Breaking News

The Optima Water Filter Is Launched

DATE: 19-Oct-2011

Freshly Squeezed Water is proud to announce the launch of the much anticipated Optima range of water filtration solutions. The Optima represents the latest advancement in water filtration worldwide. Optimas unique flow controlled filter cartridges ensure maximum contact time between the incoming tap water and the end result, the product water. Contact time between the water and the filter media has always been recognized as the key factor in ultra pure filtration. The systems patented dual cartridge ports (inlet and outlet water vents) ensures the water flows through the entire media, resulting in pure fresh drinking water at the faucet.

Unlike standard single port cartridges which can result in significant media bypass, Optima’s filtration is guaranteed, 100% effective. That’s why the Optima system has received the highest of filtration awards from the worlds international water regulator, National Sanitation Foundation, USA.

After many years of extensive research and development, Optima ensures:
• Premium performance in cyst elimination, ie giardia and cryptosporidiuml
• Excellent absorption of chlorine, ammonia and volatile gases
• Effective removal of heavy metals, eg lead, aluminium, copper
• Total elimination of dirt, rust, sediment and scale
• Drinking water free of water borne pollens and allergens
• Removal of herbicide, pesticides and insecticides.

Optimas patented head incorporates a built in water shut off valve. So now,when its time to change filter cartridges there is no need to locate and isolate the systems shut off valve.

For more information visit: http://www.freshlysqueezed.com.au/filterrange.php?r=35

Desalination: option for Port Lincoln

DATE: 21-Apr-2011

The South Australian Water Department has issued the state's first demand and supply statement which assesses the availability of water supplies for a sustainable lifestyle. The water supply for the Eyre Peninsula region has to be augmented by as Early as 2017.

Port Lincoln Mayor Bruce Green says the statement has given the community suitable notice to act before it becomes a problem. "The only alternatives really that we have are desal or more River Murray water."

The Port Lincoln council is committed to reducing wastage and leaks and reducing demand for water, but only small saving can be achieved in this way. A desalinisation plant is now a considered an option to supply water to the region.

For more information visit: http://www.abc.net.au/news/

World Water Day

DATE: 22-Mar-2011

Smart Water Fund has partnered with global technology company Siemens to host Water Innovation Day on 22 March 2011 to coincide with World Water Day.

World Water Day was established to draw attention to the state of the world’s water resources.  This year's international forums organised to celebrate World Water Day are focused on clean drinking water and purification and the main theme is 'Water for Cities'.  Water Innovation Day showcases the role innovation plays in addressing the challenges of water management in a changing climate.

For World Water Day 2011, in Sydney is launched the 1 Billion Litre Savings Target for Deutsche Bank over the next five years, a target they set in support of the Water for Cities initiative.

For more information visit: http://www.worldwaterday.org

An end to the drought?

DATE: 31-Oct-2010

With so much rain and flooding in parts of Australia over the past few months, many people have asked if the drought has finally ended.

Not necessarily, according to the Special Climate Statement released by the Bureau of Meteorology in early October. The statement explains recent high rainfall across most of Australia in 2010 in the context of longer term rainfall patterns.

The Special Climate Statement concludes that:

"Despite above-average rainfall over much of Queensland in 2010, long-term rainfall deficits still
exist in the south-east of the state. For the seven-year period to 2008 much of southern Queensland
was experiencing rainfall values in the lowest 10% of historical totals. This situation has eased, but
there remains an extensive area of rainfall totals in the lowest 10% of such periods on record,
covering much of the south-east corner.
South-eastern Australia, including southern parts of the MDB, Victoria and Tasmania, largely
missed the widespread well-above-average falls experienced further north in 2010. These areas are
still covered by extensive rainfall deficits for the nine-year period. Much of Victoria (88%) has
recorded rainfall in the lowest 10% of such periods on record; 56% of Tasmania has likewise
recorded rainfall totals in the lowest 10% of such periods on record. However, the large areas of
lowest-on-record rainfall that were present in Victoria for the seven-year period October 2001 to
September 2008 are no longer present at the nine-year time scale, except in some small areas in the
east of the state and around Melbourne.
In south-west Western Australia, a continuation of extreme low rainfall years, coupled with no
intervening years of widespread above-average falls, has led to this region experiencing the seconddriest
nine-year period on record. This has led to the development of a large"

For more information visit: http://www.bom.gov.au/water/newEvents/articles/six.shtml

Blackwater mixing with the Murray

DATE: 17-Oct-2010

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority advised of ongoing poor water quality in the lower Wakool River and of the possibility of poor water quality in the River Murray.

The water quality has been affected  is classified as a ‘blackwater event’ caused by return water flows from the natural flooding of the Koondrook and Perricoota Forests. There have been reports of fish deaths in the Wakool River. The affected blackwater is currently moving downstream in the Murray River basin.

Any water quality issues are expected to be short term and localised, as increased flows are expected down the Murray River due to recent rain and the provision of managed environmental water from The Living Murray portfolio and the Barmah-Millewa Forest Environmental Water Allocation.

People using the Murray River water are advised to take precautions by boiling or filtering their water. Further advice will be issued if circumstances change.

For more information visit: http://www.mdba.gov.au/media_centre/media_releases/wakool-and-mid-murray-water-quality-alert

Australia’s water future threat

DATE: 01-Oct-2010

“With an expected decline in water availability in parts of Australia comes the need for more reliable quantification of historical and likely future water availability,” Dr Chiew said today in an address to the Practical Responses to Climate Change Conference in Melbourne.

“Predictions of future water availability and runoff characteristics are improving rapidly with more data becoming available and with the rapid progress in climate and water science.

“However, the range of plausible future projections is likely to remain large.

“Water planning and management decisions always need to consider the balance between risk and rewards, and whether the system can adapt to climate change and other factors affecting water availability such as water interception activities like farm dams, plantations and other types of development.”

Dr Chiew said tools for estimating climate change impacts on water availability ranged from simple rules of thumb to modelling based on Global Climate Model projections, downscaling of climate model projections to catchment-scale climate, and hydrological models.

Recent unprecedented low stream-flows recorded in parts of Australia had shown that current water management plans are inadequate to deal with the high variability in water availability, whatever the root cause.

“Climate change needs to be considered in the context of other drivers such as water interception activities, existing levels of water use and proposed development activities, and the complex interactions between these and a whole range of other factors,” Dr Chiew said.

A decline in water availability creates a decline in water quality and an increase in the chance of blue-green algae or cryptosporidium in the water supply. To preserve water quality use water filtration systems. Freshly Squeezed Water Co recommends such as the Snap-Seal Ultra water filter.

For more information visit: http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news-global-food-crisis/20100110-21379.html

Arid Australia Sips Seawater, but at a Cost

DATE: 17-Aug-2010

In one of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects in its history, Australia’s five largest cities are spending $13.2 billion on desalination plants capable of sucking millions of gallons of seawater from the surrounding oceans every day, removing the salt and yielding potable water. In two years, when the last plant is scheduled to be up and running, Australia’s major cities will draw up to 30 percent of their water from the sea.

Australia is still recovering from its worst drought ever, a decade-long parching that the government says was deepened by climate change. With water shortages looming, other countries, including the United States and China, are also looking to the sea.

But desalination is also drawing fierce criticism and civic protests. Many homeowners, angry about rising water bills, and environmentalists, wary of the plants’ effect on the climate, call the projects energy-hungry white elephants. Stricter conservation measures, like mandating more efficient washing machines, would easily wring more water from existing supplies.

“Big waste of money,” said Helen Meyer, 65, a retired midwife in Tugun, the town where the northeastern state of Queensland opened a $1 billion desalination plant last year. “It cost a lot of money to build, and it uses a lot of power. Australia is a dry country. I think we just have enough water for 22 million people. What are we going to do when we’re up to 36 million?”

The plant, sprawling across 15 acres next to an airport and near residential neighborhoods, provides water to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, and other areas of southeastern Queensland, the nation’s fastest-growing region.

Besides restricting water use and subsidizing the purchase of home water tanks to capture rainwater, the state spent nearly $8 billion to create the country’s most sophisticated water supply network. It fashioned dams and a web of pipelines to connect 18 independent water utilities in a single grid. To “drought proof” the region, it built facilities for manufacturing water, by recycling wastewater, to use for industrial purposes, and by desalinating seawater. 

Other cities are making the same bet. Perth, which opened the nation’s first desalination plant in 2006, is building a second one. Sydney’s plant started operating early this year, and plants near Melbourne and Adelaide are under construction.

Many environmentalists and economists oppose any further expansion of desalination because of its price and contribution to global warming. The power needed to remove the salt from seawater accounts for up to 50 percent of the cost of desalination, and Australia relies on coal, a major emitter of greenhouse gases, to generate most of its electricity.

Critics say desalination will add to the very climate change that is aggravating the country’s water shortage. and that there are cheaper alternatives. They advocate conservation measures, as well as better management of groundwater reserves and water catchments.

For more information visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/world/asia/

Freshwater national parks?

DATE: 23-Apr-2010

We have national parks to protect sensitive areas of land, and marine parks to protect sensitive sections of ocean. But what about the freshwater areas? One Riverina academic is worried that if we don't do something now to protect the fresh water systems in the same way as we've protected land and coastal waters, it will be too late and the damage will be permanent.

The nation has been consumed by water management discussions over the past few years, including the major issues around the Murray Darling Basin.

Charles Sturt University river ecologist, Dr Paul Humphries reckons it's time for freshwater parks.

"We've actually seen the ecological collapse of most of the river systems in the Murray Darling Basin. We've seen a huge loss if species over the past couple of hundred years and the rise of introduced species like carp, redfin, trout and other smaller species we don't see so much. We've seen the ecological extinction of native species like Murray Cod, algal blooms have become more prominent as have fish kills."

Dr Humphries says there's huge pressure on the basin system because of drought, climate change and increasing demand for water by populations.

He doesn't believe water trading or buybacks of small amounts will solve the problems, but rather creating the freshwater or river version of a national park.

The idea is based around conserving biodiversity in the system where hasn't already been severely impacted, creating areas for species to breed up then move out and effectively re-seed places where those species have been lost.

Dr Humphries also says there's a need to manage the water and rehabilitate the physical habitat as well, in a coordinated way, not just in random chunks along the system in isolation.

For more information visit: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/01/28/2803546.htm

Water shortage threatens big Australia

DATE: 08-Apr-2010

Federal Population Minister Tony Burke has told ABC's the 7.30 Report that problems with water supply across Australia have helped push the issue of a population policy onto the national agenda.

"With water shortages, as they started to appear for the first time, people started to say it's not only a situation of how many workers do we want, how many jobs can we fill - there's also a question about sustainability there," he said.

Mr Burke says he will consider how much water Australia would need should the population increase and look at desalination plants, new dams and recycled water.

For more information visit: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/06/2865692.htm

Queensland drought unlikely to be over soon

DATE: 23-Apr-2009

South-east Queensland's dam levels are unlikely to reach the drought-breaking 60 per cent mark despite being agonisingly close.

The combined dam levels of south-east Queensland's three major dams increased by 0.42 per cent over the weekend to stop at 59.47 per cent.

South-east Queensland will no longer be classified in drought if dam levels reach 60 per cent.

SEQ Water spokesman Chris Zipf said it was unlikely to happen soon, as rain had eased.

For more information visit: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/

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"Disease outbreaks from drinking water are almost invariably linked to changes in measurable water quality parameters or to the failure of treatment processes to cope with extreme weather events such as high rainfall and flooding. Water treatment processes generally function best under steady state conditions, and performance can seriously deteriorate when there are major fluctuations in quality or flow."

Australian Drinking Water Guidelines

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