Pleasant+St+PS+Ballarat

Pleasant Street PS Ballarat

Hi from Pleasant Street Primary School. Thanks for inviting us to be part of the project. At our school we have about 350 kids and have 15 classes. Our school is right near the lake in Ballarat so we have watched the effects of the drought over many years. We hope our information helps you with your studies. Good luck.



Yes, our school does save water. We have a bore and in the past have used containers to collect the water drips under our bubble taps. Our school is going to get a new building and we are going to have water tanks. We also have a rose garden and try to use the water we collect from the bubble taps to water these. by Charlotte, Ailish, Tristan and Meg  We have stage four water restrictions in force in Ballarat. This means that we can't wash our cars or water any plants or lawns. Lake Wendouree has been at crisis levels and is almost totally empty! Washing cars may only occur for safety reasons. Pools and spars can only be filled by using a watering can or bucked but you can't use tap water. By Bevan, Ewen, Chelsea and Ashlee**
 * Does your school save water? If so, how? **
 * Are there water restrictions in your area? If so, what level and what does that level mean?

In Ballarat we are allowed to use 150 litres per person, per day. In our local paper called The Courier it said that people were using 135 litres per day. This was in the paper on June 10, 2009.  We have not been able to find a lot of information about the underground water here but we do have a bore at our school. There are also a lot of houses in Ballarat that have their own bore. There are lots of signs in people places saying that bore water is being used for their gardens.
 * In Melbourne, we are allowed to use 155 litres per person, per day. How much is each person allowed in your area? **
 * Tell us about the underground water in your area? **

We have made a video to show you what the effect of the drought has been right near our school. Our school is on the road that runs around Lake Wendouree and so you can see that the drought has had a huge impact on our city. Also in Ballarat we have very old gardens with large trees. People from around the world travel to our gardens. The drought has caused a lot of damage to our gardens and the council are trying to save some of the very old trees as they think some of them will fall over and die.
 * What has been the impact of the drought on the local flora and fauna? **

Please watch our videos. 

Most people in Ballarat are doing their best to be better water users. We don't wash our cars and have shorter showers. A lot of our families are changing the kinds of plants we have in our gardens and a lot of the time we try and save water from showers, baths and the washing to use on the lawn. The council have also had a program where you can get a plumber to come to your house and change taps and shower heads so you use less water. This is called project aquarius.**
 * How are you dealing with the lack of water?

The total rainfall year to date is 89.6mm with the historic average being 215.4mm. This means the total rainfall year to date is 58% below average. [] Our water storage is at 18.3% of capacity.  ** Ballarat gets its water from reservoirs. Some of these were made
 * How much water has fallen in your water catchments this year? **
 * Where does your water come from?

1. M OORABOOL RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1915) 2. W ILSONS RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1891) 3. B EALES RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1863) 4. P INCOTTS RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1867) 5. KIRKS RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1862) 6. GONG GONG RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1877) 7. W HITE SWAN RESERVOIR (CONSTRUCTED 1952)