Sustainable water solutions are needed not costly ineffective ones.

It is hard not to draw the conclusion that Tim Holding and the Brumby government are in a state of panic over Melbourne's reduced water supplies.

Water Minister Tim Holding's continual refusal to enact cost effective and high water yield options such are recycling waste water (200 gigalitres per year), capturing stormwater and more domestic water tanks (200 gigalitres), stopping logging in water catchments (30 gigalitres) is just not acceptable.

Recycling more water would have the added benefit of stopping pollution from the ocean outfall at Gunnamatta beach.

Instead he is intent on building a pipeline that will deliver very little water to Melbourne, and the extremely expensive desalination plant that will belch out greenhouse gases and destroy an pristine coastline.

Its time to go Tim.

Links

• Denying recycling just won't hold water, The Age, Ken Davidson
• Melbourne water usage, Greenlivingpedia
• North south pipeline, Greenlivingpedia
• Stop logging Melbourne water catchments , Greenlivingpedia
• Victorian desalination plant, , Greenlivingpedia

The Victorian Government's water strategy is all at sea

This is a letter to the editor from Brian Wilson of Doncaster East published on April 5, 2009 [link]

I think it describes concerns about the Victorian Government's obsession with large scale water projects, and the overlooking of more sensible, sustainable water options such as water tanks and recycling. It highlights to me too that many in the community want more focus on sustainable water options, and the government that is supposed to represent us is not listening or consulting, and that the government's agenda is driven by the "big end of town".

Recycling washes best

"Water projects 'not needed' " (29/3) included reference to the consultants' (ignored) recommendation that recycled water for drinking should get "serious consideration", but that this would require a large public education campaign. Unfortunately, the only "education" campaign by this government to date has been to reinforce the public misconception that water recycling is somehow unsafe; the reality is that the reverse is true.

Water recycling is being used with complete safety in many parts of the world, and Queensland is also well down that path (an initiative that, it could be argued, the voters in that state have recently endorsed).

And just think of the advantages that recycling, rather than desalination, would achieve. The waste water treatment plant (or plants) would be located at or near existing treatment facilities. So no need for the Wonthaggi site and connecting pipes and power lines.

And waste water would no longer contaminate the ocean at Gunnamatta as it would be recycled. And the end result would be exactly the same — pure water!

Recycling uses the same reverse-osmosis process as desalination, so much of the current design would be retained. But because it is far less energy intensive, running costs (and therefore the impact on the environment) would also be less.

And as for the north-south pipeline, its only possible redeeming feature, given it now appears to have passed the point of no return, is that one day it may be used to pipe north some surplus recycled water to help relieve the stressed Murray-Darling system.

Video
Check out this video about the desalination plant, and visit http://www.getrealonclimatechange.org/

Water tanks use less energy than desalination

John Brumby and Tim Holding would do well to consider mandating rainwater tanks for new houses rather than building an energy guzzling desalination plant.

Our domestic water tanks have supplied over 95 per cent of the water for our Surrey Hills house since we installed them in 2001. Based on our experience, 600,000 households could save up to 160 gigalitres of water per year by using captured rainwater and reducing their daily consumption. The energy our pump uses would multiply to 140 kWh of energy per day for these same households. The proposed desalination plant would consume 15 times as much energy just to operate.

There would also be significant emissions associated with the construction of the plant, the pumping of water to Melbourne and waste decomposition and transport.

Domestic water tanks would be a much cheaper, more effective, more greenhouse friendly and more popular solution to meeting Melbourne's water needs than either the proposed desalination plant or the north south pipeline projects.

Links

• Data on domestic water tank energy consumption
• Victoria's proposed desalination plant - facts and information
• Water tanks - information and tips
• Rainwater tank proposal sparks row in Victorian Government, The Age
  
• North South pipeline proposal - facts and information
  
  

Brumby claims water tanks use more power than desalination

I have just send this letter in to Premier John Brumby. It will be interesting to read his answer, although I suspect I won't get one.


Premier Brumby,

You stated on ABC 774 radio on Thurday 26 June 2008 that "the proposed Wonthaggi desalination plant would use less power than equivalent rainwater tanks"

Can you please provide evidence for this claim?

Studies of water tanks have shown that they would use one fifth of the power of the desalination to supply the equivalent amount of water (150 gigalitres).

I have a power meter on our rainwater tank pump on our house so I will provide you with more empirical data on this next week to confirm this data.

Information about the plant and why rainwater tanks would be a better option is available in this article: http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Victorian_desalination_plant

I look forward to your timely response to this very important question.

The Brumby government has got it wrong on water

The Brumby government has announced their strategy for coping with the now chronic water shortage due to Victoria's greatly reduced rainfall.

Rainfall in the state has reduced 75% over the last ten years, which far exceeds the worst case predictions by the CSIRO when they modeled the effects of climate change.

It is therefore appropriate that the Victorian government take fairly urgent action to address this very serious issue that now impacts all Victorians. The question is, have they got the right strategies in place?

The government's Water Plan, also labeled as “Our Water Our Future” details the following key initiatives:

1. A new desalination plant for Melbourne
2. Modernising Victoria’s Food Bowl irrigation system to capture lost water for farms, the environment and Melbourne
3. Expansion of Victoria’s Water Grid
   
4. Upgrading Melbourne’s Eastern Treatment Plant to provide over 100 GL of recycled water in 2012 and assessing a range of alternative uses of this water
5. Supporting new and existing water conservation programs for homes and industry.

While elements of this plan seem reasonable, the projects arising out of it to date are highly questionable.

The desalination plant

The proposed desalination plant at Wonthaggi is supposed to provide 150 gigalitres of water per year – enough for one third of Melbourne's consumption. However, this plant will require 90 megawatts of power to run. This translates to 1 terawatt hour per year (1,000 gigawatt hours).

The government has stated that they will source renewable energy for this, but there is significant risk that they won't be able to get enough.

Premier John Brumby stated on ABC Radio 774 on 26 June 2008 that the desalination plant would cost less to install and use less energy than installing domestic rainwater tanks with electric pumps. The information he based this claim on appears to be incorrect. Calculations on domestic pumps supplying one million households indicated that they would only consume 365 gigawatt hours per year, less than half the amount required to power the desalination plant.

More energy is also need to pump water from the desalination plant to Melbourne.

Stopping logging in Melbourne's water catchments would yield about another 30 gigalitres per year.

Modernising Victoria's irrigation system

This $750 million project is part of a government water strategy, which would also modernise infrastructure in the region to save 225 billion litres of water now lost through evaporation, seepage and system inefficiencies.

While replacing fixing leaks and water losses in irrigation infrastructure is a good thing, the Victorian government has announced a plan to pump water from the Goulburn River, which is in the water-deprived Murray Darling catchment, over the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne.

The two glaring problems with this are:

1. There is not enough water in the Goulburn River to take more out without critically endangering both the Goulburn and Murray Rivers.

2. The water taken out, estimated to be 75 gigalitres, will be pumped over the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne, which will result in more carbon emissions

Expansion of Victoria’s Water Grid

The concept behind “expanding the water grid” is to provide interconnections between river systems and storages across the state of Victoria.

The claimed benefits for this include:

• Increase the security of water supplies by diversifying the sources of water available for communities connected by the Grid

• Enable water to be traded more readily, by making it easier to transfer water to where it is most needed and valued

• Increase the value of supply options (current and future) by increasing the flexibility and diversity of uses.
• The expanded Victorian Water Grid will allow more water to be transferred between water systems.

However, around 10,000km of expensive new pipeline is required to create this network.

There are social equity issues with taking scarce water from rural areas to for Melbourne's domestic water supply.

Environmental flows have not been provided to the Yarra River which flows through Melbourne, contrary to scientific recommendations and a previous government commitment. This environmental flow should be provided to ensure the health of the river.

Carbon emissions are generated every time water pumped through a pipeline unless renewable energy is used for this.

Upgrading Melbourne’s Eastern Treatment Plant to provide over 100 GL of recycled water in 2012 and assessing a range of alternative uses of this water

This proposal is a good one. However, Melbourne produces around 320 GL of wastewater per year. Around 400ML per day is pumped out from Gunnamatta Beach outfall alone.

The government should set a higher target for recycling water of at least 200GL, and eliminate ocean outfalls.

Latrobe Valley power stations consume 140 billion litres (GL) of water per year, so recycled water could be used for this purpose rather than drinking water.

Supporting new and existing water conservation programs for homes and industry

This initiative is commendable. However, Melbourne's daily water usage is still quite high at 277 litres per person per day. A reduction to 150 litres per person per day is achievable, which would greatly reduce demand for water, and expensive new infrastructure to provide it.

Summary

The Brumby government has embarked on an expensive plan to address Victoria's water shortage, with a particular focus on ensuring Melbourne's water supply, with some severe impacts on rural areas resulting. In particular, the loss of water from the ailing Goulburn River, and the building of an energy hungry and polluting desalination plant at Wonthaggi will have major impacts to these regions.

The entire Murray Darling River is now at risk. Rather than taking more water from the Goulburn River, increased environmental flows should be provided to both the Goulburn and Murray rivers.

The $4.9b spending on these water projects will be passed onto Victorian taxpayers, with water bills increasing by about 15% already in 2008. It is projected that water prices will double by 2012 to pay for these projects.

Simple proven measures to increase water supply by protecting water catchments from logging are being ignored.

Melbourne's water supply needs would be better and more cheaply met by:

• reducing water consumption through increased efficiency measures

• stopping logging in water catchments

• major investment in domestic water tank systems, which have the added advantage of being installed incrementally

• harvesting, storing and using more of the 450 GL of storm water Melbourne loses per year

• recycling at least 200GL of sewerage per year and stopping ocean outfalls.

These initiatives can be funded from recurrent spending at cheaper rates (10%) than funds for giant projects such as the proposed $3b desalination plant (20%) under a Public Private Partnership.

The other worrying aspect of the government's water strategy is the apparent lack of supporting information on how their decisions were made, and grossly inadequate public consultation during its development.

The water strategy has been delivered as a fait accompli by government; they are not showing any signs of investigating lower risk and cheaper, more distributed alternatives.

Of mythical water grids, pipelines and logging in catchments

After a period of denial and inaction about our looming water crisis, the Brumby Labor government is now hell bent on pushing their so called "water grid" as a solution for our ongoing reduced rainfall. I am not sure where they got this concept from. It seems to have entered "government speak" around the world from the Thames in the UK to Queensland.

Unfortunately the concept as described in Victoria has a number of serious flaws and seems to be mainly a public relations exercise.

My understanding of the concept in Victoria is that large scale engineering works - such as the North South pipeline, and perhaps the planned $3b desalination plant at Wonthaggi - will create a system where water can be transferred long distances to places where it will be used.

The major problems with this approach are:

• Any pipelines that are not gravity fed will require a lot of energy (mostly derived from coal-fired power) to pump the water. This will result in major greenhouse gas emissions.
• The proposed North South pipeline is taking water from the Murray Darling catchment - where it is desperately needed - to Melbourne, where it is not. This has major impacts for people living both along the Goulburn, and all the way down the Murray River to Adelaide, whose residents rely on the river for most of their drinking water
• The costs of pipelines is high. The 70km North South pipeline is estimated to cost $750m.
• The environmental impacts of pipelines is high. The North South pipeline route has the potential to affect 75 threatened animal and plant species.
• The planned desalination plant will produce a lot greenhouse gas emissions too, and the water from it will have to be pumped all the way to Melbourne.
• Logging in Melbourne's water catchments continues - which is resulting in less water and a reduction in its quality.
  

The Brumby Government's rationale for all this is not clear. We are quite obviously running low on water, but we are not yet on Stage 4 restrictions, and Melbourne's daily household water usage is still quite high.

People still have their swimming pools full too - topped up with water trucked in, resulting in yet more greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a cruel irony in climate change causing reduced rainfall, then most of the governments measures to address water shortages resulting in more greenhouse gas emissions, which will further exacerbate climate change.

Brumby has also stated that:

"the only way you can find new water is by reducing savings, evaporation and seepage and those things".

Fixing leaky irrigation channels and pipes does save water loss and is worth doing, but it doesn't "find new water" (or create it).

Here is my proposal for addressing the water shortage:

• Mandate water tanks for every new household - 5000 litres storage per bedroom - to catch and use rainwater.
  
• Subsidise a retrofit scheme for water tanks to existing households, or provide a rebate on water bills for those who have tanks installed.
• Aim to recycle 80% of the water we use, rather than just flushing it down sewers and out to the ocean. Cease putting water out at the Gunnamatta and other ocean outfalls.
  
• Aim to reduce domestic usage to 120 litres per person per day
• Stop logging in Melbourne's water catchments immediately - this should save 30 gigalitres of water per year.
• Use recycled water for the cooling towers of Latrobe Valley power stations, rather than drinking water.
• Design gardens that capture water. A lot of new housing developments have more paved area than garden, which results in more water runoff and less entering the soil and water table.
• Shift agricultural usage to the most efficient methods. Eliminate sprinkler application and flood irrigation where they are still in use, in favour of drip irrigation.
  

Links

• Pipeline route to threaten protected species ABC Goulburn Murray
• Melbourne water usage - Greenlivingpedia
• State water grid to secure supply: Brumby - ABC News
  
  

Stop logging Melbourne's catchments to save water

Letter to the editor

It is encouraging to hear that the announced desalination plant for Melbourne (Australian 20/6) will be carbon neutral. However the renewable energy it will consume would be better utilised supplying Melbourne which is now struggling for power during peak load times.

Following the doctrine that prevention is better than cure, the Bracks government should end all logging of our old growth forests and water catchments.

Considering the Thomson catchment, which supplies over 50% of Melbourne's water during drought years:

• Over 50% of the Thomson catchment has now been logged.

• The area most heavily logged produces 70% of the water.

• This is causing the loss of 20 gigalitres of water each year from the catchment, which amounts to the water used by about 100,000 households.

The image below shows the extensive patchwork logged forest in the Thomson catchment, circa 1995.



Around 90% of Melbourne's tap water comes from 157,000 hectares of native forest spread across our water catchments. These forests have the prime purpose of harvesting drinking water. Scientific studies have confirmed that logging causes the loss of at least 30 gigalitres from these catchments each year. These losses are equivalent to the current water use of 150,000 Melbourne households per year. Over the last 30 years a third of these catchments have been logged.

The value of the water lost subsequent to logging far exceeds the low value of the woodchips, timber and royalties. Victorians would be $147m better off per year if logging of catchments stopped.

Melbourne Water should buy out the timber licenses for the Thomson and Yarra tributary catchments at an estimated cost of $3.9 million, rather than spend the estimated $20 million to bring the Tarago catchment back into the domestic water supply system.

If the Bracks government were to stop logging our native forest, adopt further conservation measures and encourage every household to use a water tank, we may not even need the $5 billion desalination plant which will double the cost of water bills.

The UK Stern Report estimates that deforestation represents more than 18% of global carbon emissions, so protecting protecting our forests from logging has the added benefit of ensuring the carbon they store stays there and does not further contribute to climate change.

Links
City counts cost of logging, The Age