Photographs and words by Susan Prior

Who, even if they don’t know the rest of the poem, or even who wrote it, hasn’t heard the words ‘Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink’? These were written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and come from his lengthy poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, written in 1834 about a thirsty sailor becalmed in an immense ocean.

Norfolk Island residents recently found themselves in a not dissimilar situation.

So dry, rumours swirling, everyone anxious. Some islanders sucking nothing but air from their tanks. Water carters unable to keep up with demand; more and more residents succumbing to their nemesis – the drought.

We were scraping the bottom – the bores running dry.

Get your head around this if you can: in January 2020, Norfolk Island received a miserable 0.6 mm in rain. Can you even measure 0.6 mm? That is less than a half of the diameter of a pin head (1.5 mm). Or if you prefer, it is about the size of one grain of salt. This came on top of a particularly dry November and December, and a drier than normal 2019, overall. A ‘normal’ January usually delivers a mean average of 86.6 mm of rain, or a median of 62.5 mm. The situation had become critical and the island needed help.

There were few options for a small island, isolated as it is in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. Surrounded by water, but not a drop to drink. That is until ‘Operation Major Rainbow’.

Back in December, Assistant Minister Nola Marino foreshadowed the possibility of a portable desalination unit being made available to the island as a short-term solution. Organised by the Australian Government’s Department of Infrastructure, on Friday 7 February the Australian Defence Force swung into action to bring the water purification and desalination system to the island.

To clarify, this desal plant is different to the one Boral will be bringing to the island in March to create the fresh water needed in its operations to reseal the runway.

The news of the plant’s impending arrival travelled quickly around the island. By 5 pm Friday, as dark clouds loomed from the south east, cars had lined both sides of the airstrip waiting for the arrival of the RAAF’s C-17 Globemaster, which had flown from RAAF Amberley, Queensland. On cue, in one of the most ironic moments I have witnessed – and one that even Alanis Morissette (Isn’t it Ironic) would be proud – the rain came down with the plane. And as the plane touched down? You guessed – it stopped. It lasted less than five minutes, but it was enough to whip up laughter, plenty of wet T-shirts and a frisson of excitement from the assembled crowd as they watched the Globemaster reverse up the runway and then unload its cargo.

Any self-respecting public relations consultant would eat their right arm off to orchestrate an arrival like that one!

By the next day, on Saturday, the plant was assembled at the Cascade Jetty precinct and in full production.

Looked after by a team of eight army personnel led by Lieutenant Mark Lonergan, this portable desal plant uses about 100 L of diesel to potentially produce 100,000 L of water a day. The cost of this exercise has been entirely met by the Australian Government. The island’s water carters have free access to the water produced, which they are distributing according to a priority list compiled by the Norfolk Island Regional Council. Residents who are out of water are at the top of that list. Do bear in mind, though, even though the water is free, these hard-working water carters still have to get the water to your tank, with all the associated costs and wages that entails.

Members of the team supervise the plant’s operations 24 hours a day. Two members of the team are environmental health officers, and they test the water daily to ensure it is fit for human consumption.

The brine discharged from the plant is 1.38 times the salinity of the original sea water and goes straight back into the ocean, in the same way that ocean cruise ships produce water for use on-ship and then discharge the brine out to sea. A study by researchers from the University of New South Wales, Southern Cross University and the NSW Department of Primary Industries has found there is little impact on marine life. Australian Water Association’s website Water Source reports, ‘Study lead Dr Graeme Clark said the results were surprising, as they debunked the prevailing belief that high salt levels in the brine would be harmful to marine life.’ In fact, in some cases the extra salt content is beneficial to some organisms. You can read the article, with links to the study findings here.

With regards to the biosecurity issue associated with the arrival of the plant, the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment ‘can confirm that up to 20 spiders were detected on the desalination plant on 7 February 2020. The spiders were removed and samples are in the process of being identified.’

The Department continues, ‘Biosecurity officers responded, contained the equipment under biosecurity control and treated the equipment with insecticide and residual spray and high-pressure cleaning.

‘After treatment, the equipment was reinspected and, with no spiders present, was cleared and released from biosecurity control on 8 February 2020. Biosecurity officers continue to monitor the building where the equipment was stored.’

If you are a household or business currently without water or are likely to run out, the Emergency Management Norfolk Island team would like to hear from you. Please contact NIRC’s Customer Care on 22244, freecall 0100 or, after hours, 55254.

This article was first published in Norfolk Online on 14 February 2020. If you want more news about the island, consider subscribing to their service.