‘Water Police’ Crack Down in an Ever-Drier Australia
April 12th, 2007Via: Christian Science Monitor:
At first glance it looks like a police car – a white vehicle with a black-and-yellow checkerboard stripe running along its flanks. But as the patrol vehicle turns a corner in the leafy district of Paddington, in central Sydney, its true purpose becomes clear from the bold black lettering across its trunk: “Water Restrictions.”
Australia, already the driest inhabited continent on the planet, is in the grip of its worst-ever drought.
The water crisis is no longer about desperate farmers in the Outback watching their sheep and cattle perish. Over the past six years, it has extended its grip to the cities and is changing the way Australians regard a resource they once took for granted. The patrol car is one of 50 that cruise Sydney’s streets around the clock, every day of the week, sniffing out water wastage.
Research Credit: Becky
Water in the 21st century is going to be like oil in the 20th. http://www.jmccsci.com