# Forum More Stuff Debate & Technical Discussion  Victoria's water problem.

## Groggy

Have a look and see what you reckon...  http://www.youtube.com/v/LzXrmioDk9U&hl=en_US&fs=1&

----------


## Allen James

.
.   

> Have a look and see what you reckon...

    

> .  http://www.youtube.com/v/LzXrmioDk9U&hl=en_US&fs=1&

   The very first suggestion he made  of building bigger dams in Victoria - is the obvious best choice.  The lad wrote this off because the Labor Party would never agree, for environmental reasons.  So he turned to Tasmania, suggesting Victorians pay billions for a pipe from Tazzy, and 110 million dollars a year for their water.  No thanks.  Whoa big fella . Lets go back to Victoria for a moment, before we throw the baby out with the Tasmanian bath water.  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  . The only reason Environmentalists campaign to ban dams is because they like halting development, especially industrial development.  They say its to save trees, but thats a furphy. . More trees die as a result of water bans than by building dams.  Once water is plentiful, more people grow more trees.  Without that water many trees that would have been planted, are not.  So never let greenies sell you that lie about dams hurting trees again. . The real solution . Campaign (as I do) to damn the bans on dams.  Educate people that building (or expanding) dams is what we need.  Educate your children about this.  Write letters to newspapers and discussion boards like this one.  Tell your family and friends.  Eventually people will begin to wake up, and our lame government will start building the dams we need. . Dont forget:  Damn the bans.  :2thumbsup:  .
.
.

----------


## SilentButDeadly

....and perhaps it might even rain sufficiently to fill them up.  Kind of a problem, that.   
The problem with dams is roughly in this order: 
topography 1 (is there a spot to put a dam?)
topography 2 (is there enough catchment area upstream of the dam site?)
geology 1 (does the catchment area have the right geology to hold water - coal seams, rock fractures?)
geology 2 (is the catchment area geologically stable?)
rainfall (is there enough to fill the dam and maintain a certain supply level?)
engineering 1 (is the resulting water easy and therefore cheap to access & distribute?)
engineering 2 (are the proposed users of the water within a practicable distance to supply the resultant water?)
economics 1 (will the resultant water be cheap enough for consumers to purchase?)
economics 2 (will the resultant water be cheap enough for the dam owner to make a decent profit?)
economics 3 (will the financial community lend the money to build the dam?)
etc
etc
etc
Most of these conspire to kill the idea of new dams in Australia well before the Greenies get near them.  You've never heard of them because they never get off the drawing board due to one or more of the above issues 
To my knowledge, enviromentalism has been the significant contributor of death to only one dam in my recent memory (Mary River in Qld).   
The rest have typically been victims (to date) of economics - Welcome Reef in NSW (water saving measures made dam unviable) and Fitzroy River in WA (water too expensive) comes to mind here.  Whilst the former is unlikely to make a another run (catchment has been sold) the latter will continue to bounce around for some time to come. 
Dams are not the answer.  They are simply another tool.

----------


## Allen James

. .   

> ....and perhaps it might even rain sufficiently to fill them up. Kind of a problem, that.

   Filling them up isn’t enough because we can always have more dry spells, so the dams must be big enough and plentiful enough to store water through dry spells. Populations were much smaller when the existing dams were built. . .   

> The problem with dams is roughly in this order:

    

> topography 1 (is there a spot to put a dam?) topography 2 (is there enough catchment area upstream of the dam site?) geology 1 (does the catchment area have the right geology to hold water - coal seams, rock fractures?) geology 2 (is the catchment area geologically stable?) rainfall (is there enough to fill the dam and maintain a certain supply level?) engineering 1 (is the resulting water easy and therefore cheap to access & distribute?) engineering 2 (are the proposed users of the water within a practicable distance to supply the resultant water?) economics 1 (will the resultant water be cheap enough for consumers to purchase?) economics 2 (will the resultant water be cheap enough for the dam owner to make a decent profit?) economics 3 (will the financial community lend the money to build the dam?) etc.

  [/quote] Nobody said building a dam was easy, but Australia and its States are very large areas, and none of these problems will prevent us building (or expanding) plenty more dams. . .   

> Most of these conspire to kill the idea of new dams in Australia well before the Greenies get near them.

   I disagree. The only negative discussion on building dams is environmental. There are never any news items or discussions about how “we cannot find a spot”. If it were true it would make front page news around the world. “Australia – the one land mass of its size that cannot build dams.” National Geographic and the Discovery Channel would be rushing over to document the strange phenomenon of the huge continent that could not build dams. . .   

> You've never heard of them because they never get off the drawing board due to one or more of the above issues.

   You would have to provide very good evidence to back this claim up. . .   

> To my knowledge, enviromentalism has been the significant contributor of death to only one dam in my recent memory (Mary River in Qld).

   There have been plenty. See the shelved *Franklin* Dam: . Franklin Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . In 1989 Peter Garrett, Krudd and Labor Premier Wayne Goss canned the *Wolffdene* Dam on the Gold Coast, Queensland. When Krudd became Prime Minister and Garrett was Environment Minister they once more blocked the construction of a dam aimed at shoring up south-east Queensland's water supplies – the *Traveston Crossing* Dam north of Brisbane (as you say - The Mary River). . Dam busters . Krudd also stopped a dam in *Cairns* many years ago, which my neighbour knows all about, but I can’t find anything online about it. . Now the Green/Left are trying to stop the building of the *Tillegra dam*, about 90km from Newcastle, and the *Tully-Millstream* dams (two) in North Queensland. . Stop the Tillegra Dam | Green Left Weekly . Anger over Tully-Millstream dam | Green Left Weekly . . The Green/Left are also against an expansion of the *Olympic Dam* in Adelaide. . Olympic Dam expansion: a risk too great | Green Left Weekly .
. Greenies have forced water restrictions on many States including *Adelaide*. Instead of building new dams they’re using desalination like Bligh in Queensland. . Water bans to end by 2012 | Adelaide Now .  All this is the result of a few minutes on google. I could find plenty more examples, but then I would need to charge you. . .   

> Dams are not the answer. They are simply another tool.

   Dams are indeed the answer. Ask your great grandfather.  . . .

----------


## Allen James

. . Remember this "No Dams" sticker on the back windows of hippy VW’s since the 70’s? . http://www.sandarac.com.au/graphics/no_dams.gif . . Here is my version: . .  . . and another: . .  . . To print for use on your car's, ute's or truck's back window, use these addresses below - they look big on screen but will print to the width of an A4 page – at 250 dpi: . . http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/a...s-to-print.jpg . . http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/a...s-to-print.jpg . . Let’s throw some light on the banning of dams, and give the greenies something to think about. . . .

----------

