all.

He clearly has not been stuck on a crowded city locked in a traffic jam in the peak of a deodorant destroying summer heat wave.

No showers at all?

What are we supposed to do to keep clean then?

Get the dog to lick our armpits until they're sweat-free? Bathe only in the ocean and get used to living with a salt-encrusted exterior? Carry a bar of soap at all times and quickly strip off in the street at the first sight of a rain cloud?

We could always go back to the pre-World War II bath-only days, I suppose, which Elton John (I think) once likened to "sitting around in a tepid pool of your own filth."

Of course, some tepid pools are filfthier than others.

From TheAge.com.au :

Dr Stephen Schumack of the Australasian College of Dermatologists, says..."I always tell people 'God did not give us caves with hot running water'.

"So from the purely anthropological view, we weren't meant to have showers or wash our skin. It's really only been in the past two generations — the past 50 years — that people have been having regular showers.

"Up until the 1950s, bathrooms were not common and people would have a weekly rinse in the tub in front of the fire. So the skin is fine without having a shower in most circumstances."

Dr Schumack notes that from "a medical point of view" there is really no need to have a shower longer than 60 seconds.

"I used to advise my patients to keep their showers to two or three minutes, but 60 seconds is the ideal. You can do everything that needs to be done in that time."

Everything? For some people, the shower is the only privacy they get all day.

This doctor is captain fun-kill. Not only does he favour no showers, he insists that if you are so rampantly tempted to stand under flowing water in the privacy of your own home, you should try and take cold showers.

He doesn't see a need see a need for a full-body soaping either.

"You really only need to use soap where you produce body odour — only the armpits and the groin. You shouldn't soap the rest of your skin."

Yeah, he's right. Why bother washing your feet?

Or your arse for that matter?

A good long, hot shower is apparently our "national obsession".

Maybe, but only if you can see the cricket on the tele from under that hot torrent of water.

"....they've become a national obsession in very recent times," says Professor McCalman.

"If you went back before World War II, there were a lot of people in Melbourne who didn't have a shower at all. They washed only under a tap in the back garden. We probably wash too much: a lot of doctors would say that we do. It's not necessarily good for the skin. The thing about showering is that a lot of people find it relaxing, rather than cleansing."

Right. Who needs to relax?

Washing off the daily scum under piping hot sprays of water was not the done thing five or six decades ago. And it was a concept beyond all comprehension in the 19th century.

The Professor claimed that a century ago, "a lot of people in Europe" made do with only two good washes in the course of their whole lifetime. At birth and at death.

He also had some cruel and nasty things to say about Melbournians.

"There were still a lot of very dirty people in Melbourne into the 1930s and into the 1940s because they didn't have a bathroom or a change of underwear."

Some things never change.

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