The world's biggest source of freshwater is beneath your feet

Andy Baker, UNSW Australia

 

You might not give it more than a passing thought, but groundwater is a vital freshwater resource. In Australia alone, the reserves of groundwater help to earn the nation a steady A$34 billion a year from mining, food production and manufacturing.

But it’s also a vulnerable resource. Worldwide, about 1.7 billion people live in regions where groundwater is under stress, 60% of them in India and China.

US and Canadian researchers recently calculated the total amount of the world’s groundwater and estimated that it is equivalent to a lake 180m deep covering the entire Earth. This makes groundwater the largest active freshwater resource on the planet.

Groundwater is often referred to as a hidden resource, as it is not often seen and is hard to visualise. Water is stored between pores in the rock, or in fractures, known as aquifers. The amount of groundwater at a particular place therefore depends on the local geology. Geological history determines the extent to which a rock is porous and fractured, and therefore whether it can store groundwater.

We still know very little about this precious resource, particularly about how it may be affected by increasing pressure and a warming world. But scientists are starting to figure out the answers.

How do you find out the age of water?

The same research team that calculated the amount of groundwater also investigated its age. How did they do this?

Humans introduced a convenient time signature on the Earth when we started testing atomic weapons. This leaves a time stamp which can be found in water, rocks and living organisms.

By seeing if there was radioactivity from atomic bomb testing present in the groundwater, the researchers could estimate that 6% of this groundwater is younger than 50 years old.

If this water was spread evenly over the continents, then there is just 3m depth of “modern” groundwater spread equally over the continents.

It could be argued that if we use only this “modern” groundwater, then this is sustainable, as we know that it has been replaced (or recharged) by natural processes over the last 50 years. But how quickly groundwater recharges changes over time.

Water has to reach the pores and fractures within rocks, either now or in the past. This means that the amount of rainfall has to be more than the amount of water evaporating from the land surface, and more than the amount of water used by all the vegetation. When this occurs, fresh water can recharge the groundwater from either water “leaking” from the beds of rivers or from rainwater that passes through the soil.

In many parts of the world we know that groundwater recharge varies due to natural climate variability such as El Nino. And groundwater recharge will also change with global warming.

Recharging water: you can’t just plug it in

Other recent research has measured how the amount of water stored on land has changed. The researchers did this by measuring changes in Earth’s gravity field, using GRACE satellite data from NASA collected between 2002 and 2014.

The gravity field is affected by the amount of groundwater, as well as water in lakes and rivers, with groundwater being by far the largest of the three. Changes in the amount of this water causes small but measurable changes in the Earth’s gravity field. The data show that water stored on land has increased from 2002 to 2014.

The increase in stored water on land is enough to affect global sea levels. So although global sea levels are rising due to global warming, over the last few years a decrease in the rate of sea level rise is explained by more water being stored on land as groundwater.

Gravity data can show us where groundwater storage has increased over time: for example, due to large flooding events in the upper Missouri in the US, and Zambezi and Niger basins in Africa. The recharge of groundwater by rivers is important and it is one of the main ways that fresh groundwater is replenished – the other being direct recharge from rainfall.

The gravity data also showed where the land water store was decreasing. These corresponded well with regions of groundwater depletion such as California and the Middle East.

Most importantly, these data identify where groundwater is being affected by natural climate variability, by human over-use (or over-abstraction) and by changes in groundwater recharge due to global warming.

Groundwater and climate

Our research group at the University of New South Wales has considered what the implications might be for the carbon budget when groundwater is abstracted. In our recent paper in Scientific Reports, we show that the harder you pump groundwater, the more organic carbon is brought to the surface.

Organic matter, which is normally found in films on the surface of rock fractures, is mobilised by pumping groundwater. Pumping groundwater can therefore move organic carbon from an underground store to become a surface carbon source. This could, potentially, be released into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

We don’t know, but with groundwater over-used in regions affecting approximately 1.7 billion people, we think it’s worth seriously investigating.

Groundwater wells at the NCRIS Groundwater Infrastructure site at Wellington, NSW, Australia Andy Baker, Author provided

Our work is the first of its kind and it has considered only one experimental research site in a fractured rock aquifer. Over the next three years, we will extend this research using a series of bore fields funded by the Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to better understand the groundwater organic carbon store.

Andy Baker, Professor, Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre, UNSW, UNSW Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Earthquakes and the Sun connnection.

Sunrise on the East Coast of Australia (Urunga)

Correction!! Solar Flare was M1.9 not 2.1 as earlier reported.Looks like we entered M-Class solar flare territory this...
Posted by Sun Watch on Sunday, 27 September 2015

I have been following Suspicious Observers weather channel for about five years now.  I have watched on with awe as the story of the sun predicting earthquakes opened up over those years while watching the CME's and when their power is earth facing.

I was pleased to read that these observations etc have now been peer reviewed.  Stay tuned for more.

Studies Suggest Sun Triggers Massive Earthquakes

The sun is triggering the deadliest earthquakes on the planet, including the recent M8.3 earthquake in Chile on September 16, 2015 and deadly tsunami that followed, according to two papers to be published October 5th in New Concepts in Global Tectonics. The papers investigate fluctuations in the magnetic field activity of the sun and found a statistically significant relationship between M8+ earthquakes and the extremes and reversals in magnetism of solar polar magnetic fields.

“The patterns observed in the solar magnetic fields aren’t the result of applying some obscure mathematical functions. The algorithm is based on things like peaks and troughs in solar cycles or the absolute strength of one of the poles at a particular time. Such simple models are more often predictive than more complex models.” Dr. Christopher Holloman

Read Full Story HERE

Watch daily weather from across the world with Suspicious Observers Youtube Channel

Just how much water are they stealing from Aquifers?

'The volume of water to be removed from the aquifers is staggering – the latest figures are that the equivalent of twenty times Sydney Harbour (10 million megalitres) will be extracted from the GAB [Great Artesian Basin] for CSG [mining]'.

http://www.gabpg.org.au/mines-csg

 

 

No 2 Gas from the Pilliga

What?!
"The volume of water to be removed from the aquifers is staggering – the latest figures are that the equivalent of twenty times Sydney Harbour (10 million megalitres) will be extracted from the GAB for CSG."
 
http://www.gabpg.org.au/mines-csg
 
"The Coal Seam Gas (or Coal Bed Methane) industry, and the mining industry, present the greatest threats to the GAB today."
You can say that again!

The Frack Attack across the Planet.

The United Kingdom, just like the USA and Australia are now facing the same situation with the "Frack Attack.  The people of the United Kingdom like us here in Australia, are concerned for their countries underground water supplies and the prospect of Fracking damaging these precious water reserves.

In Australia it is clear that aquifers have been pierced and damage has occurred in some places already.  The only reprimand to these corporations is a tiny fine.  A fine - a fine of money.   Seriously, do these governments think we believe that type of reprimand will stop anything?  The answer is a clear No.  It is occurring still as a fine is a false reprimand. The drilling corporations ie Halliburton are absolutely aware of what they are doing and they have prepared ahead of time the statements to the press regarding any flack on the frack. 

The governments and the corporations are laughing at us while we all run around like headless chooks doing everything that is humanly possible to stop this.

Dr Ingraffia is a leading spokes person against fracking, he was in the industry for over 20 years and now speaks out about the dangers this is posing to all water reserves on the planet.  Below is a breakdown of what is likely to be the outcome in the United Kingdom if they continue at the rate they are.

WITHIN 20 YEARS, 250,000 FRACKING WELLS WILL BE LEAKING OIL AND/OR GAS INTO THE UK AQUIFERS.  Check these figures.

.243,610 sq km = land area of UK
60% to be fracked = 146166 sq km
one well every 30 hectares (Ingraffea et al)
100 hectares = 1 sq km
Hence the area intended to be fracked is = 14616600 hectares
@ 1 well per 30 hectares = 487220 wells intended to be drilled
@ 10% failure rate after 1 year = 48722 (say 40,000) wells will be leaking into the UK aquifers after ONE YEAR
@ 60% failure rate after 20 years = 292330 (say 250,000) Will be leaking oil and or gas into the UK Aquifers.


WHY GROUNDWATER (AQUIFERS!) IS VITALLY IMPORTANT!

Groundwater makes up nearly 70% of all the world’s freshwater; only 0.2% is found in lakes, streams or rivers and 30% is bound up in snow and ice on mountains and in the polar regions. As rivers and lakes tend to be supported by groundwater, it is not exaggerating to say that almost all the water we use for agriculture, industry and drinking water is either groundwater or has been groundwater at some point in the water cycle.

Groundwater plays a number of very important roles in our environment and in our economies. In the environment it supports rivers, lakes and wetlands, especially through drier months when there is little direct input from rainfall. The flow of groundwater into rivers as seepage through the river bed, known as base-flow, can be essential to the health of wildlife and plants that live in the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjdhiZJCyzU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPVWY96tIxg

These mining corporations police themselves and these studies are flawed with flawed science from flawed scientists who are up to their necks in this.  These scientific reports are well known to be written with a company spin.  It all sounds so good.  Too good and that was the first hint there was corruption behind the reports.

AGL WATER STUDY

Read the Gloucester Shire Council's report on the Toxic PRODUCED Water.  Produced Water is water that has been used in the drilling process and what they plan to do with this water.   READ HERE

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

Plumbers are Awesome!

Like my new washing machine taps and water lines that I have had installed.  This moves us on with our plans of fixing up our house so that we can live here in comfort and no skimp any longer on the essentials. 

It was great to have water also connected in the bathroom at the vanity basin.  Teeth cleaning is better fun now.  Every day we get a little bit more done.  The plumber is coming back to install the laundry taps shortly and so we will be seeing more of our plumber Mr Duck. 

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE:

Dr David Pascoe BVSc PhD OVH Repro 

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE:  

Dear Men and Women of Australia, 

There are two photographs on this page, and they almost look like father and daughter. One is of a young woman, the other is of an elderly man. 

The photograph of the woman was taken in the Great Depression of 1934. Her name was Florence Owens Thompson, a 32 year old mother of seven children who was sitting homeless in a tent. The photograph was published in the newspapers of America and it enraged the nation, because people could not believe that Americans could be treated in such a way. It forced President Roosevelt to act, to step up and become a leader for his times: he launched soup kitchens, work gangs, programs for the homeless, dams and roads and railways were built – and he gave his people hope.  

John Steinbeck later wrote a book called The Grapes of Wrath which became an American literary Icon. It was about a drought that made the farmers penniless – and how the banks had forced them off their land so they could sell it on o the big corporations. What happened to the farmers of Oklahoma carved a deep and shameful scar across the American identity that was felt throughout the Twentieth Century.  

The second photograph on this page is of Charlie Phillott, 87, an elderly farmer from Carisbrooke Station at Winton. He has owned his station since 1960, nurtured it and loved it. He is a grand old gentleman, one of the much loved fathers of his community.  

Not so long ago, the ANZ bank came and threw him off his station because the drought had devalued his land and they told him he was considered an unviable risk. Yet he has never once missed a single mortgage payment.  

Today, Charlie Phillott, Grand Old Man of the West, is living like a hunted down refugee in Winton, shocked and humiliated and penniless. And most of all, Charlie Phillott is ashamed, because as a member of the Great Generation - those fine and decent and ethical men and women who built this country – he believes that what happened to him was somehow his own fault. And the ANZ Bank certainly made sure they made him feel like that. 

Last Friday my wife Heather and I flew up with Alan Jones to attend the Farmers Last Stand drought and debt meeting. And after what I saw being done to our own people, I have never been more ashamed to be Australian in my life.  

What is happening out there is little more than corporate terrorism: our own Australian people are being bullied, threatened and abused by both banks and mining companies until they are forced off their own land. 

So we must ask: is this simply to move the people off their land and free up it up for mining by foreign mining companies or make suddenly newly empty farms available for purchase by Chinese buyers? As outrageous as it might seem, all the evidence flooding in seems to suggest that this is exactly what is going on.  

What is the role of Government in all of this? Why have both the State and Federal Government stood back and allowed such a dreadful travesty to happen to our own people? Where was Campbell Newman on this issue? Where was Prime Minister Abbott? The answer is nowhere to be seen. 

For the last few months, The Prime Minister has warned against the threats of terrorism to our nation. We have been alerted to ISIS and its clear and present danger to the Australian people.  

Abbott has despatched Australian military forces into the Middle East in an effort to destroy this threat to our own safety and security. This mobilization of our military forces has come at a massive expense to the average Australian taxpayer which the Prime Minister estimates to be around half a billion dollars each year.  

We are told that terrorism is dangerous not only because of the threat to human life but also because it displaces populations and creates the tragedy and massive human cost of refugees.  

Yet not one single newspaper or politician in this land has exposed the fact that the worst form of terrorism that is happening right now is going on inside the very heartland of our own nation as banks and foreign mining companies are deliberately forcing our own Australian farmers off the land.  

What we saw in the main hall of the Winton Shire Council on Friday simply defied all description: a room filled with hundreds of broken and battered refugees from our own country. And all over the inland of both Queensland and NSW, there is nothing but social and financial carnage on a scale never before witnessed in this nation. 

It was 41 degrees when we touched down at the Winton airport, and when you fly in low over this landscape it is simply Apocalyptic: there has not been a drop of rain in Winton for two years and there is not a sheep, a cow, a kangaroo, an emu or a bird in sight. Even the trees in the very belly of the creeks are dying. 

There is little doubt that this is a natural disaster of incredible magnitude – and yet nobody – neither state nor the federal government - is willing to declare it as such. 

Suicide Rate..
The suicide rate has now reached such epic proportions right across the inland: not just the farmer who takes the walk “ up the paddock” and does away with himself but also their children and their wives. Once again, it has barely been covered by the media, a dreadful masquerade that has assisted by the reticence and shame of honourable farming families caught in these tragic situations.  

My wife is one of the toughest women I know. Her family went into North West of Queensland as pioneers one hundred years ago: this is her blood country and these are her people . Yet when she stood up to speak to this crowd on Friday she broke down: she told me later that when she looked into the eyes of her own people, what she saw was enough to break her heart  

And yet not one of us knew it was this bad, this much of a national tragedy. The truth is that these days, the Australian media basically doesn’t give a damn. They have been muzzled and shut down by governments and foreign mining companies to the extent that they are no longer willing to write the real story. So the responsibility is now left to people like us, to social media – and you, the Australian people.  

And so the banks have been free to play their games and completely terrorise these people at their leisure. The drought has devalued the land and the banks have seen their opportunity to strike. It was exactly the excuse that they needed to clean up and make a fortune, because once the rains come – as they always do – this land will be worth four to ten times the price. 

In fact, when farmers have asked for the payout figures, the banks have been either deeply reluctant or not capable of providing the mortgage trail because they have on-sold the mortgage - just like sub-prime agriculture. 

This problem isn’t simply happening in Winton, but rather right across the entire inland across Queensland and NSW. The banks have been bringing in the police to evict Australian famers and their families from their farms, many of them multigenerational. One farmer matter of factly told us it took “oh, about 7 police” to evict him from his first farm and “maybe about twelve” to evict him from his second farm which had been in his family for many generations. You think they are kidding you. Then you see the expression in their eyes.  

And there was something far worse in the room on Friday: the fear of speaking out against the banks: when we asked people to tell us who had done this to them, they would immediately start to shake and cry and look away: They have been silenced to protect the good corporate image of their tormentors called the banks. What in God’s name have the bastard banks been allowed to do to our people?  

This is a travesty against the rights and the human dignity of every Australian 

So it’s only fair that we start to name a few of major banks involved: The ANZ is a major culprit (and they made $7 billion profit last year). Then there is Rabo, which is now owned by Westpac (who paid CEO Gail Kelly a yearly salary of some $12 million) According to all reports, the NAB is right in there at the trough as well – and all the rest of them are equally guilty. For any that we have missed, rest assured they will be publicly exposed as well 

But here’s the thing: when these people are forced off their farms, they have nowhere to go. There are no refugee services waiting, such is the case for those who attempt to enter the sovereign borders of this nation. The farmers simply drive to the nearest town – that’s if the banks haven’t stripped their cars off them as well - and they try and find somewhere to sleep. Some are sleeping on the backs of trucks in swags. There is basically no home or accommodation made available to take them. They camp out, shocked and broken and penniless – and they are living on weet bix and noodles. If there is someone that can lend a family enough money to buy food, they will: otherwise they are left completely alone.  

And consider this: not one of them has asked for help. Not one. They just do the best they can, ashamed and broken and brainwashed by the banks to believe that everything that has happened is completely their own fault 

Politicians say naught
There is not one single word of this from a politicians lips, with the exception of the incredibly courageous father and son team of Bob and Robbie Katter, who organised the Farmers Last Stand meeting. The Katter family have been in the North since the 1890’s, and nobody who sat in that hall last Friday could question their love and commitment to their own people.  

There is barely a mention of any of this as well in the newspapers, with the exception of as brief splash of publicity that followed our visit.  

The Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce attended the meeting in a bitter blue-funk kind of mood that saw him mostly hunched over and staring at the floor. He had given $100 million of financial assistance in a lousy deal where the Government will borrow at 2.75% and loan it back at 3.21%.  

The last thing these people need is another loan: they need a Redevelopment Bank to refinance their own loans: issuing a loan to pay off a loan is nothing more than financial suicide.  

The reality is that Joyce cannot get support from what he calls “the shits in Cabinet” to create a desperately needed Redevelopment Bank so that these farmers can get cheap loans to tide them through to the end of the drought.  

Our sources suggest that those “shits in Cabinet” include Malcolm Turnbull – Minister for Communications and the uber-cool trendy city-centric Liberal in the black leather jacket:, Andrew Robb – Minster for Trade and Investment and the man behind the free trade deal, the man who suddenly acquired three trendy Sydney restaurants almost overnight, the man who seems to suddenly desperate to sell off our farms to China – and one Greg Hunt, Environment Minister and the man who is instantly approving almost every single mining project that is put in front of him. 

At the conclusion of the meeting, we stood and met some of the people in the crowd. My wife talked to women who would hug her for dear life, and when they walked away people would suddenly murmur “oh, she was forced off last week” or “they are being forced off tomorrow” . Not one of them mentioned it to us. They had too much pride. 

The Australian people need to be both informed and desperately outraged about what is being done to our own people. This is about every right that was once held dear to us: human rights, property rights, civil rights. And most all, our right to freedom of speech. All of that has been taken away from these people – and the rest of us need to understand that we are probably next.
Mines get all the water they want....

In the last four weeks the Newman Government has removed all farmers rights to protest to a mine and given mining companies the rights to take all the water they want from the Great Artesian Basin – and at no cost to them at all.  

And all of this has happened under the watch of both Premier Newman and Prime Minister Abbott.  

Waltzing Matilda ....

Until Friday, we used to think of Winton as the home of Waltzing Matilda: it was written at a local station and first performed in the North Gregory Hotel. I think it was Don McLean who wrote, “something touched me deep inside…the day the music died”… in his song American Pie, and for us, last Friday was the day music died.  

We will never be able to sing Waltzing Matilda again until we see some justice for these people, and all the farmers of the inland. 

This is no longer the Australia we once knew: no longer our country, no longer our people, no longer the decent caring leaders we once remembered.  

Right now, the banks, the mining mates, the corrupt politicians and all the ‘mongrels in suits’ have won – and the Australian people don’t have a clue what has been done to them.  

Like the American Depression and the iconic photograph of Florence Owens Thompson, there is a terrible, gaping wound that has been carved across the heartland of this nation. 

We need to fully grasp that, and to understand that our people – dignified, decent and honourable old men like Charlie Phillott - have been deliberately terrorized, brutalised – and sold out. 

So if we are ever going to do something, then we’d better realise that its two minutes to midnight – so we’d better move fast. 

Regards 

David  

Please share this as widely as you can across Australia. You are now the only truthful means we have to spread the message.  Contact politicians, contact newspapers, radio and television stations. Demand that your voice is heard. 

PHOTOS:  
Charlie Phillott (left) The Australian December 2014:  
Florence Owens Thompson (Dorthea Lange) March 1936 (originally photographed in b&w)

Tara QLD where the children are sick... its reputed to be caused from the toxic environment caused from mining.

Post Script - ALAN JONES 9-12-2014

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

ONE WELL HEAD for EVERY TEN ACRES!!

In Australia we are under attack from the major corporate Energy companies.  In Queensland it has become such a health problem for those still living in the gas fields.  Government is denying any correlation to health issues and drilling in the area.  We all think differently.  I have seen these children with bleeding ears and bleeding noses and I know its the drilling that has caused their serious health impacts.  Proving this is another kettle of fish though.

One of the Fracc Site in Gloucester

If you want to understand what happened in the USA that brought this industry to another level and changed gas extraction here in Australia as well.  Halliburton is all over it down under.  Recently at Gloucester NSW, Halliburton trucks have been seen and AGL are about to Frac there.

We have the office of Coal Seam Gas in the state of NSW.   This office is supposed to take care of the contracts and make sure there is only a small impact, and none to people and water.

  With the Gloucester Gas Project, the OCSG changed the rules.  This is criminal behaviour by our politicians in NSW.   I have many unanswered questions regarding the procedure for the rubber stamping of this project by AGL.

Below is a very in depth video that is well worth watching if you want to totally familiarize yourself with the hydraulic fracturing process employed to get this natural gas from kilometers under the ground.

The land is in crisis and so is the water and the air.  I have been looking at the drilling at the Coopers Basin in South West of Queensland and the North East of South Australia because of the health of the indigenous peoples who live there.   People are sick.  The government have many excuses for this problem, but Mining is not one of these.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shares a laugh with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney during his farewell parade at the Pentagon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

`Sourced from the Longmont Roar

WATCH THIS VIDEO

The Halliburton Loophole

Content taken from Burning Question: What Would Life Be Like Without the Halliburton Loophole:

“The loop­hole refers to the Energy Pol­icy Act of 2005, which exempts the hydraulic frac­tur­ing process, also known as frack­ing, from fed­eral over­sight under the Safe Drink­ing Water Act of 1974. Then Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney did have a hand in get­ting the exemp­tion put into the Energy Pol­icy Act. He chaired Pres­i­dent Bush’s Energy Pol­icy Task Force, which rec­om­mended frack­ing be excluded. And Cheney is a for­mer Hal­libur­ton exec­u­tive. Hal­libur­ton, by the way, began frack­ing in the 1940’s to extract for oil. But the use of frack­ing, com­bined with hor­i­zon­tal drilling, has only recently been used to mine shale gas.The loop­hole does have an excep­tion. If drilling com­pa­nies use diesel fuel to frack a well, they do have to get a fed­eral permit.

Also amended in the 2005 Energy Pol­icy Act was the Clean Water Act. Con­gress enacted the CWA back in 1972 as a way to reg­u­late dis­charges into the country’s rivers and streams. The CWA was amended in 1987 to include storm water run-off. But oil and gas pro­duc­tion are exempted from those reg­u­la­tions. And in the 2005 Energy Pol­icy Act, those exemp­tions included oil and gas con­struc­tion. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists worry about run-off from well pads, pipelines and con­struc­tion sites.

With­out fed­eral over­sight, it’s up to the states to reg­u­late gas drilling.”

“And it’s not just the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drink­ing Water Act that exempt the oil and gas indus­try. The Clean Air Act, passed by Con­gress in 1970, exempts oil and gas wells from aggre­ga­tion. That means, each well site is con­sid­ered an indi­vid­ual source of pol­lu­tants, and does not take into account all of the well sites in a spe­cific area.

When it comes to the han­dling of waste water, or frack water, that too is exempt from a fed­eral statute called the Resource Con­ser­va­tion and Recov­ery Act. The RCRA tracks indus­trial wastes from “cra­dle to grave.” But when it comes to the oil and gas indus­try, as long as the waste water is on the drill site, or being trans­ported, it is not con­sid­ered haz­ardous. This also applies to drilling mud. That’s why trucks car­ry­ing waste water, which con­tains high lev­els of salts, toxic chem­i­cals, as well as radioac­tive mate­r­ial, may be labeled “resid­ual waste.”

The National Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy Act, or NEPA, requires fed­eral agen­cies to do envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ments if major indus­trial projects would impact the envi­ron­ment. But the Energy Pol­icy Act of 2005 rel­e­gated oil and gas oper­a­tions to a less strin­gent process.

Finally, the Toxic Release Inven­tory requires indus­tries to report toxic chem­i­cals to the EPA. But the oil and gas indus­try are exempt from this reporting.”

 RESOURCES:
Read the Complete Energy Policy Act of 2005
State of the Law: Federal, State and Local Regulation of Hydrofracturing, (Kathleen Dachille, JD)

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

AGL are crowing over the Reverse Osmosis Plant

Coal seam gas company AGL says it will provide up to two megalitres a day of desalinated water to Gloucester residents, through its new desalination project.  A megalitre is 1 million Litres.  2 Megalitres is two million litres of toxic water to deal with.  This is a lot of water on a daily basis and people should take note this water is not meant for the surface of the planet.

Tiedimans Lane Gloucester Gas Project - AGL

Personally I find this proposition quite scary.  I think that John Ross really doesn't know the truth of which he speaks.  This water is poison.  There is no process known to man that can change the memory that water holds.  It holds the vibration of where it has been.  This water knows where it came from and this water knows it is as a premature baby trying to exist as an adult.  It will not work.

Read the ABC story Here

"If we've got an extremely long and wet period, then there may be a need to release water into the Avon River
John Ross, Hydrogeology Manager"

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

The Water Payment Assistance Scheme - PAS

I recently came across this piece of information regarding help to those who are financially stretched with the payment of water bills to the household.

Urunga Water Drips away..

Presently we are gripped with high prices for domestic water supply and all the while we as small household customers are paying through the neck for water while the Energy and Mining companies pay little to nothing for Mega Giga Litres of water day after day after day.

This was one problem and now we are faced with a second problem from the latter there with a large risk their use of water will actually result in the contamination of the Basins and Aquifers that are underground water supplies and hold the health of the earth in its flow.

I liken these rivers underground to the blood in our veins and if you get high enough in a plane and look down at the river systems, they visually resemble the venous system as well.

So back to the households paying huge bills and trying to stay afloat.. pardon the pun.   This is where PAS comes in.

Česky: Pitná voda - kohoutek Español: Agua potable (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From EWON - Energy Water Ombudsman NSW 
About PAS
The Water Payment Assistance Scheme (PAS) can help you if you are having difficulty paying your Hunter Water, Sydney Water or Shoalhaven Water bill. This scheme assists people experiencing financial hardship by providing vouchers or a credit to a water account.

Before you seek assistance

If you are having trouble paying your bill you should speak to your water company first.
Water suppliers may be able to suggest a payment scheme or arrangement to assist you manage your bills (see customer assistance programs).
If you are unable to make arrangements with your supplier, contact a local community agency that offers this form of assistance and make an appointment.

Where can you get water vouchers?
Many community welfare organisations offer PAS. These include:

• St Vincent de Paul Society
• The Salvation Army
• Anglicare
• The Smith Family
• Some community or neighbourhood centres

If you can't find a PAS agency in your area, contact us for help.

Who can get water vouchers?

Anyone who is in financial hardship can apply for PAS assistance. The hardship may be caused by a range or combination of factors, including:

• a loss of income
• a very high water bill
• an illness in the family
• a family crisis
• unexpected expenses or bills

What about tenants?

Although the landlord is responsible for the water account, in many cases it is a condition of the lease for tenants to pay for the cost of water consumption. If you are responsible for this part of the water bill, you may be eligible for PAS, see water accounts for more.

Access to PAS for tenants is limited to $150 for water usage. As PAS cannot be used to put an account in credit, the landlord should not pay the entire bill in advance if you want to use PAS vouchers. As this is a private arrangement between you and your landlord or real estate agent, speak to them first if you are facing financial difficulty.

For detailed information, contact your water supplier. Further information on your rights and responsibilities as a tenant is available from Tenants NSW.
How does it work?

1. In most cases you will need to make an appointment with the agency over the telephone.
2. Take your water bill to the appointment and the agency will decide if they can assist you
3. The agency may also help you arrange a payment plan with your supplier for the remainder of the bill, or provide other assistance such as financial counselling.
4. Pay the vouchers on to your account at the post office or other outlet, remembering to bring along a recent bill with the barcode intact.
5. If not organised beforehand, call your water supplier to make an arrangement for the remainder of your bill.
6. If you are unable to make arrangements to pay the remainder, you can contact us for help.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography