The water main in our street

burst yesterday.  

I could hear the water rushing and went out to see if there was water flowing somewhere on our premises - to be greeted with the sight of  very muddy brown water flowing rapidly down the street. 

There were workmen across the way. They are putting in a new fence for the neighbours and I called out to them. They just shrugged. Then one of the neighbours immediately opposite arrived from taking his children to school and asked me, "Have you reported it?" 

"No, I've only just come out to see what was going on. I was about to go and do it. They haven't done it either."

"I'll do it," he told me and pulled out his very fancy mobile phone, found the number and did it. 

We stood there surveying all the water going to waste. "You'd think those two would have done it straightaway," B... told me with a glance at the workmen. He was as impressed as I was - in other words, not at all.

Water is precious in this country. We live on the driest continent on earth. Far too many Downunderites do not realise this. They are far too casual about our water resources. Yes, we have had some floods recently but vast areas of this country are desert like in nature. For as long as I can remember I have advocated planting more trees, the right trees in the right places. If we did that for even just a decade we could do more to reduce our "emissions" than all the other "plans" combined. Of course this requires the sort of planning and input apparently beyond the capacity of any government or environmental group. 

But to simply go on working while water flows rapidly down the street?

Fortunately the response was reasonably quick. I heard the heavy repair vehicles arriving a short time later. A little later I saw them as I pedalled off along the footpath - fortunately still relatively dry. Coming back from a meeting some time later the repair crew was still hard at it. I used some rain water and one of the workmen came in and took some more. No they didn't want a cup of tea but they did want to wash their hands before using their own thermos flasks. I left them to it.

It was finally repaired late in the afternoon and, apart from some bumps and thumps down the pipes as the water started to flow through again, all seems to be well. We were fortunate that the aging system was able to be repaired that quickly.

I do wonder about those workmen though...they could have saved thousands of litres of precious water by reporting it immediately.