Sydney pushes ahead with desalination plans ...

Excerpt from Sydney Morning Herald:

Desal plant to 'future-proof' water supply

21 June 2007

A major desalination plant, funded by higher residential water bills, will be built in Sydney regardless of how high the city's dams rise, the State Government says.

Dam levels today are set to rise to about 48 per cent, their highest in three years. But the Water Utilities Minister, Nathan Rees, said the Government's commitment to build a $1.9 billion plant to turn seawater into drinking water was not tied to dam levels.

"[Desalination] is not about this drought, it is about droughts in the future," Mr Rees said, dismissing renewed calls for more recycling and stormwater harvesting.

"Coastal cities need water independent of rainfall. With climate change, we have less ability to predict rainfall, we have a more and more complicated rainfall equation," he said.
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See - Sydney agrees with Melbourne - opts for desal plant.