Sunday 10 May 2009

Harvesting roof water

McCoombe Street resident and Tropic Jazz President Rob Williams, says that the catchment area of Cairns spreads from Gordonvale to Palm Cove, yet water from roofs doesn’t soak into the ground so is virtually 90% collectable and relatively pure.

"We already have pristine mountain water from Copperload Dam," Williams says. "Removing groundwater en-masse and adding it to our drinking water for Cairns is potentially dangerous for health."

Rob Williams says there are already concentrations of poisonous chemicals like DDT, Dieldrin, Agent Orange and other Organo phosphates in the ground water and waters of the Barron River.

"While these may be in parts per million, they accumulate in your body till they become a critical mass and you die. I'm hoping that the Cairns Regional Council does not cut corners, as it's no way to look after our health."

"Only a fool would trust a politician to do the right thing, so I suggest everyone installs a water tank."

4 comments:

Ace Thomson said...

Water into your tank accumulates at 1 litre per mm of rain per sq metre of roof area. Eg, if 10mm of rain falls on your roof, where a small house is 150 sq m, thats 1500 litres into your tank. Enough to last the average family 4 days, and thats if you use the tank water for everything (showering, washing clothes etc).

Basically, without going into the maths, but having done the sums and taking into account how many days it rains in Cairns over a certain amount blah blah, the average house does not even tap into the Copperlaod supply for 2/3rds of the year, and thats if you use tank water for everything.

Tanks should be compulsory, there's be no need for the Barron aquifier.

Constance Lloyd said...

Ace I completely agree with your comments. We cram more housing into less land area that achieves two things.

Firstly we reduce the area for excess water to soak into thus creating greater storm water run off

Secondly, by reducing block sizes to ridiculously small meterage, in many cases, the space available for a reasonable sized tank (or series of smaller tanks) is reduced.

Lucky said...

Well I had access to pristine rainwater in my tank until I discovered the the dengue mosquito mob throwing 'No Moz' chemicals into my roof gutterings. I'm now waiting for my tank to refill as I am sure the past week's rain has hopefully washed it away. And no they didn't find any breeding areas on my property (or my crop):-)

Robbie Williams said...

"The dengue mosquito mob throwing 'No Moz' chemicals into my roof gutterings.?" That doesn’t sound so Lucky to me. It sounds to me like an alarming proposition and a Prima Face case for claim of compensation if one got ill from the chemicals. Next time it happens see if you can get some photographic evidence. I'm sure there are plenty of hungry Lawyers up here now who would relish notoriety in the Supreme Court.