By CLIVE DALTON*
Lifestyle block-owners, especially those moving on to new properties, often tell you that their water is a bit disappointing. Or it's so bad that they avoid the subject.
When you hear that their visitors refuse a cup of tea and bring their own bottled water, then you realise
there are problems. Visiting kids are great, as they announce for all to hear that the water is yuck.
A visit to the bathroom to see the blue stain where the tap drips tells you the water is acid, and a black line around the loo is not what they've been eating, it's excess manganese - a real nasty.
Of course, these seekers of the good life compare their lifestyle-block water to town water, with its chlorine and fluoride and a bit of algae bloom for extra flavour. They were looking forward to getting away from that.
There's a massive lack of appreciation among many rural folk about where water comes from. What they do know is that well-drillers are magic folk who can find good water for you. So drills go down and water comes up. It may take a bit of extra drilling and, at worst, a shift to a new spot, but it will come. If it comes only part of the way up, then there are magic pumps to hasten it into your waiting tanks.
They forget that the water from the tap today may have taken years to accumulate and it's only when things get dry in summer that concerns creep in. This often coincides with the family's being home with all their washing, the dishwasher never being idle, the swimming pool needing topping up all the time and their cars needing washing to remove all that rural grime. And mum wants the new garden irrigation system she got for Christmas working full-time.
It's no good suggesting to family and visitors to save water, or mentioning how we used to manage in the old days. One farmer told me recently that in the old days, their home dairy farm had fantastic water. Now it's crook and full of iron.
What's happened in the interim? Well, the surrounding area has been cut up into small blocks and they've all bored down for water out of the same aquifer. Who was monitoring this? Who said when to stop? How many bores should have been allowed? Who's in charge of this environmental issue? Few developers of new blocks seem to know.
So the rule seems to be, get in first and have the biggest pump. Now that 4ha blocks are being subdivided into 1ha blocks, the problem will surely get worse.
There seem to be regulations and concern over septic tanks - and that's good - but is there the same concern over water? You can see how easy it would be to sink your new bore near your neighbour's overflowing septic tank.
So the rule of all good land agents specialising in small-block sales is to look at the water supply first on a block and the house last. Never, ever in the reverse order!
There has to be a much greater effort to save roof water, both in town and the country. What's surprising these days, apart from the new claddings used on new flash houses, is the lack of rainwater storage and solar heating.
But let's not just blame lifestylers for lack of water appreciation. A new high-tech dairy farm with 380 cows was reported recently as being able to flood-wash its collecting yard after each milking with 30,000 litres of water, saving 90 minutes' cleaning a day. At 70 litres/cow for drinking and 70 litres/cow for plant cleaning, that's 113,200 litres/day from somewhere. Can this sort of thing be sustained? Is it progress?
* Dr Clive Dalton is technical editor of www.lifestyleblock.co.nz
By CLIVE DALTON*
Lifestyle block-owners, especially those moving on to new properties, often tell you that their water is a bit disappointing. Or it's so bad that they avoid the subject.
When you hear that their visitors refuse a cup of tea and bring their own bottled water, then you realise
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