Our Dilemma: Dammed If We Do, Damned If We Don't

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday July 2, 2004

I notice with interest the comment from Frank Sartor about a new dam being about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike ("Radical water plan looms as drought bites", Herald, July 1).

If the truth be known, Mr Sartor, it is this narrow-minded and short-sighted thinking that put NSW and Sydney in this mess in the first place.

Where are the incentives for normal householders to reuse their grey water? Sydney Water does not want to know about it and the Health Department is just sitting on its hands saying there are health issues.

Come on, Mr Carr and Mr Sartor, if you are fair dinkum, you would save a lot more water than the ideas you or your advisers have come up with to date.

Edward Duffy,

Regents Park, July 1.

Mr Sartor is right. A new dam is about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike - now - because we don't have rain to fill it. However, this State Government has been in power for 10 years. I suggest that if during that time a dam had been built, rain that fell would have been caught, and now we wouldn't be facing such severe shortages. In other words, we'd have more water.

Further, does Mr Sartor assume it will never rain again? If not, then where's the planning to capture more water in the future? Where are the new dams to stop this problem occurring again after it does eventually rain?

Brent Hedges,

Manly, July 1.

It's looking more and more likely that our pathetic politicians are going to cash in on the drought by using it as an excuse to introduce new fees or charges (but not taxes), no doubt never to be removed.

Peter Nightingale,

Willoughby, July 1.

I have just returned from a one-month holiday in Europe to learn of the gloom and doom ahead of us in Sydney. Frank Sartor seems to imply we will never have any more rain from now. I think I'll catch the next flight back to Germany after this forward-thinking statement: "A new dam is about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike if we don't get the rainfall to fill it."

Ross Barlow,

Bayview, July 1.

Using my usual soap, I noticed a difficulty in getting it to lather under the shower this morning. It made me think that it could be expected that water quality will suffer long before the water runs out. Yet I have seen or heard no mention of this probability.

John Exner,

Wentworth Falls, July 1.

There they are, side by side on your front page. While the first article talks about one of our many precious and dwindling natural resources - fresh water ("Radical water plan looms as drought bites", Herald, July 1) - the other concerns government payments aimed at continuing the ancient practice of perpetually expanding the human population ("Thursday's child is $3000 better off," Herald, July 1).

Yes, the same practice that destroyed many previous civilisations such as the Easter Islanders, the Maya and the Ancient Khmer of Angkor Wat. Still we make no link between overpopulation and our deteriorating environment, as if it's all just one huge coincidence.

Larry Tofler,

Tea Gardens, July 1.