Tanks Full Already

After over 100mm of rain, both the house and shed rainwater tanks are full, and we are not even in winter yet!  The overflows are all overflowing and contributing to the groundwater flow in the area.   We hadn’t even used a third of the 120,000l tank which supplies the house and stables over the 6 months without rain,  so we probably average about 200L per day or 75 kL per year compared to Perth’s 212 kL per year for a 2 person household –  about a third.  We do have a dam for irrigating the horses summer paddock which also waters the six vege beds, so even if we double our figure, we are still at 70% of the average and that is with 3 horses drinking it.  At the AWA Ozwater conference last week, I had a couple of discussions about how rainwater tanks were still considered “un-economic” as you could never recoup the capital cost as scheme water is so cheap.  My argument is that being responsible for your own supply makes a huge difference to your attitude to water and this mindset could be priceless in a water constrained future where all new “sources” are going to get more and more expensive and energy intensive.