The POOL ROOM

[Wazza]

Hey Cam...

If your house floats past my place.....can I keep it ?? !!

[Cameron Parsons]

Wazza,

based on my very limited understanding of the regions geography, if my place floats past yours, we have far greater things to worry about

I just got off the phone with the tenants. No damage to the house, but the neighbors on one side (who built MUCH closer to the river, before the 100 yr flood event restrictions were imposed), has a high water mark throughout the house.... ouch

I guess those early settlers really did know what they were doing...

Cameron

[Rebel1]

Good news of no damage Cam.

Coomera soon to get a pasteing again, going by the live radar pics.

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/radar....=1&lyk=1&lye=1

Tell ya tenants to keep the lifejackets handy mate.

[Cameron Parsons]

Thanks Les,

looks like this one is drifting just south of us.... here is the rough location for our place. Those who know will be able to find it on here.

Birds Eye View

Cameron

[Rebel1]

Oi Cameron, so you have a property in that locale?.

Weren't you upset when the Premier announced that was where she was going to dump the excess treated water from the sewage treatment plants?.

Seems we no longer have a need for treated water except at the power stations so the excess is going into Coomera.

Can't just close the plants down ya know. Also don't need to treat it to potable standards either.

[Cameron Parsons]

got to give the Bull Sharks something to chew on

[Tatsushige]

Originally Posted by Rob. Smith

G'Day, Just a suggestion...the paint looks like candy apple. This stuff is very nice but scratch it and the whole car has to be repainted. The paint is very well described by it's name. A toffey apple or candy apple is simply an apple coated with a clear layer of toffey. The paint works the same. There is a base coat of silver or gold then the transparent tint goes over top. Extra layers of tint make the colour darker. If it's damaged it's near impossible to match because you can't blend in the colour...it would make the rest of the panel darker. If it isn't candy apple...try House Of Colour.. they sell a very nice colour chart book. It's a bit pricey but what cost is perfection ?
Smithy

Thanks for the information mate, will have a look see and see what I unearth.

[Cameron Parsons]

From today's Brisbane Times - Wivenhoe Dam reached 55.67 per cent capacity this morning, while the official figures for Somerset Dam and North Pine Dam were 106.37 per cent and 102.25 per cent respectively.

Seqwater spokesman Mike Foster said authorities opened the North Pine gates at 6pm last night to begin slow controlled releases, which would continue until midday tomorrow and then be re-evaluated.

Water started flowing over Somerset's fixed spillway overnight and two cone valves were also in operation, he said.

All Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast dams are now full.

Wow.... now that's a ton of water...

Cameron

[Rebel1]

Cam, Many folks don't realize the capacity of Wivenhoe is equivalent to 2.5 times the volume of water in Sydney harbour. At 55.67% full it is more than that in Sydney harbour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wivenhoe_Dam

That's an awful lot of water.

[Merv and Sharon]

I sailed on Wivenhoe "Dam" for 10 years and it is a big area. If it ever gets to 75% we should start to worry as it was always meant to be a flood mitigation region to protect the lower reaches. Now if we only had the Traveston Dam now then we would be in good shape!

Merv

[Rebel1]

Merv, When they refer to the current water volume of Wivenhoe it is a percentage of that level designed for drinking water.

ie. At 100% the dam holds 1,160,000 ML of water for drinking purposes, but has a further capacity of 1.45 million megalitres of additional water for flood mitigation which is not taken to account in the 100%.

The flood water will then released so that when it reaches Brisbane, the flow will coincide with an outgoing tide, thus reducing flood peaks in the City.

On the Morning of 21st May the dam was reported to be at 55.67% holding some 648653ML of water.

I would start worrying when they are reporting 200% (2,320,000ML) capacity as that would be approaching the designed total capacity of 2,610,000ML.

I have met some engineers who I would not trust to design a swimming pool let alone a dam of that capacity.

[Merv and Sharon]

Yes thanks Les. I was told that last night also by the city engineer (past) from Ipswich. Also said that a dam on the Mary river was scheduled as long ago as 1980! Given the infrastructure growth it seems about time!

Unpopular view on the Sunshine Coast.

Merv

[Rebel1]

Merv, I am in two minds about the Traveston Dam. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the green tree hugging types who don't want any dams at all, Irrespective of where they are sited.

I guess in some ways I'm a bit distrustful of bureaucracy and the effort and money which is expended on keeping us, the voting public, aware of the issues. I look at most of this expenditure as an attempt by bureaucracy to "educate" and "justify" their decisions or as a way to condition the voting public to the decisions made.

In regards to wivenhoe and somerset dams I am somewhat attracted to what is theorized on this site: http://wivenhoesomersetrainfall.com/

I read somewhere that the evaporate loss of wivenhoe is 1.8 Mtrs per year. That is a whole lot of water approx equal to the increases we have experienced in the past week. I also recall a comment made that a houseboat moored on wivenhoe would reduce evaporation of water equivelant to the water needs of a family of 4 living on that houseboat. So that houseboat and residents would have a neutral impact on the dam.

I think the Brisbane experience with the supposed drought is an excellent example how absolutely lax we as a population and the state bureaucracy had become. Prior to the water shortage we had enoggera dam taken out of service and all that water sitting there doing nothing except to provide a nice backdrop for a few picknickers. Now back in service it helps to reduce the drawdown from Wivenhoe. Same situation with other smaller dams around Brissy.

I wont go raving on about maintenance of the water mains throughout Brisbane but suffice to say the more recent expenditure to prevent leakage and spills have saved many millions of Ltrs. of water which was just going down the gutter in previous years.

When one examines the water release chart I posted earlier, it is obvious that we now use approx half that we did 5 years ago and we do that with 5 years of population growth. We were using 25000ML per month now reduced to an average of 10000Ml. so the same volume of water will now last at least twice as long.

I'm more interested in seeing efficient management of assets as opposed to just throwing capital at the problem. I think this is more what is being said in the before mentioned web site.

[Merv and Sharon]

Fully agree Les, but I remain suspicious about the contribution of desalination plants. My son is an environmental engineer and modeling of costs for the state government has shown that the unit cost is 10 times higher per liter than a dam - and you have no storage with desal. The number of new homes at the Sunshine Coast would seem to make a strong case for a new storage. My dad who grew up on the banks of the Mary violently disagrees!

Merv

[BMK]

I just put in four water tanks that take water from the garage and part house roof.

The total capacity of the tanks fill my pool and easily water the garden.

Recently, I found I was watering the garden and grass to us the water up as rain was due.

The overflow from the tanks, just goes out into the street as all rain water did prior to the tanks going in.

The tanks fill quickly and I find I'm watering grass and garden beds after it rains to use the water up. I have placed signs to say I'm using and watering with tank water..

I have not used mains water in the garden since installing the tanks and pump...

Bernie

[Rebel1]

Bernie, all new houses built in Queensland must now have tanks.

A few years ago the council would fine you if you installed a water tank ... ie. they forced you to buy water from them and used some far fetched health reason as an excuse.

Silly as most of our Grandparents were raised on properties with only tank water and since the so called drought the health excuse has gone out the window.

Harvesting rain water privately really does take the load off state supplies and I believe is the responsible thing to do.

Besides, I'd rather tank water to recycled sewage. Even though technology allows them to really purify the stuff I just don't trust public servants to always get it right.

Three weeks ago they (Qld Water) distributed water to 300,000 odd homes with some 30 times the level of fluoride than the standard.

If they cant be trusted to get the fluoride right just imagine if it was recycled sewage.

[tomcat racing]

not quite right rebel, the qld state govt passed the legislation for water tanks and left it up to each local council as to wether they enforced it, not all local councils require tanks for new homes, but most do. tomcat

[Rebel1]

Merv, I totally agree with your comments regarding the desal plant. Total waste of money. I do agree with recycled sewage for industrial use only ... ie the power stations etc.

However, I'm not yet convinced another dam is required.

Lets just examine the current operation policy with regard to Wivenhoe. Dam capacity as reported refers to potable water levels. However the dam has a further capacity as reported in my previous post of 1.45 million megalitres. ie. More than the total volume of potable water.

Now, once we collect and store this 1.45 million megalitres or part thereof what do they do with it? .... open the gates and just let it flow away.

Why not send it somewhere for storage until needed?. Why pour away such a valuable commodity?. Why not pump it to another storage?

The main problem has been that we have not enjoyed the significant rain events that history proves are not reliable. As the previous link claims .... It's not a drought in SEQld ( Although the bureaucrats would like us to believe there is one) we are just missing the significant rain events needed to fill the dams. Note, of late it appears these significant events are returning.

An argument used is the different geographic area. That is a weak excuse as every dam in SEQ. has been low irrespective of where it's located. We (Brisbane) had to send water to the gold coast when the Hinze went down.
Same to Toowoomba.

So again, the problem has not been insufficient storage.

Sorry about the ramble.

[Rebel1]

Originally Posted by tomcat racing

not quite right rebel, the qld state govt passed the legislation for water tanks and left it up to each local council as to wether they enforced it, not all local councils require tanks for new homes, but most do. tomcat

Small concession Tomcat. Frankly, Any local council not making tanks compulsory will pay dearly when they want water from another source.

[trularin]

How are you all doing with this economics?

I hope you are weathering the storm.

)