Last month the city of Cape Town in South Africa narrowly avoided running out of water – a stark reminder of things to come for many communities around the world as we all struggle with changes in rainfall patterns and more severe storms as well as the increased cost of maintaining and operating complex water infrastructure.
If you don’t think it’s possible to have taps run dry, then watch this Dateline segment City Without Water and let the finishing line sink in.
“We’re going to be Mad Max 1, and you’re going to be the sequels!”
What happened in Cape Town shows that difficult situations can arise fairly quickly – for them in a mere three years, leaving residents and business owners struggling to adapt to extreme water restrictions as they try to avoid Day Zero.
Cape Town, like Noosa, relies heavily on tourism, and a recent study found that tourists use up to eight times as much water as locals.
In our part of the world, Seqwater has raised concerns about water security on the Sunshine Coast. During the Millennium Drought, the Gold Coast ran out of water. But recent trends indicate that next time the Sunshine Coast will be more vulnerable. While our dams are quite full at the moment, it only takes a couple of hot summers with low or no rainfall and high evaporation rates before the next drought bites.
Some security in the SEQ Water Grid
While many people question the large amounts of money spent on the currently mothballed Bundamba Advanced Water Treatment and Gold Coast Desalination Plants, the water grid that links all the dams and this infrastructure with communities from the Gold Coast in the south to Noosa in the north and all the way to Toowoomba in the west, provide us with enviable security. But it comes at a cost. And we need to make peace with the idea that we’ll be drinking recycled water in the future.
Our practice of discarding wastewater when this precious resource is getting harder to come by needs to be challenged and conversations need to be had. Just think about it: most of us live downstream from somewhere else and water from upstream treatment plants is released into creeks and rivers across the State. This map shows some of the discharges in the SEQ region.
(Source: Jenifer Simpson)
The local story
When I asked Seqwater for a breakdown of the numbers to establish how tourist numbers affect the data, I was informed that average daily per capita consumption is calculated from the total water production. This week our average daily use was 185 litres per person per day, slightly above the average for South East Queensland at 169 litres p/p/d.
If we want to break down the consumption rate to end-use components such as showers used at the beach, we’d have to ask Seqwater, Unitywater or Noosa Council to install smart meters across multiple sites over a 12 month period to capture seasonal influences. While some end-use studies have been conducted by Griffith University, they tend to focus on households and not public recreational use.
Tourism Noosa’s Eco-Check program highlights the benefits of reduced water usage and lists a number of case studies of local backpackers.
Noosa Flashpackers installed Oxijet water saving pressure devices that reduced water use in all showers by up to 50% without any noticeable reduction in pressure. The device decreased the energy bill with less hot water needing to be consumed as well as the obvious reduction in overall water consumption.
In applying for their ecoBIZ accreditation, Halse Lodge reduced water usage by 24% by installing water saving shower heads, toilets and taps. They also committed to staff training and awareness.
Whether the high-end accommodation providers are being as astute – and environmentally friendly – is unknown.
Slip, slop, slap – or not?
The amount of treated water used by Noosa’s 2.5 million visitors is one thing, but what about the copious amounts of sunscreen washing into the ocean? Scientists have pointed to sunscreen-slathered tourists as a previously unrecognised source of water pollution. Last week Hawaii passed a bill to ban sunscreens containing the common chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, effective 1 January 2021.
The Hawaii ban doesn’t include mineral sunscreens using zinc oxide or titanium dioxide to physically block the sun’s rays. The article stated these sunscreens have “fallen out of favour because they often leave a white sheen on the skin, but marine biologists say it’s worth looking a little goofy to save reefs.”
So there you go, as long as our high yield tourists don’t mind taking short showers and looking a bit goofy, we should all be OK!
Featured image courtesy of Beach Fires Surf & Underwater Photography – www.beachfires.com
