Water restrictions
Worried about water? Then move to 'Beautiful Bright' where it always looks this good (and our cars are clean!)
Bright to go on stage 1 … after the heatwave is over
You know you’re living in one of the best areas for water supply when you go through a two-week record heatwave – on top of the driest ever January – without any water restrictions. Yep, that’s been the case up here. While lawns & gardens in the rest of the State brown off and/or die, here in Bright we’ve had no water restrictions at all this summer and have been free to keep our pools topped up, our cars washed and even water the lawns!
Doesn’t that make the rest of you just turn red with anger green with envy? Well you would “turn green” if you had some water, I guess. Well …. suffer, no one is making you stay where you are!
It comes as no surprise then that NE Water has now decided to put Bright on Stage One: Mild Restrictions, but ONLY from next Wednesday February 11 when the current heatwave should well and truly be over. And even Stage One still allows you to do a fair bit of watering (on alternate days) and YES, you can even use a ‘manual watering system’ - meaning a sprinkler! – and still wash the car.
Stage One? No problem, summer will soon be over anyway.
What makes Bright’s situation all the more remarkable is the fact that we have NO PERMANENT WATER STORAGE DAM and all our water is taken directly out of the Ovens River and pumped up to a very small holding facility for treatment and reticulation throughout the town. And the water pressure we have here is something else!
BETTER STILL, and giving even more cause for optimism, is the fact that a 500 megalitre off-river dam is to be built above Bright by 2011, which should almost guarantee our water security for many years to come.
Why am I telling you this? Am I gloating? Well no, there’s a reason for this.
You see, despite all the doom & gloom out there (and a fair bit around here) about global warming, water scarcity and ”keeping the population down”, there are still plenty of good reasons to make that treechange to:
Wally says: I'm taking y'all to VCAT, Woolies. Go on, git! Git out of 'my town'.
Contact: alpineopinion@gmail.com
Click 
Ray,
We have water, Yes – but have you seen the river conditions. Thank god I have a pool! I wouldn’t swim in the river. Especially the park in Porepunkah.
I was actually thinking the same things you have mentioned a few days ago.
I understand Myrtleford has been on Stage 1 for quite some time and also has a “boil water” notice. Not sure how correct I am here, but I believe Myrtleford’s water treatment is to change back to Chlorinated.
I gather too, given the Tobacco industry collasped and there is less water being pumped from the river system, this has benefited our water supply.
Here I am trying to “talk Bright up”, Andrew, and you go and sledge the river! Sheez!
No problem, and you’re sort of right but the discolouration of the river has only been caused by those couple of big storms we’ve had recently. Did you hear that Melbourne? Even though it’s been over 40 degrees up here we’ve had a few dumps of good rain! (not to mention the spectacular lightning).
As for Myrtleford, they don’t get their water from the Ovens, theirs comes from the Buffalo River & dam. And they’re only on stage 1 so that Wang can stay restriction-free (and they don’t seem to realise it!)
Likewise I don’t think the Tobacco industry’s disappearance has had a bearing on our situation. It’s a combination of good earlier rains in the catchments of both the Ovens & the Buffalo that have seen no need for Bright to go on restrictions. That and the fact that NE Water obviously realises we’re a town worth preserving!
[...] Water restrictions « Alpine Opinion You know you’re living in one of the best areas for water supply when you go through a two-week record heatwave – on top of the driest ever January – without any water restrictions. Yep, that’s been the case up here. While lawns & gardens in the rest of the State brown off and/or die, here in Bright we’ve had no water restrictions at all this summer and have been free to keep our pools topped up, our cars washed and even water the lawns! [...]
The fires are getting closer…