Read at : Google Alert – drought
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090830/NEWS05/90829006/1006
Dry run: Learning from Australia’s drought
Australia’s 10-year drought provides a glimpse of our own thirsty future if we don’t conserve and recycle water now
Shannon Land • Desert Magazine • August 30, 2009
Does the idea of taking a shower alongside a strategically placed bucket, then running outside to water your plants, sound appealing to you? How about the ticking of a shower timer counting down your remaining seconds while you hurriedly rinse out that last bit of shampoo? Those are some of the drastic measures Australians are forced to take because of tight governmental restrictions after a decade of drought.
Brisbane, Queensland, resident Tanya Graves, a lawyer turned full-time mom, no longer gets to enjoy watching her kids cavorting on the Slip ‘n Slide or running through the sprinklers. Forget about watering the yard. “Our rationing has slowly changed,” she reports. “It started with watering of gardens being limited more and more. Firstly, odd-numbered houses could only water every other day, then only from 4–7 p.m. This progressed on to watering by bucket only. At the worst stage they did not allow watering of gardens at all,” says Graves. In addition, “The ‘powers that be’ have recommended 4 minutes maximum per person for showers and even gave everyone free timers.”
While local and state agencies in California aren’t sure if we’re headed in the same direction, they can’t rule it out. “We’ve been tracking that 10-year drought in Australia and their situation is really bad. They wish they had taken certain actions earlier to save the water they had,” says Jennifer Persike, spokesperson for the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), which happens to be the largest coalition of public water agencies in the country. “We’re in our third consecutive year of drought, and the problem is we don’t know how long it’s going to last. Agencies are facing difficult water management decisions.”
Who’s in charge, anyway?
California has 56 water agencies imposing mandatory restrictions on residents and another 57 are actively encouraging and educating the public about conservation. The Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD), whose local boundaries extend from Palm Springs to the Salton Sea, covering 1,000 square miles, is one of those fifty-seven. CVWD’s recent adoption of a tiered-rate system is a proven method of yielding 22- to 37-percent water savings.
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