Level 5 Water Restrictions

Queensland is still experiencing lovely weather with record high temperatures. It's been beautiful for going for walks, riding bikes and playing tennis. Even though we are heading into winter, there seems to be little sign of it. The evenings have cooled off a bit and the pool is now too cold for me to swim in. Still no sign of rain. Other parts of Australia had some rain, but not here.

We have now moved to Level 5 Water Restrictions. It has never been implemented before, so the exact rules are a bit hazy. The idea is you get 140 litres of water per person per day. If a bucket holds about 10 litres, think about 14 buckets of water lined up. That's your shower, your toilet flush, your clothes washer, your coooking water, your pool topper-upper. You are only allowed to top up your pool if you have 3 out of 4 water saving devices installed: low flush toilets, low flow shower heads, water saving washing machine and a pool cover. Our landlords have not provided a pool cover, but we have the other 3 things. Without a pool cover, we lose about 1000 litres of water a week in evaporation. You can fill your pool or water outside plants with a bucket a few hours a week depending on if your house number is odd or even. You can water your plants outside anytime with grey water you have collected. Again, our landlords haven't installed a rainwater tank, so we don't have much grey water. We have started using a bucket at the bottom of the shower to collect water while we wait for the hot water to come through. The rainwater tanks - there is a waiting list of up to 6 months to get one. Plus, there has just not been any rain to fill them.

The upshot of all this is everything is very very dry. All of Brisbane looks brown and parched. Many of our flowers are just about dead and the hedges are showing stress. Even large trees are starting to die. Brisbane is said to be completely without any water within 18 months. The council has started working on a water recycling plant and a water pipe line. We have started monitoring our water use each week - our family project. First week, we were 168 litres per person. The next week we were down to 148. That was including topping up our pool. Also, the second week, I caught my gardener watering the plants with my water and it wasn't the right time of day! I was sure all my neighbors were muttering under the breaths staring out their windows. I went to tell him to stop and he said he could do it anytime because he was a gardener. What hope is there Queensland is going to cut back on water if people run around watering all the time with phony excuses? The truth is that it will be very difficult to track down "water cheats" and it will be interesting to see where it all ends.