Water Doom: The Spring Gave Out, Drought Continues
April 12th, 2010Crossposted from Farmlet.
The Far North of New Zealand is experiencing the worst drought in 60 years. Kaitaia, the town near us, has been running under emergency conditions for weeks. Anyone caught using a hose outside faces a NZ$20,000 fine. The local farming community is in deep trouble. The hay and silage that has been put up for winter is already being used for feed. Some beef and dairy farmers are getting ready to slaughter their herds. Soon, it will be too cold to grow much grass, even if rain comes. But there’s no meaningful rain coming anyway…
We have been OK here, but after months of what might as well have been no rain, the spring finally gave out, and we used up the water that had accumulated in the tank. Technically, the spring hasn’t stopped. I’d say that about five litres trickle down to our house per day. And the cows probably drank more water than we used.
For the last two weeks, we have been living over at Becky’s parents’ house. At first, we thought that it would be easier over there with Owen, but it turned out to be pretty hard going because their place isn’t two-year-old proof. We’re back home now, but living in a quasi camping mode. Our total, usable household water supply includes two 20 litre water containers and a 200 litre rainwater barrel that’s about half full. [Update: Our friend Andrew let us borrow another 20 litre container and offered to let us fill up over at his farm.]
I’ve been giving the chooks water from the rain barrel. I’ll probably start giving the dam water to the chickens, but I read somewhere that it’s better not to give very turbid water to chickens. I don’t know if that’s true, but our dam water is very cloudy.
I have been putting off piping water from the dam down to the troughs and garden. Well, nothing puts a bomb under your tail to complete a water infrastructure project like having cows with about a day’s worth of water remaining in their troughs. Luckily, this is a personal, local and regional collapse situation, and not a BIG biggy collapse. I was able to drive to town, in our petrol powered pickup truck/ute, and buy the NZ$550 worth of pipe and fittings that I needed to complete this project. The pipe was even on sale! HAHA. A few hours of work later and the cows had a gravity fed water supply. (Another time, I’ll write about the gravity feed system that I built. It’s working great.) At first, the cows stood by the trough and looked at me, in protest, “We want our spring water back.” But they got used to the dam water pretty fast. Bex and I are happy that we didn’t have to send our cows to the works, or give them away. I doubt that anyone would buy our cows now, since most people are facing the same situation with water.
I’m seriously thinking about buying a Big Berkey water filter, as that thing could keep us going if the drought persists. I could put our dam water through that and it would be fine. If the dam runs out (a really grim possibility) there is still plenty of water in the river below our property. It’s flowing well and the water is probably ok to drink. I just don’t like the word probably when it comes to the safety of water. We could have that water tested, but I wonder if the quality could vary over time… There are no intensive farming operations around that river. It’s just bush and several lifestylers with a few dozen cows over about five kilometres. Anyway, the Big Berkey could come in very handy if the shit really hits the fan here. The reality is that it will probably never be this dry here again in my lifetime, but there’s that word probably again…
I am very sorry to hear of your woes, K.
As to the big berkeys, yes they work very well. I have 2 of them, and have had 0 problems with them, whatsoever. I also have 3 units from a competitor: Epic Water:
http://www.epicwater.com/
I really have no preference between the units.
cybele
possible short-term solutions to non-potable water if (when!) the SHTF; put a pure silver coin in the water (roman army used to do this), or use lugols iodine. this latter stuff is very cheap as it’s sold for use with pigeons! a pinch of vitamin c after it’s done its work will take the taste away. not good for you in the long term, ODing on iodine, but better than thirsting to death in the short term.
@dagobaz
I don’t know how many times I’ve written “don’t dawdle” on here when it comes to preparations. Well… I guess I didn’t eat enough of my own dog food on this one.
Re: Big Berkey:
Do you use the regular ceramic filters or the Black Berkey filters in your Big Berkey systems? We don’t have to contend with industrial pollutants here so I was thinking about going with the ceramic, but I’m not really sure. I guess the key question would be: Which type of filter holds up to being scrubbed, washed and reused the best?
Save some money by making your own Berkey. Just buy two Berkey filters and use two 3 or 5 gal. food grade plastic buckets one atop another as the body, instead of buying the expensive stainless unit.
El Nino starts in the Indian ocean and is propagated eastward along the equator
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/figure2.gif
I use the black filters in the berkeys, because the epics are ceramic. I have never had to replace the filters in any of the epics, (they are 3, 6, and 11 years old, respectively.
I replace the berkey filters yearly. (I have lots)
@uranian:
I keep a silver eagle in the potable reservoir of all my filters, have for years. Although the results are anecdotal, of my four children, ages 14, 11, 9, and 6 … none have ever been to a pediatrician.
cybele
When we first moved out into the country in the late 80s, we had 2x 5000 gallon concrete tanks for rainwater storage. We only ran out once over a particularly dry summer (we also had people staying with us that needed to be taught about water conservation). We ended up getting a tanker in as a last resort… the worst thing about that was the taste. I hated town water.
Hopefully you’ll get something out of this: http://www.metvuw.com/forecast/forecast1.php?type=rain®ion=nz&tim=18 Not exactly a drought-breaker, but if you’re collecting rainwater it could help.
Kevin, Sorry to hear about your water situation. I’ve had a Big Berkey with ceramic filters for about two years now (remove iron, which I thought was bad for Mom). My understanding is that the black filters are for especially corrupted water. Regardless of which type of filter you use in the Berkey, you have to scrub the filters underwater to clean them. They thin out a little after each scrubbing (almost like a blackboard chalk film), but it is barely discernable. You should be able to pour muddy water in there and get clean (maybe I should try that to see if it REALLY works).
As for the chickens, I would put water in a bucket and then let the material settle over night. My chickens don’t seem to be finicky. I was had to shoo them away from drinking water that had soap in it. They were lapping it up!
Good Luck.
Hmm. Maybe I need to look at the Epic Water filters more closely.
Thanks for all of the suggestions and info, guys.