PerthNorg

Am I right in understanding that bore users also have to comply with water restrictions?

I duno, I was watering the lawn last night with tap water, our landlord will kick our arses if that lawn dies, I don’t give a **** about restrictions.

If they want people to think about their use, then put the price of water up. The excess at our house is about $80 a year for 3 people… dirt cheap.

Yes us bore owners do have to comply with the water restrictions this year, except we get three watering days a week instead of two.

@Runamuk - How expensive do we make excess water before it will make a difference to people’s usage? $10,000 a year is dirt cheap for some people, and $80 a year is a small fortune for others. If you carry that approach to its logical conclusion then the mega rich could end up using 90% of the water supply whilst the rest of us divide up the remaining 10%.

Dave, the drought problems of the Murray Darling are an example of what happens when water is under priced. There should be a dual approach to water management, using pricing and restrictions, to ensure long term sustainability.

Bores should be banned in the metropolitan area. They are pulling all the ground water from catchment areas, including lakes and swamp land. These valuable ecosystems ensure diversity of bird life and native animals.

The main point I was trying to make is that for a lot of people, increasing the pricing is not going to make any difference to their usage.

Bores only have a negative impact on the environment in certain metropolitan (or regional) areas. In many cases they have a positive environmental impact. Suburban development reduces the amount of tree cover, resulting in upward movements of the water table and salination of the land. Sinking bores can reverse this.

Rather than banning bores, we should be banning European-style gardens and lawns from residential properties.