It's raining, It's pouring!

Well, we have had a week of wet weather again here in south-east Queensland. Not unusual most would say. But certainly it seems that this La Nina event is again bringing us plenty of water, with 100mm of rain falling over Noosa in 1 hour on Friday night. That is certainly a massive amount of water and has resulted in some damage to the road network in that area, with sections being washed away and bridges damaged. Commuters also got caught in the deluge with the train tracks flooded and the roads so awash with water that people abandoned their cars only to come back and find them either gone or damaged with the rising waters over the next 12 hour period. Crazy stuff!

But my main excitement (not to downplay the dramatics of the events) during this wet weather, apart from having a house which is no longer leaking (thanks Mr insurance) but the joy of hearing the rain hit my roof, head towards the nearest gutter and downpipe (thanks to partner for installing extra just before this last lot of rain) and watching it rushing into my rainwater tanks. This is sooooooo exciting for me. The constant replenishment of our rainwater tanks is a joy to me. Watching the water fill the tanks has always been such a satisfying feeling for me, even when we were in our last house and we were on town water. I just love watching this natural process: capturing a wonderful natural resource with the idea that I could use it at my leisure and pleasure for whatever purpose I choose. Yes, some would say I am a freak, but if you ever get the chance to watch the rain pour into your own or someone else's rainwater tank you tell me that it isn't satisfying or at least mesmerizing.

Another exciting thing that occurred during this last large rainfall event, is that my new 2000L tank that I recently purchased and attached to my carport is also full! Woo hoo. I was a little worried that I would miss all this summer's rains and as we head to another El Nino event (I believe) that it would take an eternity to fill up and the cost of installation ($1000 for the tank....slimline corrugated iron) wouldn't justify itself for many years. But already I am satisfied that I have done the right thing.

Love to hear your rain appreciation stories. Pin It

Skeletal Australian soils: fertility & moisture

Australia has what are described as very old soils, with little fertility being added to them in any recent history. I am discovering the extremity of this at present with my new garden and the biggest challenge I am facing is keeping the moisture in. Without this essential ingredient I can't plant or plan any new plantings, as there won't be enough water to allow the plants to grow and take up the necessary nutrients that might be lurking in the soil.

I have planted one hybrid, showy eucalypt at the front gate and have found this plant is almost daily suffering from water stress despite now having been in the ground for nearly five weeks. The main stem isn't coping without support, the leaves have once started to die off and approximately three-quarters of the flower buds that I bought it with are starting to shrivel and die. Boo hoo hoo!

I have never had to deal with such poor soils. And it seems not only is it likely that my soils are particularly clayey but also they are extremely thin. In the future I will have to ensure that all dirt is mulched thoroughly to ensure they don't wash down the hill to the neighbour's yard and just leave me with rock, only open dirt up when I intend to plant things and ensure plants are well watered for a longer period than I am use to (potentially an irrigation system will need to be constructed to cope with water demands). And given that we are on rain water only this is a little daunting.

In regards to nutrients, I fear that my soils are particularly lacking and I will have to invest in some supplements. For the short term, a healthy dose of native plant fertiliser when establishing plants may do the trick, but I will have to look into a long-term solution. I also have to figure out if the soils you can build for things such as veggie patches are useful or toxic to native plants (which is what I plan on planting mostly).

So many more questions raised and certainly not enough answered! But the journey continues


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Greywater...what is it & where can you use it?

Greywater is an overarching term that describes water directed from your bathroom basins, laundry (both washing machine and basins), showers and baths. It is not from toilets and kitchen sinks.

Greywater has traditionally in Australia directed straight into the water treatment process (sewage system) and not utilised within the home.  However, now that Australia has been and in some parts still going through a drought, there is obviously a consciousness about water and how we could be re-using it for a variety of purposes.

Greywater diversion is the easiest and most convenient way to re-capture some of the water in our households. The best re-use of greywater is to divert the water from the sewerage system and utilise it for watering plants or lawn around your garden. Some people even use it for washing their car, other vehicles or even their house. This in turn, reduces your requirement to use potable (or drinking) water on your garden, leading to more efficient use of potable water. And it will also result in a cost saving for you, as you won't need the water from the water mains that you use to use on your garden and you therefore won't be charged for this water.

It is important to note, that diverting greywater for immediate re-use is considered non-treated greywater. There are systems which you can install into your house for greywater treatment, which allow you to store treated greywater water and utilise for a broad range of applications. As an example, treated greywater can be used for toilet flushing and washing your clothes (ie in the laundry). It important to note, if you don't have a treatment system for your greywater, you should not store it, as it will quickly turn septic.

Simple measures to divert your greywater for uses around your house, such as on your garden, include:

• collecting it with a bucket, for example, when you're showering; or
• connecting a flexible hose to your washing machine outlet pipe.

One important thing is to ensure that whatever you put into any of these input areas (eg laundry, bathroom) is appropriate to go onto your garden. Attempt to utilise products that have low nitrogen and phosphorous and salt levels. Inputs with either high levels of these or accumulation due to "over-use", can lead to issues in your garden, particularly if you have native plants.

So, let's all give it a go.

My initial problem, is that I will need to invest in a very long hose to be able to utilise my washing machine's water in my garden. But it will save me using my precious captured rainwater (see previous post) for garden purposes.

If you would like some more basic information on dos and don'ts of greywater and how to use it in your home, have a look at the Department of Environment and Resource Management's information page.




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1200 Building Initiative

The 1200 Buildings program is a building retrofit program in the City of Melbourne. It was generated out of a council idea to support commercial building owners to retrofit their buildings with measures that will increase a building's water and energy efficiency and reduce waste. It is also supports the Council's goal  for the entire Council area to become "carbon neutral by 2020". What an idea, particularly since the City of Melbourne doesn't own and cannot dictate these changes to these privately owned buildings. In reality, this goal will only be achieved through support, education and changes made by building owners.

How to achieve this? My goodness I can't even imagine. However, Melbourne city has come up with some very exciting ideas to achieve this, which include some new financial lending models. One of the imaginative models means that finance institutions can forward funding to commercial building owners for activities to achieve the goals set by the Melbourne City Council and then these funds are re-couped to the bank by having a charge in your Council rates to fund these "loans".

I don't know the precise details of how this finance model works, but it certainly seems like an innovative one and one that will break some of the dis-incentives for owners of properties, to undertake sustainability measures, when these buildings are rented out, and it is the tenant that in fact receives the cost-breaks through energy and water cost savings!

If you want to know more about the program have a look at the 1200 Buildings website.

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Water conservation tip...recycling

Some of you may have heard that rinsing your recyclable containers is a nice thing to do. This means that the containers that you recycle are therefore not so stinky and gross when they go to being sorted.

Instead of wasting clean, drinking water to rinse these out, collect up your containers that require rinsing each day and use the end of your washing up water to rinse them out.


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US to remove dam to restore catchment qualities

I just came across a 'green' article discussing the US's largest dam removal project. My first thoughts were that this was just greenwashing putting a slant on this event rather than just talking about the removal as a project addressing an aging piece of infrastructure. But it seems my initial pessimism was wrong.

There are actually two dams to be removed, Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, within the Olympic National Park on the Elwha River. It seems that the sole reason for the removal of these dams is to restore river's catchment.

These two dams were originally built for the purpose of generating hydro-electricity. But it seems that the construction of these resulted in a complete barrier to fish between their upstream and downstream habitats. The main value that will be restored once the dams have been removed is this fish passage.

More information about the dam removal decision can be found at the Elwha Watershed Information Resource website. There are also some cool animations showing how the dams are to be removed at the following websites: Interactive Earth Elwha dam removal and Interactive Earth Glines Canyon dam removal.

The only thing I didn't manage to determine was whether there was another renewable energy source replacing the dams electricity supply (if they were still producing). Hopefully the removal doesn't result in a greater demand for an energy source that isn't environmentally appropriate.

Overall, congratulations! Pin It

Water, water everywhere...or is it?

We are now in our new house...just! This is very exciting, but overwhelming and nerve racking all at once. The first thing I have become nervous about is the level of consciousness I have brought to water use in the house. Why? Because we are no longer on town water. We rely completely on two 25,000L rainwater tanks for our household water use. This is an enormous amount of water, but I have never had a finite resource dependency.

I have always been able to turn on the tap and be assured water with come from some far removed water source, even in drought conditions. I can turn on the light switch and generally assured that my lights will come on or my fridge will continue to stay cool. I drop into a petrol station and I fill my car up with a liquid that continues to assist my car with forward momentum.

Even though a level of paranoia about water use has come over me for the first two days, it has calmed down a little in the last 24 hours given the it has rained quite heavily and I could hear it gushing towards the rainwater tanks throughout the night.

I will however have to figure out the pump that can bring water from the dam at the bottom of the hill to water the few plants I moved with us. The dam is a saving for us, because otherwise we would be completely reliant on rainwater collected from our roofs to water the vegetable patch that I plan to put in the back yard sometime in the future and this in time would be a significant drain on our resource particularly in drought periods.

I also plan on putting another water tank in to collect the water running off the carport, right at the top of the hill and potentially something smaller on the roof of the chicken hutch once it is constructed.

Watch this space as I hope to do a water audit in the future to determine the level of water that we require on a weekly basis.  This will allow me to get a true handle on our water usage and whether I should be nervous about the water we have on our site or whether we can function within our limits.



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What is a mining tailings dam?

You've probably heard of tailings dams before and many are concerned about their environmental impact. These areas are often considered by some people as more environmentally damaging than the mining activities themselves. But what is a tailings dam?

To understand this question one must first understand that all types of mining activities produce a form of tailings. Basically tailings are just the left-over material once the mineral or material being sought is removed. A tailings dam however, is a structure constructed to contain left over materials (usually quite fine) and water used and generated during the extraction process, and meant to allow the materials to settle out during its storage period. Tailings dams are also known to contain additives, which are chemicals used during material processing to aid in the extraction of the relevant mineral(s). It is commonly believed that many of these additives are the "problem", due to their potential toxicity to both the environment and people. 

Well, now we know what they are, do tailings dams truly pose environmental risk? It certainly seems that historically mining tailings dams (throughout the world) have had impacts on aquifers, downstream water systems and local communities. And it does seem in terms of quantity alone (compared to the amount of mineral extracted) tailings are a heavy burden on the landscape. However, I think to determine the true impact of these "dams", it will be important to examine each of the processes, as obviously each mineral requires a different extraction process and in turn will have their own environmental and social impacts.

Stayed tuned, unless you have the answers earlier. 

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Do you need a new dishwasher?

We have a rule in our house (one that I imposed) that whoever cooks doesn't have to clean. The issue with this arrangement in my household is that I do the cooking and my lovely other half doesn't believe in doing regular, after every meal type hand-washing. I can't stand to see the dirty dishes in the kitchen and also the dishes being unavailable because they are waiting to be cleaned. So the fall-back, sanity arrangement is a dishwasher. We have had one in our houses for the last three years and it certainly has created extra time for all in the house.

We are about to move to a new house and one of my dilemmas is there is no dishwasher. I am completely daunted by this and have started my investigation into the type that I will purchase once we move in. I have just come across a couple of websites that can assist people in investigating the energy and water efficiency of dishwashers currently available on the market.

The Energy Rating website specifically discusses the amount of energy that each dishwasher model uses and the Water Efficiency website discusses water usage. Both of these websites have various options so you can either narrow or broaden the criteria and features that you would like in your dishwasher.

Happy researching! Pin It

El Nino/La Nina

It is raining luscious rain here in south-east Queensland. Does this surprise anyone? Some people might say 'no'. But are we all so forgetful to lose sight of the extremely low dam levels we experienced only a couple of years ago where the government forced everyone to become extremely water efficient and the general drought conditions that we experienced here in Australia? No watering the garden, no washing the car, etc, etc.

In light of the cyclical patterns of these weather events I thought I would try and understand the El Nino/La Nino concept a little better. Having read only a few pages on the net, I can share the following.

• it is a cyclical pattern
• when the El Nino event is on the Australian side of the Pacific, the east coast of Australia experiences below average rainfall (drought-like conditions, depending how extreme this event is)
• when a La Nina event is on the Australian side of the Pacific, east coast Australia will likely experience higher than average rainfall (as we currently are experiencing)
• the concept relates to the oscillation of surface air pressure between the eastern and western sides of the Pacific (hence the 'southern oscillation index' (SOI))
• The SOI measures the strength of this oscillation and measures the difference of surface air pressure between Tahiti and Darwin
• If the SOI is positive it indicates a La Nina event (above +8), if it is the negative it is an El Nino (below -8).

Presently Australia is experiencing a positive SOI, with the Bureau of Meteorology currently reporting (13 September 2010) the 30-day SOI as +25. Thus the east coast of Australia is having conditions that would indicate a La Nina and we can expect to receive above average rainfall. Yeah!

Don't get complacent with the water saving measures though, despite our current wetter than usual conditions. We will eventually swing back to the El Nino event (on average every five years) and need all the water we have saved during La Ninas and also need to be well-practiced in how to scrimp on water. This is the time to perhaps install a rainwater tank (if you didn't when the government was basically giving them away) to collect water for your garden, hook up irrigation systems in your garden to either your water tank or your grey water system or just undertake some of the maintenance around your house that needs a little extra water now so that you don't cut into the water supply when we don't have much.

Don't forget water is a precious resource.

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Removal of pesticides from fruit & veggies

In an ongoing examination of pesticides/chemicals that occur on our commercially produced fruit and vegetables, I have found an interesting article that discusses the effectiveness of rinsing these products in water on the web.

The article is located at: http://www.ct.gov/caes/cwp/view.asp?a=2815&q=376676.

This research indicates that the mechanical washing of fruit and vegetables, that is the physical action of washing in water, can cause a reduction in the amount and types of chemicals that are typically found on commercially available produce (at least in the States). This was fascinating to me. The article does go on to say that such washing has to occur for 30 seconds, which to me seems like a significant amount of time and something that most people wouldn't undertake on a regular basis.

The research also examined the use of some of the commercially available (again in the USA) products that market themselves at reducing the chemical load on your produce. The findings were that these products didn't reduce the chemical load any more than simply washing with water.

Well it is off to scrubbing my fruit and veggies (from the shops) under the water for what will seem like an eternity for me.

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Short showers

Why is important not to stand under the shower for extended periods of time?

• limited availability of freshwater - obviously this varies according to the weather and the overall continental climate,
• the use of resources to get the water from the water source to your shower (pipes, water treatment, electricity, etc),
• the use of resources taken to heat the water.

The extreme version of a short shower is the 'navy shower'. This is where you turn the water on get wet, turn the water off then lather up, then turn the shower back on just to rinse off. Bit extreme and at present here in South-east Queensland we aren't at a level of water in our dams that would require this. However, if you're really into making a change, this perhaps is something that you might consider.

I think the current recommended length for a shower, that isn't consider too excessive or resource hungry, is 5 minutes. Certainly if you're not washing your hair or shaving your legs every day this is achievable. And if you're thinking the first 30 seconds or minute is when the water is heating up, perhaps the use of a bucket in your shower to catch some of this water and either use it to flush your toilet or use it on your garden.

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Washing your veggies

I have recently been thinking about more actively washing my veggies and fruit that I buy from the supermarket. My main aim with undertaking such an activity is to remove nasty chemicals from the surface of these foods and ensure that my family doesn't end up consuming more than our fair share.

Unfortunately the garden isn't at a level of self-sufficiency which means I have to buy commercially grown veggies. Up until now I haven't really taken the effort to wash the veggies that I buy. But now that I have a toddler and thinking more about what goes into our bodies, I wonder what the benefits of washing them under water is.

From my basic research most of the initial websites I have looked at on this topic indicate that washing them under the tap will wash off dirt and bacteria. Nothing that I am particularly worried about. I am more concerned about the pesticides, herbicides and other man-made agents that farmers spray around their farms to make their fruit and veggies more commercially attractive.

There are also adverts on the net for products which you can utilise to assist you with cleaning your fruit and veggies and once again can't seem to determine with any certainty that these products would in fact assist with my aim of removing the toxins.

So does washing in water, with no a lot of elbow grease, in fact remove these nasty chemicals? More research required! Pin It

Climate Smart House Inspection

I have booked in to have my house "assessed" as part of the Queensland Government's climate smart house inspections. This program checks your house to determine the appliances consuming the energy in your house.

I have my suspicions. My bet is the ratty old chest freezer and little fridge in the garage. I have energy efficient light bulbs, I turn most of the appliances off at the wall, I have a fairly small house and only a small LCD tv (the smallest one you can really buy that isn't a computer screen and only bought after the last tv died). Perhaps also the air-conditioning in my daughter's room that we run overnight might add to the power bill as well.

So next month they will come (yes there is a bit of a wait) and install my wireless power monitor, replace light bulbs (although I don't actually have any they will need to replace) and give me a water and energy efficient showerhead for my $50. I am really just paying for it for the power monitor the rest as I said have either replaced myself or got when they were doing the waterwise house inspections (they checked my showerhead then and said it was as water efficient as the one they were going to give me).

My hope is that we will become aware of how much energy each of our electrical items consumes and costs us and then may make some appropriate decisions to either down size or upgrade to more energy efficient appliances. Pin It