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Rainwater tanks save the day Part II

rainwater-tanks-flitration — Connolly Dam, Warwick’s town supply, spilling over for the first time since 2011.

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 water cleanliness is currently enforceable. No one wants to do it because of voter backlash; they will act if disease breaks out.

Over time, when replacement of pumps, filters etc is included, the real costs to install, operate and maintain a good rainwater harvest system is currently more expensive than hooking to the grid and paying water rates. Some have no choice due to location.

In 1984-1985 when I worked in PNG, I gained a lot of experience with filtration of drinking water. We were wildcat oil drilling in the Southern Highlands at 2,000M elev. The nearest village/town was Tari, the only access by helicopter, or a trek through jungle.

Everything broke down into 1,000kg heli-loads, constant heli shuttle flights; mostly diesel fuel once everything was established.

Water supply was rain run-off into an earth “turkey-nest” dam a mile or two away and lower than rig. Yes, everything that lives in the woods also craps and eventually dies in the woods, so lots of opportunity for pathogens. We used a diesel pump and 50mm steel pipeline back up the hill to rig & camp.

All camp drinking water was filtered. We just used wound-string filter elements, in clear plastic housings, elements were white when new, changed when completely brown, Most of the brown was decayed leaves etc, I forget now how long the filters lasted, probably variable, monitored daily, changed as-required.

No chemical treatment, no bad outbreaks of “squirts”, and the few minor cases were likely guys being careless. (If I knew then what I now know about water-borne bacteria, I would have taken more care).

As a child, I lived through Redcliffe City Council’s ban and enforced destruction of household rainwater tanks. But we much preferred the taste of my grandparents’ tank water in Dalby. And even Redcliffe “town” water tasted better than Brisbane reticulated water.

Chrissie’s family have only ever had un-filtered tank water. At 93 years of age, her Mum still does! We have had two 45,000 litre (10,000 gallon) concrete tanks for almost 30 years.

We’ve never run out of water. The tank filling pipework comes from single storey roofs, goes underground, then back up to tops of tanks. Originally all the underground pipework was 90mm “rainwater” PVC. Subsequently, I have put in additional underground pipes and replaced most of the existing with 100mm “sewer” grade PVC, bedded in sand, because it is more resistant to plant root and reactive soil damage, plus it flows a lot more volume when it really rains.

About 15 years ago, I emptied, ventilated and got inside both tanks (one at a time), de-sludged, pressure blasted, wet-vacuumed, prepped and sealed cracks on the inside so water pressure helps ensure a good seal. I installed a string filter about 10 years ago. It is plumbed straight off the pressure pump, so all house water is filtered. From what I have learned subsequently about water-borne bacteria, I’m glad the entire house is filtered. Now it just needs an anti-bacterial filter element to take it to the next level. I also installed a “first flush” plumbing system to get rid of most dry weather accumulated crud (inc frogs) to stormwater street drain. I like frogs, just not in my drinking water.

Mozzie mesh-crud strainer baskets at tank top inlets have been replaced once, the filling inlets at tank top strainers have gravity actuated, one-way flaps to stop critters entering, but allow everything out of the pipe.

A Council inspector once insisted that I put mozzie mesh on our three sewer roof vents (septic tank). He said mozzies would fly through vent caps, down vent pipes and breed. Knowing it’s a losing battle arguing with those who flex authoritarian muscle, I bit my tongue. I could have instead asked about the statistics of mozzie breeding in Council-approved stagnant water, within the underground portions of my tank filling pipe-work (before first flush installed), and the number of breeding mosquitoes at the water filled settling ponds of town water treatment plant, not to mention the actual dams & reservoirs.

But I replied “Oh Gee, mate, never though of that. I’ll put some mesh on the roof vents straight away (and I did). The “expert” was happy, I just muttered and shook my head, it was the simplest resolution.

Then there was the “drought proofing” by the taxpayer funded pipelines and pumping stations, intended to shuffle water between municipalities. Apart from its questionable effectiveness, the environmental damage and costs to some land owners was enormous. The pipeline only required a 3M wide clearing to dig the trench and get it in the ground. But the pipelayers insisted on clearing a 10M wide swathe, simply so they could turn the lengths of oversize black poly pipe around, “if required”.

Even gazetted nature reserves suffered this fate. Our illustrious water resources authorities have been vested with the power to do almost anything, with complete impunity.Then the pipelayers carted away and sold off the mostly top quality top-soil removed from trench, before backfilling with carted in “fill”, some of which was building waste.

Creative uses for rainwater tanks

The best suburban use of water tanks I have ever seen was when neighbours replaced their side boundary fence with a string of narrow water tanks, originally intended for under eave use.

Both house roofs feed the huge volume “boundary-tank”, the final over-flow is right at front fence and goes under footpath to road gutter. They chose neutral colour, roto-moulded plastic tanks with integral see-through openings/reinforcements and even left a gap for a gate so neighbours can still be neighbourly. The interconnecting feed pipe is underground for gate and overflow connects above.

Each neighbour only “lost” a 300mm wide strip of yard and it keeps the dog in. Brilliant! Of course this requires that you get on well with your neighbour. Perhaps this is worthy of a simple Council mandate… all suburban side fences must be minimum of 600mm thick and hold rainwater. NG

Footnote by acreage dweller Joy Duck

The benefits of rainwater tanks aren’t limited to rural areas. People in the burbs used to have smallish (1000 litre) tanks to top up their pools and water their handkerchief lawns. Then the scaremongers went to work and they were removed in droves (sadly the tanks, not the scaremongers), with challenges of maintenance cited as the reason. I bought a second hand, 3000-litre tank for for the shed, from a developer who had dozens in a paddock. He had removed them (just a year after installation), from a complex he’d built.

There is already a dedicated 22,500 litre tank and fire pump connected to our house with a rooftop sprinkler system. Because it is a fire pump, if necessary, the brigade could connect their hoses to it and use for other purposes. It’s a key start petrol pump so if the fire takes out mains water and power you still have firefighting capability.

Having a stand-alone tank and pump dedicated for firefighting can be very reassuring, if you live on a heavily treed block where the wildlife successfully protests any attempts to clear vegetation!

Next week: On the road again!

Farmers Rejoice As Rain Boosts Crops

wheat-barley-queensland — Image by BW: Wheat bunkers at Thallon (see silo at rear for scale)

It wasn’t really Gourmet Farmer Matthew Evans who inspired me to write about wheat and how we so much take the bread of life for granted.

As you may have noticed, we spent last week cruising around the tiny hamlets of Yelarbon, Talwood and Thallon, part of the south-western Downs grain belt. At Talwood and Thallon in particular, the landscape is dominated by man-made mountain ranges of wheat, pinned down under blue tarpaulins.

This takes me back to my grounding as a young-ish journalist, where I was charged with reporting on the fortunes of graingrowers on the Darling Downs. Now and then I’d write about cotton or market gardening, prowling around the Lockyer Valley looking for stories about crops.

The stand-by headline in those days was ‘Rain boosts crops’, because invariably, the Downs would be in drought and crops suffered as a result. Nevertheless, if the rainfall warranted it, a photographer would be dispatched to capture a farmer in gumboots, jumping for joy in sparse puddles.

So this week I find myself back in familiar territory, perusing the detailed reports prepared by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Science (ABARES).

Winter crop production in Australia was indeed boosted by very favourable seasonal conditions during Spring. Most cropping regions in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia were generally in very good condition at the end of winter. ABARES says in its December report that favourable rainfall during September and October increased soil moisture levels during the critical grain development period. Crop prospects in Western Australia and Queensland were lower due to adverse growing conditions. All the same, Queensland graingrowers think it’s great.

Australia is truly the lucky country among grain growing nations, as it harvests two crops – planted in summer and winter. The latter is harvested between November and January. Winter crop production in Australia is forecast to increase by 76% in 2020–21 to 51.5 million tonnes, second only to the record high of 56.7 million tonnes set in 2016–17. Wheat production is forecast to increase by 106% to 31.2 million tonnes,the second highest on record. Barley production is forecast to increase by 33% to 12 million tonnes, also the second highest on record. Other crops including canola, chickpeas and oats are also doing well.

At times like these I sympathise with relatives of She Who Was Born on the Prairies. Canadian grain growers have a once-a-year opportunity to grow wheat and barley and the crop can too easily fail due to late frost or snow, or if crop diseases like rust drift across the US border.

While the Australian summer and winter grain crops of 2020-2021 are being heralded as ‘the big comeback’, you still need a reliable export market. There has been speculation for months that China will enforce a ban on imported Australian wheat.

The rumours are of course driven by China’s decision to impose harsh tariffs on Australian barley. Bad timing too, with Australian barley production peaking at 11.96 million tonnes, China’s 80.5% tariffs effectively stopped a billion-dollar trade in its tracks. Australia’s barley market was worth $1.5 billion in 2018. But the effects of drought and an effort to diversify into other markets has seen this fall to $600 million in 2019.

Western Australian farmers, who represent almost 90% of Australia’s barley market, did not take long to respond to China’s ban. CBH Group, a farmer-owned grain marketing business, last week sent a 35,000 tonne shipment of malting barley to a new client in Mexico, shipped from the West Australian port of Albany,

Graingrowers president Brett Hosking went to town to buy some fencing materials and also picked up a six-pack of Mexican beer.

He made a video for Twitter to celebrate the deal, which he said came about because of “a lot of work by people in the industry and a lot of coordination”.

“I won’t say it’s the first shipment of malting barley to go to Mexico, but not too many people can remember a cargo going there, so it’s pretty exciting.”

Hosking welcomed the recent $72 million Federal Government export aid package, but said it should be used to address short term concerns for Australian malt barley as well as increasing feed grain opportunities in the region.

“We look forward to working with Government in 2021 to ensure farmers don’t carry the burden of foreign trade matters.”

Rumours of a ban on wheat are less of a worry as China imports only a small fraction of Australia’s $5.3 billion wheat exports. China’s domestic grain growing industry is the world’s largest. It tops the international list of wheat producers, at 131 million tonnes a year. Australia ranks ninth on this list at 20.4 million tonnes.

As any agronomist could tell you, wheat was first cultivated 10,000 years ago and the mortar and pestle method of milling dates back just as far. Clearly, the loaf of white bread you buy in a supermarket for a few dollars is the end product of a highly mechanised and adulterated food chain.

The contrasting example can be found in episode nine of Gourmet Farmer, when host Matthew Evans and agronomist friend Andrew Cook harvested their first crop of home-grown wheat.

Evans said he will probably get 450 grams of flour from every kilogram of wheat, with Cook estimating “about 12 kilos per row”. It’s a small field.

They took the old school approach to separating chaff from wheat (letting the wind blow the chaff away as they transferred the wheat from one large bowl to another). From there, the hand-grown and milled wheat emerged as a 700 gram loaf of artisan bread.

Evans freely admitted to a couple of onlookers that the first loaf of Fat Pig Farm bread cost $200 to produce. They looked suitably shocked.

Meanwhile back in Thallon (between Mungindi and St George), the silos are full and bulk handler GrainCorp is following the long-practiced art of storing wheat in ‘bunkers’. We camped at Thallon’s recreation ground, across the road from the ‘bunker tarps’. Grain is stored on carefully prepared beds on the ground and covered with bright blue tarpaulins. When the time is right, mobile conveyers transfer the grain into rail wagons bound for Fisherman Islands port in Brisbane.

Thallon’s rows of bunkers are so large that from a distance they look like a faraway mountain range (see image above). A spokeswoman for GrainCorp told FOMM the Thallon depot received 273,000 tonnes this season, with its Goondiwindi cluster hiring an additional 40 people at Thallon and Talwood to to help handle the harvest. Currently GrainCorp has a train booked every day for the next fortnight, hauling 1600 tonnes per day.

The Department of Agriculture says Australian wheat exports are forecast to reach around 21 million tonnes in 2020–21, more than double 2019–20 exports. Grains account for about 20% of Australia’s agricultural exports, a $48 billion market. So you can see why the industry would be nervous about the diplomatic spat with China and the trade bans that could follow.

It is especially ironic at a time when growers are getting record prices for grain. And more luck to them – it’s been a long time between (Mexican) beers.

(For an interesting insight into Australian Aborigines’ development of agriculture, read Bruce Pascoe’s book ‘Dark Emu’. Ed)

Water theft a sign of crumbling civilisation

water-theft-drought — Image: Storm King resident Penny Davies indicates the ‘normal’ dam water level. Contributed/

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 water. The rich white South Africans relaxed behind their high fences and simply bought in more water as and when needed.

Meanwhile, the poor black (and white) people were forced to queue at a public standpipe for their daily rations. While Cape Town’s immediate crisis is past, water is still a scarce and expensive commodity. There have been reports of water theft from there too – allegedly by residents fiddling their water meters to give false readings.

The Cape Argus News reported that the percentage of water lost or not billed for was at 34.27%, above the normal 20% band.

Last year the City of Cape Town warned of water shortages and introduced incremental water levels to discourage high usage. Punitive tariffs for high water users (more than 35,000 litres a month), costs R768.64, or $77 per 1000 litres.

That does seem steep when compared to Australian cities that charge $3.12 (Brisbane) $2.11 (Sydney), and $3.35 (Melbourne) per kilolitre (1000 litres). Some cities quote a range of prices – Perth ($1.82 – $4.85), Canberra ($2.46- $4.94) and Adelaide ($2.39 – $3.69). As you’d expect, water-rich Tasmania is the cheapest (Hobart $1.06, with Darwin not much dearer at $1.96.

So yes, we can see how an excess water tariff charge of $77 per kilolitre would galvanise people into trying to find a way around the system.

In Australia, water theft is more brazen; the rogues just back a water tanker up to an absent neighbour’s dam, stick a hose in and turn on a pump. A year ago, Southern Downs Regional Council authorities acted to secure water standpipes after neighbours reported numerous trucks illegally filling up at Connolly Dam. In December this year, police were called to investigate the theft of 25,000 litres of water from a Council depot in Murwillumbah (northern NSW). The thieves did just that – backed up a tanker, filled it up and drove away. This was at a time of bushfires (the Rural Fire Service said the stolen water was equivalent to six or seven fire tankers). Not only that, Murwillumbah, like other rural regions in NSW, was under severe water restrictions at the time. In this context, water thieves are no better than the two people who looted an abandoned electrical goods store in Bateman’s Bay. Leon Elton and Kylie Pobjie were arrested, charged and denied bail. It was alleged the pair traded the stolen electrical consumer goods for drugs.

Belt fruit growing town of Stanthorpe, which officially ran out of water last week. The town has just one water supply – Storm King Dam. Water is now being carted from Warwick, which is itself in danger of running out of town water by Christmas 2020. The State government has commissioned a $1 million feasibility study to extend the SEQ water pipeline grid from Toowoomba to Warwick. But what if it does not rain between now and the 18 months it could take for this to happen?

Other towns in Queensland (Miriam Vale near Gladstone comes to mind), have faced similar issues, although Queensland is often rescued by the northern wet season. It is not uncommon for drenching rain in southern parts of the state to follow a cyclone in the tropical north. Even then, Tablelands residents tell us the wet is late (again).

Drought-ravaged New South Wales is another matter, with the State government last year canvassing plans to evacuate up to 90 towns that are in danger of running out of water.

They include sizeable cities (Bathurst, Dubbo, Tamworth), and smaller towns like Orange, Armidale and Tenterfield.

In our new home town of Warwick, the Southern Downs Community Relief Group is hosting a weekly free water pick up from the Warwick Showgrounds The water is donated, rationed and available only to those who live in outlying towns which do not have reticulated water. Similar charitable groups are also operating on the Granite Belt.

Tambourine Mountain in the Gold Coast hinterland has no reticulated water service, forcing residents whose tanks have run dry to buy in delivered water,

A Mount Tambourine acreage dweller told FOMM the waiting time for truck-delivered water has blown out to eight weeks, because there are only two aquifer suppliers.

“It is a controversial issue on the mountain that a couple of other landowners are contracted to supply big commercial bottled water/soft drink companies. This means that thousands of litres are being trucked away from those aquifers every day, not available for local supply.

“Some residents have their own bores to supplement their needs but the water is of varying quality because those bores usually do not go as deep as those of the commercial suppliers.”

The Beverage Council of Australia, the peak body which usually responds to such reports, received some sort of vindication in December.

Its water division, the Australasian Bottled Water Institute [ABWI) welcomed the final report on the impacts of the industry on groundwater in the Northern Rivers by the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer.

“After a thorough and independent review into the bottled water industry in the Northern Rivers, the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer found that less than one per cent of groundwater in the Tweed is extracted for water bottling purposes,’’ Chief Executive Officer Australian Beverages Council Geoff Parker said.

The bottled water industry, which now generates over $700 million annually, has expanded in the past five years due to what Mr Parker says is “consumers’ preference for convenience, taste and rising health consciousness.”

A Queensland Urban Utilities survey found 35% of people preferred bottled water over tap water, while 29% thought it was better for them than tap water. But blind testing in South Australia revealed many people cannot tell the difference without packaging.

A report by consumer advocate Choice quoted Stuart Khan, an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales and an expert in drinking water quality.

“Australia is a world leader in the way we manage drinking water quality and we have some of the best tap water in the world,” Khan says. “Tap water and bottled water are regulated differently in Australia, so they don’t need to meet the same standards. Tap water needs to meet more stringent quality criteria and actually gets monitored more carefully than bottled water.”

Even so, no disrespect to the local Council’s efforts to keep supplying potable water, but I’m not used to the treated water here. Occasionally I’m one of those who buys bottled water (on average Australians consume five litres per week).

But here’s the thing. At its cheapest in a retail grocery store, 10 litres of water costs about $4, or 40 cents per litre. That compares with about 0.2 cents a litre for reticulated town water (in Warwick). (It’s merely supply and demand economics, Grasshopper. Ed. BTW I can say what I like today, ‘cos it’s my birthday.)

Water shortages – here and there

When visiting friends in the water starved towns of Warwick and Stanthorpe, it does not take long for the local message to sink in – ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down’.

This is a water-saving tip for times of drought – seemingly a more or less a permanent state of affairs in south-east Queensland.

Southern Downs residents are currently on a per capita water limit of 120 litres per day and there is talk of introducing emergency measures (90 litres per day). Given that modern toilets use between 6 and 10 litres every time you flush, you can see why mellow yellow is the gold standard. Likewise, a shower will use about 10 litres of water per minute. So a three-minute egg timer is a handy gadget to stick on the bathroom wall. The other common water-saving measure is to keep a bucket in the shower to collect water for the garden. Many people wash dishes in a plastic basin and use the grey water on the garden.

The lack of significant rainfall coupled with rapidly declining dam levels led to Warwick, Stanthorpe and outlying villages being placed on extreme water restrictions in mid-March. Stanthorpe and Warwick are the hardest hit by the ongoing drought and declining dam levels. Warwick’s Leslie Dam is down to 6.33% and its back-up water source, Connolly Dam, at 36.5%. Storm King Dam, Stanthorpe’s only source of water, is at 26.7% capacity.

Southern Downs Regional Council estimates that without rain, Stanthorpe will be out of water by December 2019/January 2020. Warwick has a 17–month buffer, to January 2021.

Mind you, they have been here before. In February 1995, the Leslie Dam was at 3% capacity. And how soon we forget what happens when it does rain! In early January 2011, South East Queensland had so much rain the Leslie Dam’s seven spillways were opened for the first time in 22 years.

SunWater’s decision to open the flood gates in 2011 and take pressure off the dam left motorists and residents stranded. Sandy Creek flooded, closing the Cunningham Highway between Warwick and Brisbane. SunWater responded to a request from then Warwick Mayor Ron Bellingham to reduce the rate of release and extend it over a longer period so the highways could re-open.

“I guess part of the issue may be that it’s been 22 years since Leslie Dam was last full and perhaps there is no one around who remembers how that was managed,” Cr Bellingham told the Warwick Daily News at the time.

Extreme water restrictions mean residents cannot wash vehicles, hose gardens or fill swimming pools. Hosing hard surfaces like driveways or hardstand (industrial) is an absolute no-no.

The upside of going through a water crisis is that water-conserving habits learned at the time tend to stick with you. When Brisbane residents had to deal with level 6 restrictions during the Millennium Drought, per capita water usage fell from the Australian daily average of 340 l/p/d to 140 l/p/d.

If you look at the global situation, in which 3 out of 10 people are without reliable access to potable water, Australia’s urban residents have relatively little to complain about.

The 2019 United Nations World Water report also states that only 4 out of 10 people have access to safely managed sanitation services.

World water use has been increasing at 1% a year since the 1980s, the UN report says. Increasing water use is being driven by a combination of population growth, socio-economic development and changing consumption patterns.

As you may have read about major cities like Chennai, Cairo, Tokyo, Mexico City and Cape Town, you can’t take abundant, safe running water for granted. This list of 10 cities at risk of running out of water includes Melbourne in 9^th place. Scary stuff.

The seven million inhabitants of Chennai in southern India (it was Madras until 1996), are so short of water residents have to line up every day for a truck-delivered allocation. As reported in the Pacific Standard, the four reservoirs that provide the majority of the city’s water supply have dried up. Restaurants, businesses and schools have been forced to close and residents wait hours in queues to draw water from municipal tankers. As always, wealthy residents can afford to pay the premiums for water from private tankers. The calamity in Chennai can be blamed largely on domestic and industrial over-use which has depleted ground water.

Don’t think it can’t happen here. According to a report in The Australian this week, up to a dozen towns across regional New South Wales and southern Queensland are confronting a crisis that’s been dubbed “day zero”.

Local Government NSW president Linda Scott told The Australian some regional cities and towns, including Armidale, Dubbo, Stanthorpe, Tenterfield and Tamworth are preparing for a day zero that’s less than 12 months away.

SDRC Mayor Tracy Dobie told Steve Austin on ABC Drive on Monday that if there was no inflow into Storm King Dam, Council could have to cart water from Warwick to Stanthorpe as early as December.

“Warwick is a different situation. We will have to set up a network of bores if there is no inflow into Leslie Dam,” she said.

Cr Dobie said that normally Leslie Dam has three years’ supply of water; Storm King Dam holds two years’ supply.

“That may have been OK a couple of decades ago, but climatic conditions are changing and we need bigger and longer-term water facilities in our region.”

Cr Dobie told Austin there had been “no rain in our region since March 2017” by which she means sufficient falls to filter into dams.

Data kept by farmsonlineweather.com.au shows that Warwick had a total of 130.4mm between January 1 and July 18 2019 (the long-term average for this period is 405mm).

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was not alone in taking the view that Australia needs alternative sources of water. Several Australian States have developed desalination plants, with varying degrees of success. But as can be seen by the Murray-Darling Basin fiasco, there is no reliable, long-term water security plan.

Farmers and residents of outback Australia rely on steady rain to replenish rivers, creeks, dams and water tanks. The normally dusty red landscape north of Cunnamulla in far western Queensland is displaying a sea of green not seen in the outback for eight years. Heavy rain and floods in April has left this part of the west with full dams and green grass on both sides of the road (although in reality, it is a ‘green drought’, in which the country looks good, but the green cover will soon become parched through frosts and lack of follow-up rain).

You have to be watchful when traversing these often unfenced roads. As this photo shows, cattle are often left to forage for themselves, although She Who Drives Most of the Time said they seemed intent upon grazing.

After spending 10 days in the outback, I can but offer but this observation from a remote outback town: three large caravans queued up to fill their tanks at a public water outlet (that’s about 240 litres just there).

Fair crack of the whip, fellas. Go to the supermarket and buy your drinking water. We do.

More reading: FOMM back pages

Update: While Cape Town’s dire water crisis is over, authorities are wisely sticking to the 50 l/p/d limit set in 2018.

And…

A cold snap, firewood and a short history of chimney sweeps

cold-snap-firewood-chimney-sweep — Image by Steven Helmis, https://pixabay.com/photos/chimney-sweep-roof-chimney-housetop-2792895/

Almost on schedule, a cold snap arrived, coinciding nicely with our completely running out of firewood. Oh you too, eh? I thought as much, queuing up on Saturday at the fill-your-own-boot firewood supplier. It took a while. Chatting to a friend on the same mission, I mentioned that the fire was not drawing very well.

He then told me about an organic solvent you could buy from the hardware store.

“You just get a good fire going then chuck the sachet on the embers,” he said. “It took three (sachets) but it’s burning pretty good now.”

The helpful chap at the hardware store knew which product I wanted and we had a chat about the era when young orphan boys were press-ganged into manually cleaning chimneys in return for board and lodgings.

This same chap also gave me a contact for someone down the coast who cleans chimneys (the instructions on the soot-remover packet recommend having the flue professionally cleaned annually).

“When did we get the chimney swept last?” I asked She Who Pays the Bills.

“Not sure,” she said. “I threw out all the receipts that were older than five years, so that could be a clue.”

Of course, once we had bought more firewood and I had chopped it into wood stove-size pieces, it clouded over and the overnight temperature rose to 15, as opposed to 5 the night before. Fortunately, the cold south-easterlies returned mid-week and my labours were justified.

The nature of a ‘cold snap’ is a sudden, brief, severe drop in temperature. The ‘severe’ was felt in Tenterfield (-8), Stanthorpe (-8) Warwick (-4.7) and Brisbane (3), among other south east Queensland locations (average June low in Brisbane is 12 degrees). There were reports that Quart Pot Creek (which flows through Stanthorpe) froze over. Well, not froze over in the Manitoba sense but yes, a layer of ice.

Yesterday I attempted step two of the chemical chimney clean – remove excess soot from the drop plate. I took a torch and shone it up the stainless-steel shaft of the wood stove chimney. My thoughts turned to the poor urchins of the 17th and 18^th centuries forced to climb spaces like this and clean them by hand. Well, perhaps not that narrow a space, but you get the picture.

Master chimney sweeps would suborn young orphans into this line of work and boys were sometimes ‘sold’ by parents who needed the money. I gleaned some of the following information from a blog written by George Breiwa on behalf of Chimney Specialists Inc. of Dubuque, Iowa.

If a boy was showing some reluctance to climb inside the chimney and navigate to the roof, the master chimney sweep would light a small fire. Hence the expression, ‘to light a fire under someone’. I never knew that.

As you’d imagine, these boys (and girls), suffered from deformed bones (from cramming themselves into tight spaces. It was a short life span on account of inhaling soot, or if they became lost or stuck inside a brick chimney, (where they subsequently died).

That’s a long way from ‘Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim chim che-ree.”

If this subject fascinates you, here is a link to a (5,000-word+) academic article by Karla Iverson.

The most important point in this story is the Act for the Regulation of Chimney Sweeps, passed by the English Parliament in 1864. This was 22 years after, I might add, an act of Parliament which put an end to mining companies sending children to work in underground mines.

Since I have shared my experience with a few people re: the wood stove not drawing properly (the wood should burn cleanly), much advice was imparted. Ironbark and mixed hardwood is still the preferred fuel for wood stoves and fireplaces.

The main issue if you are trying to burn timber salvaged from your own (or someone else’s) property is that it takes a long while to dry out.

Our resident firewood expert, Dr. John Wightman, who harvests firewood from his 12ha property, says drying under cover takes 18-24 months. He saws and splits fallen trees and the occasional tree that is endangering property or whose time has come.

“We had our chimney swept a few weeks ago – first time in five years. We only had half a bucket of soot. The sweep said it was because of good quality wood which I took to mean dry wood.

“I also remove as much bark as possible because certain constituent chemicals can gum up the chimney.”

Dr. John reminisced about the first half of the 20^th century, when coal fire smog was a killer.

“I lived in London during the 50s and remember the incredibly impenetrable coal- induced smog,” he said. “It disappeared entirely once smokeless fuel fires were made compulsory.”

The Clean Air Act of 1956 followed the great London smog of December 1952, which led to “5,000 more deaths than usual”. U.K. citizens began to use electric and gas heaters and rely less on coal.

The Clean Air Act required coal fire owners to burn coal with low-sulphur content (i.e. ‘clean coal’) or coke, which is the less polluting by-product of gas production.

Those who lived in Scotland in the first half of the 20^th century would remember that Edinburgh was once referred to as ‘Auld Reekie’. The dubious nickname referred to the dense coal fire smog which settled upon the old town.

I asked Dr. John (a scientist) to comment on the cold snap and comparative air pollution caused by wood smoke, as I worry about it every winter, and of course it is Climate Week.

“The energy content of dry wood is 17 MJ/kg, and of coal 24 MJ/kg. So a bit less heat and less carbon dioxide from wood combustion,” he said.

“In theory, the CO₂ should be sucked up by the trees around us.

“Coal can have a lot of impurities such as sulphur and sulphur oxides (the killers in London’s smog)”.

But, as he remarks, both wood and coal produce particulate matter when combusted.

“We call it smoke which is bad for the lungs, irrespective of the source – wood smoke can smell better than coal smoke.”

While domestic wood fires are visibly more polluting than electric heaters or reverse-cycle air conditioning, the latter are powered by electricity produced primarily by coal-fired power stations.

Australia’s emissions totalled 538.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2018, up 0.7% on the previous year. That was the third year in a row of rising numbers under the Liberal government, although the long-term per capita trend is down. The figures were released this week by the Department of the Environment and Energy.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/energy-minister-defends-australia-s-growing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-20190531-p51t8s.html

Australia has one of the highest per capita emissions of carbon dioxide in the world, at 21.5 tonnes per person, down 38.2% since 1990.

Electricity is the sector producing the most CO₂, at 185.5 million tonnes, followed by stationary energy (97 Mt CO₂), transport (97 Mt CO₂) and agricultural production (71.7 Mt CO₂).

On the latest global figures, Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal (389 million tonnes) and the fourth largest producer (503 million tonnes). Three quarters of Australia’s mined coal is exported and most of the rest is burned in domestic coal-fired power stations.

‘Clean coal” – an analysis

So don’t feel bad about burning a half-dozen or so hardwood logs tonight – it is comparatively benign.

Whipping up a dust storm in D

While innocently vacuuming never-ending dust this week, I accidently sucked up the D harmonica which was lying on the coffee table. Said harmonica emitted a plaintive sound, closely resembling the wheezy noise of a piper warming up (think, You’re the Voice, Eric Burden’s Sky Pilot and that AC/DC song about it being a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll).

Alarmed (these little blues harps cost $45 a piece), I managed to grab one end before it disappeared into the dusty bowels of the 10-year-old Wertheim. After a short struggle and a discordant approximation of the intro to Blowin’ in the Wind, I freed the harmonica and continued on my merry way.

Most household tasks have fallen my way since She Who is Ambidextrous (SWIA) broke a bone in her wrist, although to be serious, using the vacuum cleaner has always been one of my chores. This machine has seen better days, but it still does the job. The broken hose is securely held together with gaffer tape and a pair of chopsticks. A while ago I priced a replacement hose at a vacuum cleaner shop (I could have bought a budget-level machine for the same money). The enterprising young lad managed to side-track me to a really up-market vacuum cleaner which, I discovered after a 20-minute spiel, cost $1,799.

“I could buy a 20-year-old Toyota Corolla for that sort of money,” I said, “Nice try, kid.”

I went out of the shop happily humming ‘I love my Toyota Corolla, aha hah,’* having spent no money at all. Instead I went to one of those big red and green barns and bought a roll of gaffer tape.

Maybe 36 years ago (or more), I succumbed to a sales pitch when a colleague sent his uncle around to sell me a vacuum cleaner. I had been telling this colleague how the old machine was seriously incapable of sucking up not only dust but hair and dander from a Golden Retriever.

So Uncle Harry called around, to demonstrate the superior dust sucking power of a top of the line Electrolux, in the days when top quality appliances were manufactured here and sold door-to-door with a five or even 10-year warranty.

I bought the Electrolux on time payment, because that was the only way to finance such an extravagant purchase in those impecunious times.

I’ve earned a few million (sic. Ed.) dollars since then and that old machine refuses to die. It’s now the ‘downstairs’ vacuum cleaner, although I’ve been known to use it upstairs when (as is a common problem), temporarily unable to source the right-size dust bags.

“That old thing still does the job,” said She Who Told Me in Week 3, “I Don’t Vacuum”. (My Dr. said I shouldn’t vacuum- bad for the back. Ed.)

A while back, when the tiler had finished laying tiles in our downstairs rooms I (without thinking), took the Electrolux out and started sucking up tile dust. It was the smell that alerted me – smoke pouring out the top of the machine. The bag was chockers. I let the Electrolux cool down, put in a new bag and what do you know, it continued on untrammelled, a glass half full version of the Millennial expression, “This sucks”.

I’m completely sure no manufacturer today could produce a vacuum cleaner (or any appliance), that would last 36 years and more.

This line of thinking led me to research robotic vacuum cleaners, which can be bought for as little as $129 or as much as a 20-year-old Toyota Corolla. Choice magazine generally gave all models the thumbs down when marking them on the capacity to extract dust from carpet.

The intelligent vacuum cleaner does a pretty good job on hard floors, although why you’d prefer a round model over a square one (to get into those nasty little corners that harbour ancient dust), is a mystery.

The perplexing thing is this: where does dust come from and why does it settle again after one pass with a vacuum cleaner? As Quentin Crisp said in The Naked Civil Servant: “There is no need to do any housework at all.After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.”

Dust mites and chronic allergies

I will acknowledge to being a little bit fussy about vacuuming, ever since the allergist did the pin prick tests to show I was hyper-allergic to dust mites. On first discovering this in the 1990s, we hired a heavy duty industrial vacuum cleaner and paid an agile friend to clean the crawl space in the attic of our 60-year-old house. After the fourth big black garbage bag was passed down the ladder to the respirator-wearing assistant, our friend declared that was one job he was never doing again.

It’s not too hard to find out the answer to the question, where does dust come from? Science Daily surmises, not so surprisingly, that most house dust comes from outside. The scientists developed a computer model that could track distribution of contaminated soil and airborne particulates into residences. They found that over 60% of house dust originates outdoors. The study by the American Chemical Society found that contaminants like lead and arsenic can find their way into homes via airborne dust.

Researchers David Layton and Paloma Beamer found that household dust included dead skin shed by people, fibres from carpets and upholstered furniture and tracked-in soil and airborne particles blown in from outdoors.

The 2009 report mentioned above came out in the same year a 500 km wide dust storm the colour of Donald Trump’s complexion swept across New South Wales and Queensland. The Australian capital, Canberra, experienced the dust storm on September 22 and a day later it reached Sydney and Brisbane. Thousands of tons of dirt and soil lifted in the dust storm were dumped in Sydney Harbour and the Tasman Sea. Ah yes, you remember that.

Random dust storms aside, the real culprit feared by those suffering from asthma and hay fever is the dust mite. Scientists agree that dust mites thrive among the aforementioned dead skin discarded by humans and pets. The dustier your mattress and pillows are, the worse the problem gets. As this fascinating but skin-crawling article says, there could be between 100,000 and one million dead dust mites (and mite dung) lurking in your bed. Ugh!

What you need to do, every time you change the sheets, is to strip the bed, hang the bedding out in the sun then attach the nifty little mattress cleaner that may or may not have come with your vacuum and give the mattress a good flogging, so to speak.

Or you could buy a robot vacuum cleaner and instruct it to spend all afternoon roaming around on the bed:

As Hal said in 2001 A Space Odyssey: “I’m sorry (Bob), I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

*(a reference to Tiffany Eckhardt’s love song to her Toyota Corolla)

FOMM back pages/related reading:

Rising sea levels and apocalyptic fiction

I’d always thought my song about the mountain dwellers ending up on waterfront row because of rising sea levels was not to be taken too seriously. It was an apocalyptic view of what might happen if it didn’t stop raining and, moreover, not a terribly original idea as it turned out. But the risk of flash flooding from above-average rainfall is only half the problem for people living down there, at sea level.

A loyal reader, visiting the coast from cooler climes down south was discussing his theories about rising sea levels and coastal tourist locations like Noosa, given news of the Arctic region’s third winter heat wave in a row. His attention had been drawn to Greenland, where temperatures have remained above freezing at a time of year when it should be at least 30 below. Clearly such weather extremes in the fragile ecosystem of the Arctic region must accelerate the process of rising sea levels?

As The Independent reports, this is happening even though large parts of the Arctic Circle are trapped in perpetual darkness.

New global projections forecast a sea level rise of 2m by 2100, compared to a 0.74m rise in a 2013 study. So far, the forecasts that oceans would rise on average by 3mm a year has provoked a scornful debate between believers and climate sceptics. Yes, the science is not wholly believed. There are people in high places who have made naïve and disturbing statement such as “coal is good for humanity”, at a time when most scientists agree that CO2 emissions, produced largely from human activity, must be reduced.

The spectre of melting polar ice bringing an apocalyptic end to civilisation as we know it has been a favourite theme of science fiction writers for a long time. Now there is even a fiction sub-genre known as ‘cli-fi’ which has spawned many cataclysmic climate scenarios.

The spookiest forecast, before cli-fi was a thing, was The Drowned World, J.G Ballard’s second novel, published in 1962. Ballard’s main character is a scientist in charge of a floating research station, drifting above a submerged London, beset on all sides by encroaching tropical jungle. A 50^th anniversary edition (with an introduction by Martin Amis) has been released and it is available as an ebook. I’ve not read it, though, relying on Peter Briggs’ review for the synopsis.

Ballard eerily conjured up a world where polar ice caps have melted and solar storms have left us in an irradiated world. Europe is a series of lagoons, devoid of human life, although the tropical bugs love it!

The most recent book in the cli-fi genre which I have read is The Ice by Laline Paull. Her 2017 mystery novel begins with wealthy tourists aboard the Vanir, traversing previously frozen Arctic oceans. The mission is to find a (now rare) polar bear, but instead they find the thawed body of an explorer who went missing years ago in mysterious circumstances.

Fiction aside, the alarming temperature rises in the frozen north have had a bizarre impact on Europe, the US and Canada in 2018, which at this time of year ought to be seeing the first thaws of spring. A day temperature of 1 degree celsius in Greenland might not seem too warm to us Aussies, but typically the days are often up to 30 degrees colder. And this is not confined to Greenland. The most northern US city (Utqiaguik, Alaska), has also been enjoying a balmy 1 degree celsius − again that’s 22 degrees above average.

Meanwhile,The Independent observed that a relatively high pressure system over Russia and the Nordic north and a relatively low pressure system across the UK resulted in freezing Artic air being drawn towards the UK and causing exceptionally cold weather there.

The chorus of Waterfront Row ponders: “Little did I think when I moved to the mountains, I’d end up on Waterfront Row, renting out my shed to all those who fled the torrents and the foment down below.”

Imagine my chagrin upon writing and recording this song to be told (by a country music fan), that the song was similar (in theme) to Graeme Connors’ A Beach House in the Blue Mountains. I had not heard of the song but googled it (as you do).

We’re not the only ones taking ‘cli-fi’ into the realms of songwriting. Sunshine Coast songwriter Noel Gardner made up this cheery tune about the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu. He takes the role of the climate sceptic to satirise the controversy about Tuvalu and rising sea levels.

Some years back, the tiny Pacific island nation was said to be so prone to inundation its citizens might have to become New Zealanders. As it happens, some 2,400 Tuvaluans have already moved to NZ or neighbouring islands, according to a not-for-profit group that monitors world poverty.

They may have moved too soon, if, as the article below says, Pacific atolls like Tuvalu actually grow and float, becoming impervious to rising tides.

Now, a study confirms what we’ve already known – atolls, and in particular Tuvalu are growing, and increasing land area, writes Anthony Briggs. “So much for climate alarmism”.

Nevertheless, the highest elevation on Tuvalu is 15 feet and it is perpetually exposed to rising sea levels, cyclones and tsunamis.

An article in The Conversation says previous studies examining the risk of coastal inundation in the Pacific region have been conducted in areas where the rate of sea level rise is ‘average’ – 3mm to 5mm per year. A team of authors, led by The University of Queensland Senior Research Fellow Simon Albert unearthed outlying examples.

At least five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands, where sea level rises are in the order of 7mm-10mm a year, have been lost completely to rising sea levels and coastal erosion. A further six islands have been severely eroded. These islands range in size from one to five hectares and supported dense tropical vegetation that was at least 300 years old.

Last year, new projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US revealed that global sea levels could rise by 2 metres by 2100 if emissions remain at their current levels. As the ABC reported, this is substantially higher than the 74cm increase proposed in a 2013 Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Under these new projections, Sydney’s Circular Quay, Brisbane Airport, Melbourne’s Docklands and North Fremantle would be among locations at risk. So too Stradbroke Island, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, while in South Australia the seaside suburb of Glenelg would also be in trouble.

Scarier predictions have been made, with scientists taking into account the prospect of Antarctica melting, as well as the Arctic, doubling predictions of a 2m rise by 2100.

Should we care? By 2100, the youngest person I know will be 89, so maybe she will care. Her children and grandchildren definitely will.

And what does this mean for Australia, where the majority of the population live along narrow bands of coastal land on the east and west coasts?

You can scare yourself (or reassure yourself) by checking out this interactive website which allows you to see the predicted results of sea level rises wherever you happen to live.

FOMM back pages

Cape Town water crisis a stark reminder for drought-prone Australia

water-crisis-drought — Water stress map: www.wri.org creative commons licence

Cape Town’s water crisis is making news around the world, but nowhere should it be ringing alarm bells more than in our neck of the woods – South East Queensland. It’s not that long ago since the Millenium Drought (2001-2009) reached a dramatic point in late 2007. Brisbane became the first Australian capital to endure Level 6 water restrictions at a time when the region’s main reservoir, Lake Wivenhoe, dropped to 15% capacity.

In Cape Town, South Africa, the town water crisis is so parlous that taps were to have been turned off on April 16, but conservation efforts by the city’s 4 million people has pushed this out to June 4. Cape Town introduced Level 6 restrictions last month. Reports from the South African capital sound a bit like conditions in South East Queensland, circa 2007-2008.

The so-called ‘Day Zero’ – when water in Cape Town’s six reservoirs drops to 13.5% – means taps will be turned off and residents will have to queue at standpipes for daily rations. (Think dystopian movies like Young Ones or The Worthy).

A news report this week described a sudden sharp shower in Cape Town (10mm or so). People were said to have rushed out of restaurants, bars and shops just to feel the rain on their faces.

Residents are being encouraged not only to limit their showers but also to have baby baths over the shower outlet to collect the grey water for recycling. As was the case in Brisbane, Cape Town residents are being discouraged from washing their cars and flushing toilets (unless really necessary).

According to our local utility, SEQWater, during our own water crisis in 2007-2008, Brisbane residents successfully halved daily water consumption to 140 litres per person under Level 6 restrictions, which included a ban on filling pools. Gardens could only be watered with buckets (with water collected from those three-minute showers). The motto, ‘if it’s yellow let it mellow’ was nailed to many a dunny door.

Conditions are tougher in Cape Town, where residents are limited to 50 litres each per day. The Guardian reported that Cape Town’s water crisis was accelerated by a drought so severe it was not expected for another 384 years. Plans to diversify with more boreholes and desalination plants are not scheduled until after 2020. The city’s biggest reservoir, Theewaterskloof Dam, has mostly evaporated or been sucked dry since the drought began in 2015. The shoreline is receding at the rate of 1.2 metres per week, The Guardian reported.

Tucked away in its two-page feature on Cape Town’s water crisis was the colourful but completely unhelpful statement from an un-named homophobic pastor who blamed the drought on gays and lesbians.

Back home, South East Queensland’s water crisis in 2007-2008 ushered in a new era of water management, resulting in the SEQ Water Strategy, which set a water consumption target of 200 litres per day.

SEQWater spokesman Mike Foster says the biggest single change since the Millenium Drought was construction of a 600 km reverse flow pipeline network that allows treated water to be moved around the region. The utility also now has a ‘drought-ready’ strategy which is triggered when storage falls to 70%. Currently the region’s dam levels overall are at 75.9%, so nobody is losing sleep over the average per capita daily water consumption of 184 litres.

water-crisis-dams — Baroon Pocket Dam spillway January 2011, image by Bob Wilson

FOMM wrote in March that water levels at our local dam, Baroon Pocket, had dropped to 46%. SEQWater supplemented the Sunshine Coast through an extended dry spell in 2017. Baroon Pocket Dam is now back to 78% (this photo of the spillway (January 2011) shows what can happen when 750mm falls in one month.

Blame it on climate change if you like, but the Sunshine Coast region has recorded below average annual rainfall in three of the last six years. What really did the damage was an eight-month stretch from July 2016 to February 2017 with an average rainfall per month of only 43mm. Source: Bureau of Meteorology monthly rainfall.

The South East Queensland Water Strategy aims to maintain regional water security into the future through management and operation of a water grid including a recycling facility and a desalination plant.

SEQWater owns and operates 26 dams, 51 weirs, and two borefields, including 12 key dams which supply as much as 90% of the region’s drinking water. Foster says SEQWater is now planning for far worse events than the Millenium Drought.

“Cape Town never thought they would experience more than two failed wet seasons in a row. South East Queenslanders never thought we would experience two failed wet season in a row either.

“But we went through the Millenium Drought and nearly a decade of failed wet seasons.”

Foster says that if SEQ was again faced with a Millenium Drought scenario, the strategies put in place would allow water supply to be maintained with medium level restrictions.

Meanwhile, in far more parched countries

You might feel relieved to learn that Australia was not one of 33 countries identified by the World Resources Institute as facing extreme water stress by 2040. However, Australia is one of six regions facing increased water stress, water demand, water supply, and seasonal variability over the next 22 years.

The top 11 water-stressed countries in 2040, each considered extremely highly stressed with a score of 5.0 out of 5.0, are projected to be Bahrain, Kuwait, Palestine, Qatar, San Marino, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Lebanon.

The 2015 report forecasts rapid increases in water stress across regions including eastern Australia, western Asia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the North American West, northern China, and Chile.

Nothing focuses the mind on the need to conserve water more than a summer camping holiday in a water-scarce national park. At the Bunya Mountains national park, east of Dalby, bore water is available in the national park camp ground. But it is labelled ‘non-potable’ and visitors are advised to boil and/or sterilise the water before using. We have a 60 litre tank under our caravan and we also take two 10-litre containers as back-up. Even so, after five days the van tank was less than half full and by the time we drove home on a stinking hot Sunday, we were sharing the last few mouthfuls from a water bottle.

Fine, just walk into the Kilcoy IGA and buy some bottled water, right? Maybe not. In Cape Town, supermarkets were forced to introduce a per customer limit after a big run on bottled water.

You may recall I was enthralled a while ago by Ben H Winters’ series, The Last Policeman. This cli-fi trilogy depicts the urban chaos developing as the population wait for the cataclysmic arrival of an asteroid which will destroy the planet.

Winters expertly conjured up underlying tensions between survivalists, conspiracy theorists or escapists who have “gone bucket list” or found easy ways to do themselves in. Then there are those with no particular moral code. As of the policemen in Winters’ second book says: “Just you wait until the water runs out…”

More reading: The 11 cities most likely to run out of water

http://bobwords.com.au/doesnt-rain-soon-mate/

http://bobwords.com.au/dont-drink-the-water/

If it doesn’t rain soon, mate

rain-soon-dam — Baroon Pocket Dam March 8, 2017 (Photos by Bob & Laurel Wilson)

Conversations in the street of any Australian town often involve the weather, which over the past four months has been bereft of rain or “dry” (pronounced “droy.”

Tim: “How’s things, Harold?

Harold: “Droy, mate!”

Tim: “Got 10 points last night – hardly worth measurin’.”

Harold: “How’re dams holdin?”

Tim: “Nothin’ but mud and mosquitos.”

Mrs Harold: “If it doesn’t rain soon, mate, we’re gonna move back to the town.”

The latter is the narrator’s refrain from one of my songs; the laconic farmer, chin up as usual, watching the ABC. He’s being harassed by the banks, making do with pumpkin scones and home brew and tells the wife that if she must pay bills, pay the one with the lawyer’s letter – today.

Australian farmers are well-used to Continue reading “If it doesn’t rain soon, mate”