By Julia Hende 8.3

Victorias Expected population for 2050 is 6.5 million. Average water consumption per day for the state ML. Average rainfall-2.688mm. Total storage/capacity at full supply-1,812,175ML. On average Victoria uses 5788 GL of water per year. The average Melbourne household uses about 200,000 litres of water each year. A desalination plant would cost just over $200 million a year to run. To build a desalination plant it costs approx $5.1 billion. To build a pipeline it costs about $26 million. To build a new water dam it would cost $1.4 billion.

I would build a new dam/reservoir. Even though this would be very costly it would still be cheaper than building a desalination plant. This option would also harm the environment because trees would have to be cut down to build it but after that, there would be no real environmental issues with this. The only real major issue with this is that there is a drought and there is not that much water in the dams that we already have because of there being no rain. So this would mean that getting the dam filled up in summer would be a problem, but this it why I would build this dam up near the mountains where there is still a fair bit of snow but it is still close to Melbourne so it would fill up from the melted snow e.g. Lake Mountain.

I would also make sure that each house, business, farm etc in Victoria had at least a 3000L water tank which the government would hire contractors to install. These tanks would be suited to the number of people living in the house, amount of water they use on certain things and the room which is available to build the tank. If for any reason the household does not have any room for an above ground tank to be built, then an underground tank would be built instead.

I would also make sure that drinking water could be reused. By this I mean that shower water is reused in the laundry and water from sinks is reused as toilet water that is filtered and used to water the garden through a automatic sprinkler system. Water from the tanks can be used to give pets/animals water, cleaning things that need water to be cleaned e.g. Flywire etc., watering indoor plants, washing pets and anything else that needs water, providing that the water is not wasted or used inappropriately.

Before building the new dam and installing water tanks began I would make the water restrictions tighter because if we want to save water then we can’t waste it. When tightening the water restrictions I would make sure that you couldn’t water your plants/grass, you couldn’t water concrete, you couldn’t wash you car at home, you couldn’t fill your pool unless the council lets you and finally you couldn’t use any devices that use water e.g. Water pistols, blow up pools, hoses etc. Unless the water comes from the tank.

I think that some people would love these ideas, because they save water, encourage others to save water, are sustainable and are long term water saving ideas.

I also think that others would hate these ideas because these ideas cost money, so that would mean the water prices would rise, others may think that its unnecessary and a waste of time and money. But they are wrong, think of it this way: water for example costs $1 per litre now but if these ideas were put to use, the price of water may be $2 per litre. But if we were to do nothing now and all the water disappeared the price of water would drastically rise because we would have to get the water from somewhere else, be it bottled or from another country. So if we do something now we may actually have water for the future and end up saving money in the long run.

I think that some people would not like the government for making their water bill rise and implementing new water saving laws that don’t allow them to use water for everything. But others would appreciate what the government is doing to save water and keep Victoria a liveable, beautiful place.

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