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A community effort has seen large unused rainwater tanks at Stanmore Bay School utilised for watering the school’s numerous garden areas.
The school has four large concrete tanks, capable of holding 90,000 litres of water in total, housed under a block of classrooms.
“We are an Enviroschool, so when we discovered this water wasn’t being used, we looked at how it could best be used so it isn’t wasted,” principal Matt Sides says.
Zoom Plumbing’s Jeremy Holmes has a child at the school and he was happy to help. Garry Stephenson of Healthy Water Tanks also stepped in, spending a weekend cleaning out the tanks and also supplying a new pump free of charge.
Garry says cleaning the tanks was a challenge, as they had long been unused. “I found all sorts of things in there,” he says, “including plenty of toys which had gone up on the roof and then into the tanks.”
Jeremy put in five outlets so that the water can be used in the orchard as well as to water native plantings and the general school gardens.
“We are trying to teach our kids the importance of water as a resource, not to be wasted,” Matt says.
“It’s a responsibility we all have as a community – and one we have recently become even more aware of in the drought.”
The grass, including on the field, is being left to dry out, knowing it will green up again in Spring.
