Stop wasting water

Almost every river in Eastern Australia is now pouring surplus water into the sea.

But only two dams have been built in Queensland in the last 20 years – the Wyaralong Dam built 13 years ago and Paradise Dam built 19 years ago.

Droughts will come again and we will wish for another dam-builder like Joh Bjelke Petersen whose government built at least eight dams in Queensland - the Burdekin, Wivenhoe, Hinze, Beardmore, Haig, Fairbairn, Bjelke-Petersen and Eungella dams.

But that all came to a halt in 1988 when the plans to build the Wolffdene Dam were scuttled by all the usual suspects.

Taxpayers also spent some $460 million on preliminaries for the Traverston Dam, but then cancelled it when the infamous Peter Garrett got the Commonwealth to interfere. And recently it was revealed that the Paradise Dam in the Bundaberg Region had faults in the wall and a new wall would have to be built.

So while our water storages are stagnant or declining, our politicians support dangerously high levels of immigration as well as promoting tourism, games and circuses, all of which add to the demand for water. The population clock managed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that Australia's population increases by one person every 50 seconds. They all need water.

And some fools want to use more of our precious stored fresh water to produce hydrogen fuels (every tonne of hydrogen produced by electrolysis consumes at least nine tonnes of fresh water.) The "green hydrogen" cycle needs lots of water and will always be a net consumer of electricity.

The climate alarmism of Tim Flannery and others resulted in a rash of artificial desalination plants being built in Australia about 15 years ago. Just recently, Hunter Water announced that it was going to spend $500M on a desalination plant south of Newcastle. All desal plants are costly to build and operate, and many stand idle most of the time. And of course green politicians want the power to be supplied from wind-solar adding greatly to the costs and environmental destruction.

To let surplus fresh water escape to the oceans and then try to recover it using artificial desalination plants is the ultimate water stupidity.

Here is our pictorial comment:: https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/more-dams.jpg Feel free to use this cartoon with no alterations

Right now, Cyclone Kirrily is demonstrating nature's power of desalination – sucking moisture from the Pacific Ocean and dumping it on land. This is free fresh water with no costs to taxpayers.

To check the progress of the cyclone, look here: http://www.bom.gov.au/products/national_radar_sat.loop.shtml