UNDER THE PUMP
CALAMITY. My beloved lemon tree has curled up its toes, an innocent victim of our increasing water woes, the formerly lush, fruit- laden feature now a dry stick despite desperate measures to keep it alive, and then after that failed, to revive it.
Daily checks to see if a miracle recovery was on the cards proved fruitless, and in the end there was no coming back from the gentle nudge- test I performed to see if there was any sap left in the old girl, who felled any hopes of revival by belligerently snapping off at the base.
I’m blaming my inconvenient watering days; I have hose- envy for my across- the- road neighbour who now owns what used to be my ritual Sunday evening watering session.
Should we blame ourselves for spending untold time and dollars on plants that can’t be sustained without regular watering? Along with tropical cyclones, are we supposed to plan for droughts here too? Probably, it’s been years since a proper wet season, Sydney- based commentators can deny all they like, our climate has changed. And yet we remain spectators to the interminable process of securing a water supply for our tropical drought.
While there’s been no concrete solution offered as yet, there has been a commitment to use our money to pay energy provider, Trility, whose majority shareholder is the Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation, to pump water to town. Trility is currently on the market with the major interest coming from two Chinese firms, China Everbright Water and Beijing Water, who no doubt see the potential in Australian cities requiring their services. Of course this is the emergency measure council didn’t want to have to rely on, but since their other plan – rain – has failed to materialise for a number of years now, we are hostage to a disastrous financial drain that is unlikely to ease.
Meanwhile, we are supposed to be grateful for the City Deal, where the three levels of government have committed to work together to bring favourable outcomes to the region.
If not favourable, what other kind of outcome have governments been focusing on until now?
The understandable lack of faith in authorities to secure our water supply has led to 10,000 people joining the Facebook Water for Townsville Action Group, and while any political group could only dream of having local numbers of that level, where will it get us? Unless these “likes” can be converted to votes, we will continue to cop a raw deal from every level of government. Equally frustrating is the taskforce led by local businessman Brad Webb isn’t required to deliver its final report until September 2018. Call me cynical, but is this in case we get a wet season at the end of 2017 and can once again put this expensive infrastructure on the backburner?
With the quoted $ 27,000 per day pumping costs recently revised to $ 34,000 per day, wouldn’t a gravity- fed pipeline prevent residents being held to this ever- increasing ransom, now and in the future?
The only certainty is that we’ll eventually be either applauding the final decision, or lamenting it. Let’s hope for the former.