Victoria

Title: Environment Memoirs - Water

I was interested to compare two of my family members experiences of what the environment looked like when they were ten years old. Those two people are my Pop and my Mum.

My Mum’s name is Elizabeth French (age 37) She grew up in Ballarat. My Pop’s name is Keith Templar (age 73) He grew up in Donald.

This is when my Mum 10.

• There was more rainfall than there is today
• She could run under the sprinkler there were no water restrictions
• The tap water was okay to drink because there was plenty of it in the reservoirs
• Mum remembers when she went fishing with her Dad on the Murray River, Lake Learmonth and Lake Burrumbeet. Now the lakes don’t exist and the Murray is dying because of the irrigation. Mum, has never seen Lake Wendouree without water for the first time in her life !

But when I interviewed Pop, he had a very different opinion.

• He said the rainfall was about the same as it is today (there were also droughts)
• There was no running water in houses, just tanks, Country people didn’t waste water
• They’re not pumping water out of the Murray River like they are now
• Pop was the second last person in his family of nine to take a bath with the same water once a week/

Mum and I have talked about the water issues and what has changed and I think there is less water because of : Growth of population = more water usage, climate change. However when Pop was 10 he said it was also dry, so the weather could have cycles were it is dry for a couple of years and then rain starts plummeting down from the sky.

But the lack of rain makes Mum feel sad because she can’t take me to do the things that she used to do when she was 10 because all the lakes have dried up, but it’s also a good thing because people are now more aware about being water wise and conserving what we have because it may not always be there like we assume.