Watering the West: C. Y. O'Connor

I've got a better and massively cheaper idea: move the people to where the water is.

There is no reason why so many people have to live in Perth, it has no natural resources to speak of, it is chock full anyway (been on the roads there lately?) and there's absolutely no reason for the vast majority of people living there to actually live there.

My two penneth worth.

Hi GB,

Just because a pollie touts an idea it doesn't mean its a good one! There was a proposal a few years ago (in the lead up to a WA election I think) to bring water to Perth from Lake Argyle. When the hydrologists did the sums it was soon realised that if the water was in an open channel then a combination of leakage and more importantly evaporation would remove most of it before it got anywhere near Perth. If it came down in a pipe, the pipe would have to be very big, and the water would have to be pumped to overcome friction, so it would not be cost effective.

Another fanciful idea that has floated around for a while is to open a channel to flood Lake Eyre so that a local microclimate would be established producing enough rain to grow crops. That would work, wouldn't it - or more likely it's the same channel problem as above.

There was a news item a few days ago suggesting that half of the food that is produced in the world is wasted, and some estimates put the level as high as 70%. When you consider how much water goes in to producing food maybe its a better option to find ways to cut down on waste (should not be that hard to do). And get people living where the water is rather than trying to move vast quantities of water around.

Cheers,

Val

In 1898 the average weekly income for a labourer in Australia was 11shillings and threepence. Let's make that ten bob for ease of calculations.

£2.5 million is 5 million times the average wage back then.

Average wage now is about $1000. Five million times that is 5 billion dollars.

I wonder how much of a pipeline we would get or that.

At the risk of being chastised I am going to stick in my two penneth!!!

I think that something should be considered regarded to running the water from LA. I accept your comments on cost for pumps etc Val and obviously that is a big minus. Hopefully if the project were ever gotten off the ground the costs for solar will have further come down and that will then help to offset costs.

At the moment, as a humble layman, all I see is Perth expanding and pollies just making the place grow and grow. Unfortunately I don't feel we have the necessary infrastructure. It is all very well trying to encourage people to come to Perth but how do they think we are going to support all these extra people???? The dams are running dry. This issue needs to be addressed before the capita increases, not once its all too late. With every house that is built have they really thought about its singular impact on our depleted water resources? The math is scarey!

I have also heard of mining projects between here and LA that are below the water table. Mining companies are currently just pumping out water as waste that would satifsy Perth's needs for months at a time, in a matter of days. We just need some stronger and more 'far sighted' mangement bodies looking into the longterm protection of Perth and her resources.

The pipeline to pump gas from the offshore wells to Perth and beyond was built some 20 years ago. Not only built but sunken below the ground several meters. With the customers being supplied along that pipe it appears to be working from a financial point of view.
Not only that it is financially viable to fill ships that have been specially constructed for the task and shipping to Japan and other Asian customers.
One of the major problems from my point of view is that water, and the quality we enjoy in Perth, is way too cheap. Put the price up to a more realistic value and you may find a lot less getting poured onto our sandy coastal plain to keep lawns and gardens alive.
Yes I am connected to the scheme water network.


Cheers
Pop

ABC TV had a program called 'Constructing Australia' which had a very good story on C Y O'Connor. There was a dvd of the episode (from memory).

Link to Constructing Austraila

You may find it worth chasing down if the subject interests you, as it did me.

Jack

If anyone wants to have a look at the reports about water supply and availability that have been prepared for the federal government, have a look here. Down the list a bit you will see a 2010 study titled "Moving water long distances: Grand schemes or pipe dreams?". The ideas that have been floated on here - and more - have been given a pretty close look over the years and most have been found to either not be technically feasible or not cost effective.

BTW piping gas and water are apparently technically very different, so its not valid to compare the two.

I completely agree that Australian cities have got major issues with water supply and sometimes water quality. But we do have to be both realistic and creative when thinking about possible solutions.

Cheers,

Val.

I agree supplying a never ending increase in any available resource including water should not be the answer to any demand because of an increasing population. Of course we should be looking at ways to reduce our dependence. Unfortunately population stability as desirable as it is, well to me anyway, is IMHO and if you will excuse the pun, a pipe dream.
So what is the answer, in this case to to an increasing demand for water?
Well I still maintain water of as good a quality as we enjoy is way too cheap.
That study about possible solutions quoted the price of gas verses the price of water.
A 9 kg bottle of gas around $30. For that same $30 you could buy 42,000 kg or liters of water. About an average household swimming pool.
At present we are relying on catchment, bores and desalination for our water. Catchment in our geographical location and characteristics may have worked 50 or so years ago but not now. We just can't catch enough and rainfall is becoming more and more unreliable.
Bores, well guess where the water in those bores ultimately came from. Yep, rainfall.
Desalination, should be ok for the "raw material" for a while yet but unfortunately is pretty energy hungry.
So back to square one. We either reduce our consumption or find other ways to satisfy demand. If water from sources such as Lake Argyle is not economically sustainable maybe we need to re-do the maths so that it is.

Just a thought
Pop

I think the most viable solution to Perth, or any city for that matter, water shortage is recycling!
We send so much water from street run-offs and sewerage out to sea it is staggering.
I know there are those that say "I won't drink recycled water"! What do they think rainfall is? Natural, efficient recycling.
I think the reason we (the planet) is so short of water is due to overpopulation. The human body is some 70% water and there are too many 50kg bags of water walking around now. :-D

Cheers Neil (I'm going back to bed, 3.40am, yuk)

Everyone seems to be talking about increasing water supplies to areas that are too dry to support more population growth. Well how about we accept that we have reached the population limit and stop growing? Lets face it, those with an economic interest won't be happy until the whole of Oz is turned into a massive feedlot for humans. Personally, I think we have too many here already. It is harder and harder to get away from civilisation into the wilderness, let alone strike a balance between development and open spaces in the population centres. As it is, there is very little accessible bushland in Victoria and NSW. Designated national parks are becoming "no go" areas, and farm fences go right to the road almost everywhere else.

There a number of aspects to the Ord river pipeline debate that should be addressed.
The first is whether it is ethically correct to take water from a distant region (Kimberley) and transport it to another (Perth) for their sole use.
Secondly, wouldn't it be better as a previous correspondent inferred to move the people to the resource.
Thirdly and most important is to recognise that a number of studies have been done in regard to the proposal, the GHD report of 2004 is perhaps the most recent, all of which have indicated it is not viable.
Some quotes from the GHD report are significant:
"The conclusions from this review are:

Although technically feasible, the project is highly complex with significant uncertainties related to
aboriginal heritage and environmental approvals.

The project would consume significant energy (3 times per kL more than desalination) and create
significant greenhouse gas emissions (4.5 times per kL more than desalination).

The project would create significant ecological impacts particularly relating to the Fitzroy River.

At a revised estimated cost of not less than $6.10 / kL, the project remains economically unviable in
comparison with other contemporary sources (eg desalination)."
Basically it is not a goer!

Wow! I get busy at work for a day or two and come back to see the tiny pebble I lobbed into the pond has become a veritable tsunami!

I still think the best solution to the water (and many other problems) in our cities is to stop the growth and encourage people to live in places where there is heaps of water, ie across most of the top end, or at least in beautiful places in regional Australia, which may or may not be also on the coast. Our governments are wayyyyy to city-centric, with the possible exception of the WA one courtesy of Royalties for Regions.

Second, on CY O'Connor, something I had never appreciated was that most of the controversy was not around the technical possibilities of the project, but to do with corruption.

For example, originally the pipes were to be imported in two halves, one half slightly smaller than the other such that it would fit inside the other to save shipping costs, but in the end they were manufactured in WA with both halves the same size. This meant that the pipe was a bit bigger so was able to carry a higher head, such that not so many pumps were required and those pumps would be in different locations.

However O'Connor's project manager had already surveyed the townsites around the pumping stations and was corruptly involved in land dealings so constructed an engineering case around the existing plan without revealing his conflict of interest. This was all revealed at the Royal Commission the day before CY O'Connor shot himself and is widely believed by historians to the breaking point for him, having staked his reputation on the integrity of his assistant.

But what a wonderfully interesting thread.

If youve got a day to kill driving to Kalgoorlie , just grab the golden pipleine book and follow the sites.

2 of the better stops are the pump sation museum in Cunderdin and Karralee dam

While we're on big ideas, why don't we did a ditch between Spencer Gulf and Lake Eyre via Lake Torrens. It'd be easy. Once the ditch is dug it would be all down hill for the water into Lake Eyre. With the lake full, prevailing winds would pick up the evaporation and drop it as rain on the Western side of the Great Divide. Easy! problem solved.

WBS