Sydney opts for aquifers - puts desalination on hold ...

Bowing to voter pressure, the NSW Govt has shelved plans for its desalination plant and will use newly discovered aquifer groundwater instead.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

SYDNEY'S unpopular desalination plant will be put on ice by the State Government after a community outcry and fears that it would cost the Labor Party votes at the March 2007 election.

Cabinet met yesterday and was presented with the initial results of drilling in western Sydney, which revealed there might be up to 30 gigalitres a year of groundwater in aquifers. That would nearly match the 45 gigalitres a year that might have been produced by the Kurnell desalination plant.

The groundwater has been known about for several years, but the scale of the reserves was untested. The most recent testing provides the Government with the political figleaf to put the plant on hold for several years. The reserves are large enough to provide additional water for several years. But mining the aquifers will raise questions of the environmental effects of extracting groundwater on this scale.

The backflip follows two weeks of angry community meetings at which the Government has attempted to explain the detail of the planned 125 megalitre a day plant. The most recent meetings in Marrickville, a seat where the Government faces a threat from the Greens, were just as hostile.

Interesting to see how the NSW Labor government is responding to voter concerns.

Will the Qld Labor government follow suit and look at the alternatives to drinking recycled sewage in Toowoomba and the surrounding region?

The Qld Opposition have already put recycled sewage firmly on the election agenda by stating that a multi-source strategy had been developed which would secure future water sources without the need to drink recycled sewage.

See - Still no recycled sewage drinking for Sydney.