Decisions on water !

A few weeks ago both sides of politics trotted out policies to safeguard the Sydney water supply in the face of the worst drought ever. The reason for those policies was two-fold. The mighty Warragamba dam was perilously close to 30% capacity - and a state election was due on March 24.
Now the situation has changed. The long range weather people advise that the " El Nino " effect has ended - and as a consequence we can expect more normal rain patterns to emerge. To support this point of view we have been having massive, rain bearing thunder storms - and the level of Warragamba and the other dams is definitely on the improve. There are now expectations of substantial rain over the remains of Autumn.
In a way, this has happened at an unfortunate time. Both sides of politics are locked into their election policies and one of these involves the spending of over a billion dollars on a desalination plant. Perhaps now - with relief rain improving the dams situation - it would be a good time to draw breath and take another long, hard look at the best way to drought proof the Sydney basin.
A billion dollars would buy a lot of other ways to save water. There is no lack of rain along the coastal fringe. The problem is that it rarely moves inland and reaches the catchment area. There would be no need for a desalination plant if that rainfall was harvested and pumped into the dam system.
It would require careful planning. When it rains in coastal Sydney the gutter systems also collect all sorts of rubbish. Presumably we would need retention basins from which this water could be pumped inland to more massive retention basins where two things would happen. Having sieved out the solid waste matter a percentage of the saved water would be piped to industry, thus saving good drinking water being drawn from our dams. The remainder would need to go through a purification process to remove contaminants before being pumped into the dams.
History reveals that there is no lack of rain along the coastal fringe and that this is reliable. The problem will be for political parties to make change with an election just days away. A change of policy shouldn't be a big surprise to to voters. Very few expect the plethora of grandiose promises made in the heat of election battles to be kept anyway !