Sunday 10 February 2008

Desalination plant

I have no idea why we're building a desalination plant in Sydney. They are expensive suckers to build and maintain. And every time it rains here, gigalitres go down the stormwater drains and out to sea. Most houses don't even have rainwater tanks yet.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Gordon,

I think there is a bigger issue going on then just water.

Some years ago I one of the current affairs programs and newspaper carried a story about a chemical plant down Parramatta River having a real bad toxic leak from its dump that had been buried say 60 years previously. That toxic plume was being carried by underwater streams towards botany bay.

Apparently the chemical co wanted to drill some wells along the way to pump the water out, but the state would not let them ...something about main roads and infrastructure and homes being in the way...and that they would do something down at botany bay to catch the plume.

Now for some reason I can't get hold of any info regarding that story... yet isn't it amazing that now a water desal plant is being built and ICI is going to use the waste to make chlorine products.

Now I'm not normally a skeptic or one to hold conspiracy theories, but in my mind 2+2 = 4.

Off course the gov would not want to alarm people to say they have decontaminated toxic water and thats what you are going to be drinking - so instead they can safely say we are desalinating the sea water from Botany Bay - missing the minute detail that the water is about to be contaminated from a toxic plume from an old chemical dump.

marion said...

Build more dams? & give tax rebates for rainwater tanks?

Gordon Cheng said...

Hey Craig,

My dad worked down the road from ICI at Rhodes, at CSR Chemicals.

Always a big stink when you went through that railway station.

Now it's all been capped with concrete, dioxins buried deep down.

Anyway, I like the idea of a conspiracy theory about all that stuff, and if they have worked out a way to detox it that is even better. Who knows, really.

Anyway, got any good theories on who killed JFK? ;-)

Unknown said...

There is a large groundwater plume at Botany Bay under the old ICI site. See
www.oricabotanygroundwater.com/history.htm
Orica are selling some of the water to nearby industries. They are trying to sell more too. In my view, they need to be cleaning it up to a better standard and faster though.

They are cleaning up dioxin pollutants at Rhodes. They are presently building housing on the remediated areas. I wouldn't live there though. They are cleaning up the sea bed a little bit too.

Good to have conspiracies about the desal plant. $2billion is a lot of money for something we don't need.

Rainwater tanks please!

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

You need to read my blog more often Gordo.

Gordon Cheng said...

Well now that you've changed that urrky picture, Neil, maybe I will!

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

Well this article has dated badly.