Seventy-eight million litres or twenty million gallons of precious raindrops…
You ever wonder how much water goes into a wave tank ‘cause they big, yeah?
How much you think it costs to turn the hose on and fill the hole?
The Morning Bulletin, a daily newspaper that services Central Queensland, which includes Yeppoon, home of an experimental wavepool powered by a giant plunger, has reported of an imbroglio between the pool’s owners and local council over whether the pool should continue to receive a discounted rate for water.
The numbers are pretty wild.
See, from 2017 to last September, Surf Lakes and the Livingstone Shire Council had an agreement that gave Surf Lakes cheap water ($1.30 per thousand litres or 0.004 cents a gallon) because the company said it “could bring substantial future economic activity and benefit to the region”.
The pool, which takes seventy-eight million litres to fill, or “over nine times the average daily water consumption for the entire shire”, paid $102,078.60 for the initial fill, a saving of fifty-grand from the usual commercial rate
Since September, however, that rate went up to a little over two bucks.
“It would appear the reasons relied upon by Council to support the initial request are no longer relevant, or at least significantly diminished,” the April 2019 LSC council report read.
The unlikelihood of the facility ever opening to Capricorn Coast surfers has made the project a point of community contention.
The newly formed council with new Mayor Andy Ireland confirmed the newly formed council will re-assess the agreement later this year.
The Slater pool in dusty ol Lemoore, meanwhile, takes sixty-eight mill litres to fill; the Wavegarden tanks in Bristol and Melbourne, twenty-two mill.
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The cost of shaping the bottom where the wave would break would take divers —- some way to anchor it to the sea fioor—divers working underwater, and since the floorbed isn’t t level, it would be very difficult to install it to make the wave break properly–;this would all cost big big bucks.
Let’s hear it for armchair engineers!
Obviously in a drought stricken area a wave pool may be a problem, although I’m not sure how much worse it is than the bright green golf courses that are everywhere in Palm Sprints and just about everywhere else with great weather. Though I do wonder how many people realize that water doesn’t just disappear from the planet when it evaporates, it just falls as rain someplace else. Every drop of water that was on the planet, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, is still on the planet. It doesn’t disappear, it may end up someplace that doesn’t need more freshwater, but it will still be on this planet a million years from now.
You’re right that it doesn’t disappear, but when pulled from an aquifer it will take hundreds if not thousands of years to recharge that aquifer. Some portions of the central valley in CA have subsidence (from hydrocompaction) up to 26 feet from water being withdrawn from the aquifer. Basically the pore space in the aquifer collapses, and that aquifer will never have the same storativity as it previously did.
Is ‘storativity’ a thing? That’s a fantastic word.
It is! I cut and pasted this below but it describes it a little better than I did.
The specific storage (storativity) of clay and silt is important because it is related to their relatively high compressibility. As layers of clay and silt compress during pumping, the ground surface subsides. This land subsidence may be great if a lot of clay and silt is present in the aquifer system. For example, in the San Joaquin Valley of California subsidence has exceeded 28 feet, primarily due to agricultural use of groundwater for irrigation. Such land subsidence cannot be reversed by stopping pumping or artificially recharging the aquifer because it involves permanent changes in the components of the aquifer system. In granular materials these permanent changes may be caused by compression due to rotation and closer packing of grains, deformation of soft grains, breakage of brittle grains, and solution and redeposition of minerals due to extreme pressure at grain contacts.
Big upvote for storativity. In Hawaii it takes a relatively short 25 years for rain to be absorbed into the watershed and percolate its way through porous lava rock to our aquifer. Our freshwater lens is small but really pure. Increasingly hardened urban surfaces cause rain to wash away into the streams and ocean instead of replenishing the aquifer. Stream diversion, overpopulation, waste, chemicals and runoff always threaten our limited supply. Ka wai ola – water for life. Anyway, if anyone is going to bother making a wave pool anywhere, then do it right with barreling 8 to 10 ft down-the-line variable sectioning A frames and mermaids in coconut bras serving fancy cocktails after the end section.
100% correct! Besides the runoff from parking lots and concrete, the big issue in Hawaii is saltwater intrusion into the aquifer. The saltwater is more dense than fresh water and it forms a wedge under the freshwater. If you pull too much from the freshwater the wedge will start to work its way into the production wells used for drinking water. Theres definitely an upper limit of population/freshwater withdrawal your aquifers can support. Of course theres always desalination plants which make freshwater from seawater but the hypersaline water discharged is pretty bad for ocean life.
Wilbur–very factual and thoughtful reply –I’m impressed! and I thought you were just a kook……….
Oh I’m definitely a kook! But I’m also a geologist.
Help
Well, was worth watching for Mono’s wave I guess. Kelly should let our 5-toed champ loose in his pool too!!
“surf_lakes Great news USA! We have signed an exclusive territory agreement in Tennessee”??? As in the state?
At Kelly’s Lemoore KSWC wavepool facility, it takes 68 million litres of water to full fill just one leader ego.
it takes one solarium session to fill all our bellies with laughter from your orange man.
Insert dick joke here ⬆️
Natalie Imbroglio was a babe back in the neighbors days before Lenny got his filthy paws on it
So glad man could create waves to be so crowded. Money solves everything.
ANZ
we luv un your far out world.
Yawn…
Idle boredom is a western construct.
Up all night rooting.
That blow-up must be worn out by now.
Sponsored
So all good.
Oh, so they gave you a new one.
Or half price or something ? A gallon of hand cream, maybe ?
rough is betta
You seem too interested
It’s creepy.
Har !
Bexys midnight runners
Well at least the council understands the whole wave pool phenomenon: “The unlikelihood of the facility ever opening to Capricorn Coast surfers…”
Saving the world, one wave park at a time. Thank us later haters.
Pick a side. Wave park or environment.
It’s all the same.
true that
There was a climate scientist on tele this a.m. saying that the severity of the typhoon in Bangladesh was caused by a lack of pollution in the air.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Or can you?
Uncharted waters. Left and Right.
I’m interested in the evaporation and refill numbers, I can only imagine the insane amount waste over time, disgusting actually
I think I’ve evaporated more bong water to be honest
No doubt. The pool in Palm Springs must have a crazy high evaporation rate.
Fuck wavepools.