Toolondo bad news.

[4liters]

They have the North-South Pipeline but currently it is only designed to go one way. There is some talk of installing pumps to send water back over the Dividing Range, unfortunately desal water costs between $500 to $5000 (depending on which politician you ask) which is far too much for irrigation. Unless there are some cash crops with some serious street value I'm tipping it won't go ahead. They are making plans to connect central Victoria to the water grid but that will probably be years away. When completed it could be used to pipe desal water to the Wimmera (link: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/1300- ... o0mxy.html).



I was pretty skeptical of the desal plant for a while but I had to do a project on it at uni a couple of years ago and it made me see just how close the entire city of Melbourne came to running out of water. At the time the plant was proposed we had just a handful of years worth of water left in storage and once the construction time for the plant was taken into account, if the rainfall levels at that time continued we'd be cutting it very fine indeed.

Of course in 2010-11 we had those very wet years (random useless fact - so much water that fell on Australia in those wet years that it actually changed Earth's gravity enough to be detected by satellites) and the politicians who staked their reputations on the desal plant looked like idiots, but at the time they had no way of know that rain would be coming and had to plan for the worst case scenario.

[frozenpod]

Id imagine there's things that feed the melbourne grid that could then be utilised?

I don't have a political opinion one way or the other with the Desal plant. But it is a definite asset to have moving forward.

Seriously though. For the amount of money invested in places like toolondo surely feeding it enough water to have it survive isn't really that much? It doesn't need to thrive. Just give it enough for it to pull through.

I don't considering using an asset now that it is built as being political.

[frozenpod]

They have the North-South Pipeline but currently it is only designed to go one way. There is some talk of installing pumps to send water back over the Dividing Range, unfortunately desal water costs between $500 to $5000 (depending on which politician you ask) which is far too much for irrigation. Unless there are some cash crops with some serious street value I'm tipping it won't go ahead. They are making plans to connect central Victoria to the water grid but that will probably be years away. When completed it could be used to pipe desal water to the Wimmera (link: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/1300- ... o0mxy.html).



I was pretty skeptical of the desal plant for a while but I had to do a project on it at uni a couple of years ago and it made me see just how close the entire city of Melbourne came to running out of water. At the time the plant was proposed we had just a handful of years worth of water left in storage and once the construction time for the plant was taken into account, if the rainfall levels at that time continued we'd be cutting it very fine indeed.

Of course in 2010-11 we had those very wet years (random useless fact - so much water that fell on Australia in those wet years that it actually changed Earth's gravity enough to be detected by satellites) and the politicians who staked their reputations on the desal plant looked like idiots, but at the time they had no way of know that rain would be coming and had to plan for the worst case scenario.

NS pipeline was a major balls up.

You are absolutely right about the water reserves but the desal plant was not the answer.

Although both Libs and ALP were in favour of desal we were only saved by rain, if it hadn't we would have run out of water. The desal was never going to be finished in time and did not have sufficient capacity to provide the quantity of water required.

There were 2 alternative options: pipeline to Tas and another major Dam in east gippsland. The Dam required rain so it was out which made the pipeline to Tas the obvious solution.

[hornet]

Through out Australian history we have always had severe droughts, this at least will give some form of buffer to future generations, a last resort sort of thing, the future will determine whether it was a good idea or a waste of funds. Western Australia has had a desalination plant for some time.

[frozenpod]

You are correct and that was the argument for the desal. Alternative source of fresh water that did not rely on rain which in principle is great.

But at the time it was not going to be finished before the water ran out and the capacity was not sufficient.

We were lucky.

Not to mention it should have been built on the west side of the state closer to where the water is needed and there is already extensive power infrastructure to provide the require electricity supply.

[ducky]

There's not already an extensive power supply in Gippsland???

[frozenpod]

Not in south west gippsland where the Desal plant was built.