When the beautiful 100-year-old elm trees in Methven Park, Brunswick began to show signs of stress from lack of water, a group of local residents came together to pressure the local council for a plan to save the trees.
Residents came up against a parks and gardens management prepared to let the trees die when Melbourne moves to Stage 4 water restrictions, as is likely this summer.
Residents are campaigning for the council to develop a plan so that local parks can survive a situation when mains water can no longer be used for watering parks. The sorts of solutions they are advocating include well-known and available technology, such as mulching, subterranean watering, rainwater tanks and stormwater recycling.
The residents' group has called on candidates for the Moreland Council elections to outline their policies on how to drought-proof parks.
Socialist Alliance candidate Vannessa Hearman told a "meet the candidates" meeting that the Socialist Alliance's policy is to build rainwater and stormwater harvesting capacity by installing rainwater tanks on all council buildings.
"Stormwater drains could also be diverted to storage, which could then be filtered and used for parks, gardens and industry. More water rains on Melbourne than is used by Melbourne residents", she said.
Hearman pointed to the example of Salisbury Council in Adelaide, a world leader in stormwater harvesting.
However, Hearman said that the local water supply needs to be looked at in the context of city-wide and state-wide water supplies. The state government is planning to increase water restrictions on residents but there are no restrictions on industry.
The amount of water used by heavy industry is kept secret. You don't need to use fresh drinking water to cool machines. Industry should be using recycled water.
Hearman slammed the state Labor government's obsession with a desalination plant.
"If Socialist Alliance is elected to council, we would try to build an alliance of local councils and communities to campaign for the state government to fund water conservation and water recycling projects instead of the desalination plant, the north-south pipeline and water trading. Moreland Council could play an important role in initiating water conservation measures", said Hearman.