This time 12 months ago our dam levels were at 64 percent capacity. Today they’re at 45 percent, which pretty much explains why level 2 watering restrictions come into play from tomorrow, December 10. It also explains why we’re all slowly changing our habits when it comes to using water.
When the dams are full we take water for granted, no doubt about it.
But soon as levels start to plunge all we can think about is water and how we can make what we’ve got stretch as long as possible – or at least until there’s some serious rainfall once again.
The idea that we may have no water to drink just shocks us into some sort of survival mode, where every drop of water is vitally important.
Some of us have even taken an interest in these giant tanks, or reservoirs, which are dotted in every suburb.
We hardly notice them when the dams are full but, once again, when a drought hits something inside us makes us look at them and wonder what they actually do.
Do they collect water? How are they connected to the water distribution system, if at all?
Plenty of questions there, so I put in a call to someone I know who worked at Sydney Water for some time.
They don’t collect rain water, it seems. What happens is water gets pumped to them, and then it’s pumped to the houses nearby.
Most are built at the highest point possible of each suburb to allow for gravity to do its bit in distributing the water to households.
My source told me that each reservoir is a closed system, and the hatches have alarms in case someone tries to break in and contaminate the water inside the reservoir
So it’s just a holding tank, a big one at that, to help distribute water to customers.
This one pictured holds 3.8 megalitres, and if you don’t know, one megalitre is one million litres of water.
But back to the water restrictions.
The former Sydney Water contact told me that the government, if it’s serious about restrictions, needs to also reintroduce water patrols.
It’s true that the Berejiklian Government hasn’t mentioned water patrols, so we’ll keep an eye for that.
As for rain, one of her MP’s, Peter Sidgreaves, the member for Camden, told me on Friday that we won’t get any decent rainfall until February.
