The Sydney Morning Herald described this picture on 4 April 1940: A roadside scene at Kiama, where the council has installed tanks in the streets. No water is available from the supply pipes. The water in this tank was carted several miles. Photo: Supplied.
Imagine you are living in Wollongong during the summer drought of 1858 and an area near South Beach between Crown and Harbour streets is your only supply of fresh water.
It was a time when at least one poetry-loving Illawarra journo must have been muttering the famous line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of The Ancient Mariner: Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink …
On 15 February 1858, the Illawarra Mercury reported: “Day after day, supply of water is becoming smaller by degrees and frightfully less in the lagoon from which the town of Wollongong is supplied. The water is being gradually dissipated by the continued drought, and to facilitate its total disappearance, droves of cattle are driven to it from the farms bordering the town which have been deprived of their own supplies.
“The only time anything like a clear drop of water can be obtained is early in the morning, for, as the day advances, the frequent trampling of cattle through it, from one side to the other, renders it so muddy as to make it totally unlit for culinary purposes, until cleared by alum [potassium aluminum sulphate].
“Some persons endeavour to procure a drinkable drop of water by sending to either the Fig-Tree or Cabbage-Tree Creek, a distance, in both cases of little under three miles. We believe it is intended to take some steps for the purpose of preventing cattle from drinking at the lagoon. As we think that the health, convenience, and necessity of the townspeople are of greater importance than those of the cattle aforesaid, we hope the movement, if made, may be successful.”
What was the solution to all this? Big water tanks in every yard, of course.
And even as late as 1922 when the famous novelist D H Lawrence stayed in the house named Wyewurk in Thirroul there was still a water tank in the backyard even though running water had by then been connected to the house.
But the problem – as happened even back in 1858 – is that even water tanks can run dry in extended periods of droughts. And so it proved: “A very few persons in the town have taken the precaution to have tanks constructed in the vicinity of their houses, and even these, if the drought continues much longer, will be reduced to the fearful extremity in which the great majority of their fellow townsmen are placed. Bad, however, as the water in the lagoon is, it would be a dire calamity to be deprived of it entirely” (Illawarra Mercury, 22 February 1858).
An area near South Beach between Crown and Harbour streets (coloured in blue) was the only supply of fresh water to Wollongong in 1858. Image: Supplied.
Even by late March 1858 things were still grim despite the fact that at least some moisture had now fallen upon the barren land of Illawarra – “but not sufficient to be of any great service, so parched has the soil become through the long drought”.
Grass too had “disappeared nearly everywhere, the growing crops of corn and potatoes have been almost entirely burnt up, and the water-holes are all empty”.
What would be the solution for the region’s dairy farmers?
“Many parties, qualified to give an opinion” claimed that “the dairymen of Illawarra could not do a better thing for themselves than to plant an acre or two of sorghum every year, for the purpose of affording fodder. It is not effected by drought as proved in this and other parts of the colony this last summer, it will bear cutting down several times, and when cut can be stacked and kept without losing any of its nutritious qualities or becoming disagreeable to the cattle. Beside this, the seed is most excellent food for either pigs or poultry” (Illawarra Mercury, 18 March 1858).
The drought had commenced about the middle of September 1857 and consequently, “vegetation has suffered exceedingly”. The water holes were “all empty” and the residents depended “upon swamp water for domestic purposes, by no means palatable to the taste, and probably injurious to health”.
A picture postcard of Cataract Dam during construction from 1902 to 1907. Photo: Supplied.
Move forward nearly 100 years, when only some houses in Kiama were connected to water, another very prolonged severe drought was causing huge problems by April 1940.
Today, I am very grateful the Illawarra’s still sweet-tasting supply is primarily sourced from the Upper Nepean catchment, with the Avon and Cordeaux dams being critical for the supply. Water is treated at facilities like the Illawarra Water Treatment Plant.
During droughts, supply is supplemented by the Wingecarribee Reservoir and, potentially, the Sydney Desalination Plant. Occasionally water may be pumped from the Shoalhaven River at Tallowa Dam and while primarily for Sydney’s backup, it assists in securing the region’s overall supply.
The picturesque Cataract Dam primarily supplies drinking water to the Macarthur region. At the time of its construction from 1902 to 1907 it was said to be the biggest engineering project in Australia and the fourth biggest in the world.
As Fred Dagg (aka John Clarke) once sang, “We don’t know how lucky we are!”.
