When will the water actually run out ...

Some interesting statistics from the Toowoomba Water Futures website:

"Toowoomba's average daily consumption over the last 12 years has been 34 Megalitres which equates to using a Gigalitre of water every 29 days."

With the dams apparently currently holding 34.2 gigalitres, this water would last 992 days or close to 2 years 9 months.

However, if you look at water consumption for the last 60 days, it has varied from 22 megalitres to 31 megalitres. Using an average of 26 megalitres a day as a rough guide (and with the current water restrictions I imagine Toowoomba is consistently using less than the 12 year average of 34 megalitres a day), this would equate to using a gigalitre of water every 38.5 days. On this basis, the water currently in the dams would last 1317 days or over 3 years 7 months.

This assumes no evaporation (which there will be) but also no rain (anyone in Toowoomba recently knows it has been raining).

The numbers are rough. They exclude surrounding shire consumption but also exclude the impact of part of Toowoomba's water consumption - about 10% or say 2.6 megalitres a day (or 3.4 megalitres a day using the Council's figures) - being sourced from bores. However, it gives an idea of how long the water will last.

The Council has tried to scare Toowoomba's residents into thinking the water would quickly run out. Certain people were circulating rumours that the water would run out by Christmas (I guess it didn't).

There is a need to be waterwise. However, there is also a need to treat with healthy scepticism the statistics put out by the Council.

As the Toowoomba Water Futures website itself says "This data is automatically generated and is not quality controlled. Never base important decisions on this data."

Pity this statement is not on the home page of the Toowoomba Water Futures website.