We'll drink to that - why Canberra doesn't need recycled water ...

Part 2 of the duelling opinion pieces in the Canberra Times.

In summary, there's no need to drink recycled water.

(No 5 year olds drinking recycled water in this one.)

Excerpt from the Canberra Times:

We'll drink to that: unlimited water for $150 a year

16 April 2007

Canberra could be free of water restrictions for the next 50 years or more for less than $3 a week per household and without having to drink recycled sewage.

The current water crisis in Canberra is not due to climate change. Nor is it due to drought. It is entirely due to deliberate ACT Government policy.

The ACT's dams were built to supply 450,000 people with no restrictions but the ACT Government ordered that our dams be emptied throughout the drought by way of very large environmental flows during recent years of lower-than-average rainfall.

Between 2000 and 2004, 109GL (112 years' supply) was emptied out of the dams, benefiting downstream users (who paid ACT water users nothing for the water released).

These outflows were continuing as late as November last year. A total of 20ML a day was being let out of Bendora Dam, enough to have supplied 29,000 ACT households (nearly a third of Canberra) on an annual basis.

It is simply not necessary for ACT families and their children to become guinea pigs in an experiment which would see sewage being directly recycled into drinking water. While in theory technology can be made to work, experience with technological disasters such as the Titanic's water-tight compartments or the space shuttle's tiles suggest caution is warranted.

Cautious people prefer their drinking water naturally recycled by solar evaporation and falling as rain into reservoirs on mountain streams. (This also uses a lot less energy and costs a lot less than Actew's plan to filter sewage, pump it upstream, pump it up again to Mt Stromlo and treat it again.) Cautious people are also concerned by the increased fire risk from dried-out trees and gardens.

The truth is that the Future Water Options project found that the ACT has enough water for a million people, even with the current high environmental flows ordered by the ACT Government.

After allowing for stormwater run-off and treated effluent, the ACT uses only some 4per cent of its estimated average annual water of 494GL. The ACT does not lack water. What the ACT lacks is sufficient water storage to supply Canberra's needs and keep topping up rivers throughout a long drought.

Once the ACT Government took the decision to start emptying the existing dams in the interests of river health or fish habitat in the lower Cotter River, it should have realised than the dams built to support 450,000 people would have trouble coping with 350,000.

It should have realised that its taxes and monopoly profits from water should be spent on extra storage if it wanted to keep emptying dams throughout drought.

Unfortunately, the ACT Government seems to care more about river or fish health and habitat than it does about the health of the human population and the environment of the garden city we used to live in. So it has preferred to continue emptying the dams as trees and gardens die.

Having manufactured a water shortage, it now demands that people pay huge sums for the privilege of drinking recycled sewage.

None of this is necessary, nor are the costs of water restrictions in time and damage to health, homes, trees and gardens.

The people of the ACT can have all the extra water they need for less than $150 per household a year.

If these statements come as a surprise to some readers, they can read the following for themselves on the Future Water Options pages on Actew's website.

The Large Tennent Option would create the ACT's largest dam with a volume of 159GL (billion litres) and increase the ACT's water storage by about 74 per cent.

A new large Tennent Dam would collect water from the large catchment of the Naas, Gudgenby and Orroral rivers. The catchment has high rainfall and run-off in the upper section but lower rainfall in the eastern sections.

When full, the large Tennent Dam would store the equivalent of 27 months of water use.

Because of the large storage volume, this option would be a reliable source of water in a long drought.

It is predicted that if the Large Tennent Option was added to the existing storages, there would be sufficient water to provide a reliable supply for the ACT region for the next 50 years or more.

The Large Tennent Option is estimated to cost $240 million. The cost includes $115million for the dam, $18 million for clearing, $27 million for new roads, $40 million for a new water-treatment plant and $40 million for the pipeline and other items, including environmental and catchment issues and planning approvals.

The cost to the average household ratepayer, assuming construction begins soon, would be $150 a year.

Dr Dwyer is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University's Crawford School of Economics and Government.

See - We'll drink to that: unlimited water for $150 a year.