Old habits died hard. Despite recent rain we’re still taking shorter showers and using as little water as possible.

On Sunday I emptied two watering cans onto a strip of dry ground under the eaves, where some geranium cuttings are flourishing. Filled with cooking water and left for a few weeks, the now empty watering cans stink to high heaven. (Note to self: distribute water used to cook broccoli, cabbage and other brassicas as soon as possible.)

While this Winter’s rain has been most welcome, it hasn’t been enough to fill farm dams or to bring rivers and creeks in the district back to full capacity. Nor has it replenished Melbourne’s water catchments to anywhere near the levels they once experienced at this time of year.

This morning I was pondering the need for more rain, when I received an email alert from the Wilderness Society. It advises that the Brumby government ‘allows logging in five of Melbourne’s water catchments which supply more than half of the city’s water, including our largest catchment, the Thomson Dam’.

This is the government which is moving water to the city, by pipeline, from the State’s foodbowl in the north, and which has invested billions in an energy-gobbling, carbon-polluting desalination plant. These measures, they say, will ensure that Melbourne’s residents will have a sufficient supply of clean drinking water into the future. They don’t say that it will also be costly to consumers.

While we don’t rely on water from a catchment – apart from our rainwater tank, that is – we do understand that all those who reside in cities and towns rely on clean points of collection for their water supply. We also understand that cutting down trees anywhere near a catchment is a good way to ensure that water quality declines.

When trees are removed from catchment areas, flows of water produced by rainfall move rapidly, causing erosion and carrying soil and nutrients into the catchment, polluting it. The roots of trees hold the soil, preventing erosion and filtering nutrients. Trees also reduce rates of evaporation.

After all the fuss when bushfires threatened catchments last Summer, you’d think the State Government would know better than to allow logging anywhere near them. But it seems it doesn’t.

Jobs are muddling their thinking. Logging has been the mainstay of some rural communities for generations. Take it away and what’s left… I mean apart from forest maintenance, catchment monitoring, wildlife protection, fire management and native plant nurseries? And if there are any gaps left after positions in those areas have been filled, perhaps those experts in job creation, Messrs Fox, Kelty and Arbib, could offer a few suggestions.

As far as how much water can be saved by the cessation of logging, the Melbourne Water Catchment Network has published the findings of a government-commissioned Water and Wood hydrology study, Potential impacts of forest management on streamflow in Melbourne’s water supply catchments (May 2008), by Russel Mein.

The study reveals that by ending logging near catchments over the next year, water gained in 40 years time would be equivalent to the annual 16 GL water consumption of a city the size of Ballarat (94,000 people). This would increase to 40 GL per year over time.

They compare this with the 16 GL per year from the Tarago Treatment plant on which the government is currently spending $100 million to supplement Melbourne’s supply.

When the climate in the southern regions of the world’s driest continent is becoming even drier, you’d think that our governments would do everything they can to protect precious water reserves without having to sacrifice our capacity to produce food or add to the cause of climate change.

We’re just glad that we don’t rely on town water. If we did, we’d install a rainwater tank.