Master body to control water ...

The Courier Mail reports that:

A POWERFUL new management authority is set to take over responsibility for water policy and planning in Queensland's drought-hit southeast.

The region's mayors have agreed to give up some of their powers over water management to the authority in return for the right to on-sell any water they do not use as part of a radical new allocation system for the precious resource.

Some councils may even cede control of their water treatment plants to new resource management bodies under the new system, although responsibility for wastewater treatment is expected to remain with local government.

The new authority will oversee the creation of a water services "grid" for the southeast, ensuring a more reliable water supply for a region expected to absorb a million new residents over the next 15 years.

In another development, an interim report into the region's future water supply strategy reveals that the Government will consider raising the Wivenhoe Dam and extending desalination projects beyond the Gold Coast as a means of increasing the amount of water available to the region.

The plans are included in the Government's South-east Queensland Water Supply Strategy, due to be finalised next year.

It is understood the State Government is pushing councils to agree to the new system as soon as possible as its measures to improve management of the region's water assets grow more urgent.

Negotiations between the Government and the region's peak local leaders' lobby, the Council of Mayors, have grown increasingly tense over recent months. Some councils complained that the Government saw the change as a chance to acquire key water assets.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman, who chairs the Council of Mayors, has insisted that local government would resist the changes if they they were seen as a mere "asset grab".

However, most mayors within the region have agreed on the need for a new water management structure to replace the current system where 10 separate bodies have control over the region's dams and water treatment facilities.

Some are even prepared to dispose of some of their water assets. Cr Newman has floated the possibility of Brisbane City Council selling Lake Manchester Dam before it is forced to spend millions of dollars on repairing the facility.

The Council of Mayors has told Premier Peter Beattie that any improvement in institutional arrangements should have some essential elements including:

• The establishment of a water planning authority with statutory powers under the Water Act.

• The setting-up of regional resource managers with responsibility for dams, pipelines and any new water sources from processes such as desalination.

• The capacity for individual councils to treat their allocation of water under the new system as a tradeable asset, meaning they could on-sell any water they did not use under their allocation.

The Government is understood to be still considering what form the new management authority will take but has already foreshadowed the need for change.

The Queensland Water Plan, released by Mr Beattie in August, states that a "major impediment to investment in water infrastructure results from having several existing schemes operated by different water service providers".

"Rivers do not follow local government boundaries and institutional reform is necessary to assist investment and operation of supply infrastructure," the plan states.

See - Master body to control water.