this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui / Wellington

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Wellington firefighters may resort to sea water if shortages worsen (www.rnz.co.nz)
submitted 9 months ago by Ilovethebomb to c/wellington
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Just a cheerful reminder that almost half the water we put into our system is lost along the way.

Also, I live at a rural property with rain water tanks, and we have a reasonably small tank for the size of our house. We haven't come close to running out of water this summer, while we have had to get a tanker other years. It's actually been a reasonable summer in terms of rainfall.

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[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Why don't we use less "clean" sources of water when drinking isn't a concern? I get that having just one infrastructure simplifies things but surely coastal cities can pipe in sea water for things like this?

[–] Ilovethebomb 5 points 9 months ago

Seawater is a maintenance nightmare, it's incredibly corrosive to almost any metal, so any pipework would need to be either plastic or concrete. It will also kill plants, so can't be used for watering lawns etc, so this would only be useful for firefighting purposes.

Ships will often use sea water for jobs like flushing toilets, but I can't imagine that being worthwhile running a second water main for.

[–] Xcf456 2 points 9 months ago

I imagine the salinity would cause all sorts of issues, and as you say just having one source is better when things work as they should

[–] Munkisquisher 1 points 9 months ago

Singapore have a separate grey water line that's not drinkable, it's still not salty though