I like the idea of a long Nylex hose (the 18mm reinforced version) from PNG to Australia. The kids at the delivery end will have a wild time with their boogie boards.

The Strane tectonic plate is moving northward at 70mm per year, so there would need to be someone checking for kinks in the pipe. More employment.

It should go ahead as it will provide massive employment for someone. Even if it leaks or some terrorist crazies cut the pipe, it still would have provided employment.

The Chinese should get the contract as they did a superb job of the slurry pipeline from Kurumbukari to Basamuk. Fixing the leaks and breakages in the pipe keeps people employed, and this is the main aim in hydrocarbon extraction.

Peters’ comment reveals the routing of the water flow as envisaged by the project designers. A cursory observation would seem to indicate water flow as of prime interest to the agricultural industry rather than alleviating the needs of city dwellers.

Inasmuch as defenders of PNG’s best interests are already complaining about being sold short by past and present mineral resource and forest projects, the revenues being swallowed by 'admin' and related costs to the detriment of provincial progress, it might seem to be cautious to look further down the track to discover who might be the intended beneficiaries of the extra water flow, and to what end the best interests of PNG might be served.

The following article sourced from the ABC archives details what may inevitably be the target for water usage. As in most such arguments, the worn phrase ”follow the money” is a well advised benchmark.

If what the article asserts is true, and there is as yet unrealised value in PNG water, now is the time to assess the capacity of PNG to partner with Australia, just as Reg Renagi keeps suggesting, in capacity building investment likely to offer opportunities to rebuild a much desiccated economy.

If this is not done, the opportunity will be taken up and exploited by the sovereign wealth funds of the various powers referred to in the ABC article.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/selling-the-farm/part1/default.htm

An excerpt:

"Foreign interests, including state-owned companies from China and the Middle East, are increasingly looking to Australia to secure their food production by purchasing key agricultural assets.

"The sale of agricultural land is exempt under Foreign Investment Review Board regulations and the FIRB’s attention is usually triggered only by the sale of companies whose assets exceed a $231 million threshold.

"In recent years, and especially since the global food shortage in 2008, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have all been engaged in massive agricultural purchases around the world and in Australia.

"NSW Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan says Australia risks losing control of its wealth-creating agricultural assets. He believes the Federal Government is not paying sufficient attention to the issue of global food security."

Heffernan said: 'I would like to put on the agenda ... the urgent need to put agricultural land and our water resources on the radar of the Foreign Investment Review board. This is not about alarming anyone but it is about recognising that countries are taking strategic decisions now.'

In a new book, The Coming Famine, Australian science writer Julian Cribb raises major concerns about how the world will feed itself. "Between now and the 2060s, the human population is going to grow to about 11.4 billion people... So basically the world has to find twice as much food as it is producing today."

One only has to look at how the Russian natural gas being piped to other European countries is being used as a political weapon to see why this idea will never get off the ground.

Also, it was mooted in PM Fraser's time that the annual run off from the North Queensland coast could be 'turned back' to irrigate the dry west. The cost then was prohibitive.

Given time and the exponential and unchecked future population growth however, who knows what might have to be done?

A far easier exercise would be to build a pipeline from Spencer's Gulf to Lake Eyre and let the water drain into the lake as it's below sea level.

The subsequent westerly winds would then be helped in depositing more rain on the dry western plains on the east coast.

Again, a good idea whose time hasn't yet arrived.

Community consultation was carried out by JTA Australia in 2006 for a natural gas pipeline from PNG to Australia.

The company found broad community support for the idea. The project was shelved for commercial reasons, not because it wasn't feasible.

Of course water isn't gas, but I would assume piping water is a simpler technical task than piping gas. More info here -

http://www.jtaa.com.au/Case-Studies-pg4064.html

On the other hand, this report on piping water from PNG says it is not feasible:

"Water from PNG would have to be piped most of the way down Queensland (in this proposal from the Fly to the Diamantina). Such a pipeline would have major environmental, social and international political ramifications, and the water would be unaffordable."

http://www.farmhand.org.au/downloads/94-105_Transporting_Water_part_9.pdf

Interestingly the same magazine explains the origin of the word 'furphy'.

"The Furphy family made water carts during the First World War to be used by the Australian army
overseas.

"Legend has it that the drivers of the carts, and the soldiers that congregated for a drink around the carts, were gossips. Hence all rumours became ‘furphies’.

"The Furphy family, who reside in Shepparton Victoria, still operate their famous water cart."

So how is this going to work? Water will be harvested from the Markham, Ramu, Wahgi, Fly and Sepik rivers, pipes criss-crossing the country to one central pipe to go under the Torres Strait.

The major rivers are not affected by the dry season but the drinking streams are. Having a big river nearby does not make it a clean source of water.

Isn't the Fly River polluted already? I can't see Australia taking water from there, few can get their head around drinking cleaned sewage water (see the survey held in Toowoomba a few years back). Singapore does it and the water there tastes great.

I still think desalination and recycling grey water is the better option for Australia. The volume of grey water and sewage that is semi-treated before it is disposed of into the ocean would probably be very big.

Technology is available. The angst about drinking cleaned septic water is all in the head. To the taste buds it is the same as present tap water.

For me however, it is a moral issue. Family lives near a river and can't have clean water, by night they sit by kerosene lamp and yet the water in the pipe going past their house can end up in Sydney purified or keeping an orange grove going.

If, like you say, some of the water (purified/cleaned) can find its way to their house and power generated could light up the villages and recharge those mobile phones, then I would not be against it.

This however would throw the cost out considerably, for those who just want to pipe water and do nothing else.

Wait a minute. You don't need dams if you pipe water from the rivers which are constantly flowing. The combined flow from the PNG rivers is massive - as much as the Amazon. And currently it all goes into the sea. They are not affected by the dry season around Moresby - this doesn't apply in the highlands. In Tabubil it rains for around 300 days a year.

What if the water flow could generate electricity on its way south? Cheap clean power for the people of PNG. At least it's worth investigating. Prof Hugh Davis at UPNG thought so.

Fred's point is that it's cheaper than desalination plants. Oz did investigate piping water south from the wet north some time ago, but I think then it was too expensive.

Living in Darwin, where there are no water restrictions, I am often amazed when I see garden sprinklers going full pelt in the middle of a tropical downpour. Houses here (like in PNG) don't have rain water gutters as they simply overflow in the wet season.

I think Fred's idea is worth a feasibility study. After all they were going to build a pipeline for LNG from the Southern Highlands down to Mt Isa.