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ADVANTAGES OF AQUIFER RECHARGE
BORES
In 1996, two (2) recharge bores
were drilled on a 30-acre private property at Forest Hill (Lockyer Valley), which lifted
the water table level by approximately twenty-three (23) centimetres in a three
(3) day heavy rain period, as a direct result of the nature of aquifer recharge.
Four (4) weeks later, after the
levelling out of the underground water table beneath the property, there was
still an overall increase of approximately two and a half (2½) centimetres in
the level of the water table in the bores.
Recharge water bores must be
initiated on a 'broad range basis', that is, a recharge hole drilled on one
property could also benefit a property owner some 3/5 kilometres away, depending
on the topology of the region. This would be easily recognised on hydrology and
geological survey maps.
For example, a 'spread' of
recharge bores in a designated area of Far North Queensland may flow down the
water table on the western side of the Great Dividing Range, and emerge in the
Condamine or Murray-Darling encatchment areas.
Aquifer recharge bores are best
drilled in low-lying areas of freehold or Crown land, thus alleviating swamping,
minor water courses and in some instances, flood plains.
To assist in the natural recharge
of the underground water table, it would be the preferred option to locate a
number of smaller recharge bores, approx. twenty (20) centimetres in diameter,
over a wide area so as to replenish sub-artesian aquifers in adjoining
underground strata's.
Larger recharge bores of up to
sixty (60) centimetres in diameter would be ideally located in natural sand-mass
and sandstone sub-artesian recharge areas.
Rather than decommissioning
existing ‘dry’ bores, as suggested by DNR & M bureaucrats, the tens of
thousands of these bores can be easily utilised for aquifer recharge at a
minimal cost.
The current proposal to pump
Brisbane's treated sewerage to be reused by Lockyer Valley farmers as irrigation
is at best ill-conceived, and at worst criminal, as any treated sewerage cannot
be guaranteed safe in the general environment, let alone used for irrigation on
vegetable crops for human consumption.
The cost of this proposal alone
could be used to fund and construct hundreds of thousands of recharge bores
across regional and rural Queensland, saving State and Federal governments
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Further facts and research are
available, in addition to diagrams, which would illustrate to even the most
fastidious representatives of Local, State and Federal governments, that this
rational solution to a real problem is achievable.
The benefit of aquifer recharge
water bores cannot be understated in view of the fact that Australia is the
driest inhabited country in the World.
This common sense proposal is
obviously in the best interests of Australia so as to replenish and maintain a
high level of artesian and sub-artesian water supplies for future generations of
Australians.
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