Soaker Warfare looked down upon in Australia

[MarsGlorious]

I would like to bring a this matter to the attention of sscentral. Due to the recent droughts that Australia has suffered and current water restrictions, Soaker warfare is looked down upon. It has been consider a waste of water.

This makes it more difficult to take Thunderwars out of backyards. Basically you cannot really take water fight games to public parks where there other people. Not without expecting complaints.

But I think this point of view is distorted. The best spots to have soaker wars are on bushland. When weapon are fired it's either going on players or the plants. Free watering. Australian Households take up 11% of total water consumption and Victorian Household use 8% of the state's water (lowest in Australia).

If you look down upon soaker fights than what what about Industry. Soft drinks require huge amounts of water to produce. Many industries waste huge amounts of water and they are generally accepted.

[sbell25]

This is true. One of the most ridiculous things that I find is that under the current Stage 4 water restrictions (where I live at least), you can fill up a swimming pool as long as it's under 2,000 litres. Yet, you aren't allowed to use 'water toys' which as you can imagine, use far less than 2,000 litres of water.

I can understand why they impose these restrictions but when you actually look into it, as MarsGlorious pointed out the industry is a far larger problem. I remember reading an article about the insane amounts of water the cotton farms use each day, and because of this how little the water restrictions actually matter. Having short showers, not watering gardens etc do save water, but in the big picture it makes very little difference.

Of course I'm still very water conscious and don't run around spraying water everywhere, but the occasional water fight shouldn't be looked upon as a waste. Would they rather I went inside and had a cold shower instead?

[Drenchenator]

That does sound pretty ridiculous. I would have to agree that filling any size swimming pool wastes much more water than a good water fight, and I also agree that industry and agriculture use the most. I remember that when I took Environmental Science class in high school, the teacher showed the class how much water different kinds of irrigation wasted--in many cases much of the water just flowed through and didn't even go to the plants! They have more efficient ways; it's just many times they decide not to use them, wasting a ton of water and worsening droughts.

[Ben]

It's a shame that water wars are looked down on because of drought conditions. If you're allowed to use swimming pools less than 2000 liters, my suggestion would be to buy a small kiddie pool and use it as a filling spot. Plenty of water and it should be legal.

[sbell25]

Hehe, good idea Ben. Still, people aren't going to really care what you filled it from, just the face that you're "wasting water". Although to tell you the truth I haven't had anyone complaining about my water guns yet. That's mainly because I don't really use them much at the moment, and there aren't many houses where I live. Judging from what MarsGlorious said though, if people actually saw it they'd disapprove.

Another funny thing about the swimming pool limit: You must fill the pool with a bucket. You can't use a hose. This is supposed to discourage people from filling their pool in the first place, but I don't see how they're going to enforce it. Besides, you'd waste more spilling water from the bucket than you would from the hose!

[MarsGlorious]

Water fights clearly aren't the problem. If business used recycled water for things like irrigation and cooling it wouldn't so much of a drama. Australia will always be dry and lawns will always be messy and under-watered (unlike American lawns

All of the games to date have been staged near my house. We still use vastly less water than the average house. I wonder how other house use so much water.

This hasn't deterred us from playing. We just don't play in urban areas. But this Timbermine battlefield might be just what we are looking for. It's located on an old timber farm and mine. It's also out of the way and on public land. I think there might be a busy road between Timbermine and the place with the water supply. This could throw a damper on things. Getting water in might be hard.

P.S. Man Ben, I never expected the changes to kick this fast. The site looks completely different. Good Job.