Are you having those deja-vues as well?
We have been fighting through a very druy summer in Auckland – which can happen. We had a few of those over the years. The rural countryside had water issues with dry paddocks, no grass for livestock and dying trees. A bit more extreme than normal, but hey – it was summer.
During that time, many rural people ran out of water and because the water tankers took so much water from some rural taps, the officials shut some of those off to conserve water and water tankers had to travel further and had issues getting to water, which in turn led to many people without water in rural communities, not only due to waiting times but also due to increased cost.
Yet, Aucklanders continued to enjoy their water without restrictions and many rural folks were very unhappy about that. After all, the water cost in reticulated areas is minimal, I’d call it almost free and have been complaining about the lack of water saving “incentives” for years – as in almost decades.
And now as we are continuing into winter, and there still has not been enough rain and the dam levels are yet again low, suddenly Auckland is calling for water restrictions, despite quite a bit of rain actually. Our water tank has been overflowing for weeks – but maybe we are just in a isolated lucky area.
Nevertheless it sounds like a deja-vu. Because I can recall the water article I did write last year about, well, empty dams.
And all I can repeat from last year is:
Well, I have been wondering about the very low water rates for years. Maybe time to actually pay the price for the “precious” resource because so far it has been a very cheap resource. Water saving technologies have been around for long and it also will require a bit of thinking and change of habit.
It does not matter why we are having those extremes, fact is we have and need to be able to adjust and get used to it.
Get onto it Auckland!