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More Watermark Commentary
It is not an exaggeration to say that the lack of access to clean water is the greatest human rights violation in the world. Maude Barlow
8th July 2010 UN set to finally recognize fundamental right to water
For over 100 years Australians have argued over the waters of the Murray-Darling Basin. We are acutely aware that water is a scarce
resource.
We now know that as we developed extraction industries in
the Basin, we have left too little water in the rivers to sustain a health river system.
As a result, we face a real risk that the ecosystems supporting the
river system will collapse, undermining the businesses and communities that depend on it...............
Read the latest report (June 2010) of The Wentworth Group of Scientists
Kenneth Davidson continues his campaign to educate
Melburnians on how much our water is really going to cost
Time to come clean on the cost of water
31st May 2010
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
Read the letter signed by 225 members of the National Academy
of Science, the lead letter published in Science magazine, May 7, 2010
and
Peter Gleick's comments in the Huffington Post
And in the Australian context, have a look at this recent report from
CSIRO and the Bureau of Meterology (March 2010)
State of the Climate
Maude Barlow to join the launch in Cannes Film Festival of
major motion picture on water issues - 'Paani"
Read more
Carrying one's own water for four days is cause for reflection
on how much water we need.
Read Geoff Strong's article in The Age on 27th April 2010
Water water everywhere but lug your drops to drink
Heads go back in the sand
I was stunned to hear that Melburnians can shortly return to squandering water, with the promised lifting of our "tough water restrictions" ('Water restrictions 'never again' above stage 3", The Age, 17/3).
After years of drought, when we have been exhorted to save, recycle, install rainwater tanks or greywater systems, the population was beginning to show that behaviour can be changed, we can becoome responsible consumers of the earth's resources. Now, with a state election looming, and thanks to profligate use of the energy required by the desal plant and reallocation, all this is to count for nothing. We can return to the head-in-the-sand wasteful behaviour of years past. Shame on you, Mr. Brumby.
Janneke Hall, Northcote |
Letters to The Age 18/03/2010
This contributor to The Age gets it -
where is the common sense of our leaders?
18th March 2010 The Age Editorial
Why the rush to ease water restrictions?
More than 30 of the nation's top water scientists have united in an urgent plea to the Federal Government to reduce water allocations
ABC News March 11 2010
Read more
Following on from the Watermark project and as a further extension of the Womens Trust's work on water, the Trust staged two concerts PRECIOUS MUSIC PRECIOUS WATER at the Melbourne Town Hall on the 27th February 2010.
The concerts were a call to action on water and featured a world premiere performance of Tarka, a symphony in 4 movements compoosed by Harry Williamson, and a number of Australian artists who had composed and written songs and music especially for the event.
The concerts featured a narrative by Mary Crooks challenging us all to step up and demand sustainable water management from our governments.
  
Performers Michael Johnson, Kavisha Mazzella and Frank Jones
Environmental writer Fred Pearce asserts that Australia's climate policy is a mess and that the nation risks becoming inhabitable. The Guardian UK 2nd Dec 2009
Read the full article here
Professor David Karoly urges the government to take substantial action on climate change - Government Fiddles Around the Edges While Australia Burns.
Read the full article here.
Dr. Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute and an internationally recognised expert on water comments on water efficiency in Queensland.
Read the full commentary on his blog
Congratulations to Steve Posselt who was awarded the Eric Brier award by Engineers Australia for his work on understanding the problems inherent in our current approaches to water management.
Read the full media release here
Kayak4earth's journey up the Goulburn - He did it!
Well done - what a tremendous efort. Author, adventurer and engineer Steve Posselt has completed his gruelling journey by kayak up the Goulburn River and over the Great Divide into Melbourne arriving in Federation Square on Sunday 16th August. He was cheered into the bank by Plug the Pipe Supporters, Watershed members - a community based campaign against the de-salination plant in Victoria, members of the Clean Oceans Foundation and Watermark and Women'sTtrust supporters. Note the wheels on Steve's kayak - he had to use them often - 'I was in and out of the kayak on stoney sections, walking around log jams' Steve wrote in his blog on day 11.
Steve has been giving the stark facts to media along the way, and has generated a lot of attention including a segment on the ABC Stateline Program on Friday evening 14th August.
'It beats me how Minister Holding thinks he can create water. From all of my analysis, all of my investigations and discussions I can see no savings, just paper shuffling and spin. There is no magic way to create water for the river. It would be nice if someone could get him to justify his statements one day, rather than just repeating them. said Steve in his final wrap up of the trip. Steve is continuing his journey across to Adelaide to help many more people in South Australia realise that the North South Pipeline Policy directly affects South Australians as well as Victorians.Find out more about the ups and downs of Steve's journey
13/08/09 Regulations that will allow country water to be funnelled to Melbourne via the controversial North-South pipeline were rejected in the Victorian Parliament on Wednesday 12th August.
In pursuit of water efficiency, Professor John Langford recommends a retro-fit of homes to replace Melbourne's 400,000 single flush toilets. Read the full article by Melissa Fyfe in the Sunday Age July 26th 2009
The people of Bundanoon's opposition to water mining in their local area received significant national and international publicity recently with the towns peoples decision to ban bottled water. Their fight to stop aquifer mining however, is far from over and has been running since early 2007. The utter waste and inefficiency of bottled water need to be exposed at every turn.
Bundy votes on bottled water ban
THE Southern Highlands village of Bundanoon is poised to become the first town in Australia, and quite possibly the world, to ban commercially bottled water......... The catalyst was a proposal by the Sydney company Norlex Holdings to build a water extraction plant in the town. It was initially turned down after sustained objections from residents, but Norlex appealed, and the case is before the NSW Land and Environment Court. "The idea of them taking water here, trucking it up to Sydney and bringing it back in bottles to be sold in shops at 300 times the tap price is a bit strange," said Mr Kingston, who has organised support for the ban over several months.......read the full article
Kenneth Davidson, Senior columnist with the Age challenges the Victorian govenment's current water policy and continues to put forward the case for using recycled water rather than desalination. Read this excellent article in The Age 2nd July 2009 Denying the effectiveness of recycling just won't hold water
The Report of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Melbourne's Future Water Supply has been released. Water recycling and re-use is at the forefront. Read the Report. Click here...
Start lobbying now - if you are in a Labor seat especially, get in touch with your local members. Ask them which recommendations they support and what are they going to do to achieve them.
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