News & Discussion: Water Infrastructure

[AG]

$850m water plan
GREG KELTON, CHIEF POLITICAL REPORTER, with AAP
June 05, 2007 03:06pm
Article from: Font size: + -
Send this article: Print Email
THE State Government is examining an $850 million proposal to double Adelaide's water storage capacity within the next decade.

The Government is also committing $3 million in Thursday’s state budget to conduct a full environmental study into the construction of a desalination plant for Adelaide.

Premier Mike Rann and Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald unveiled the plans today while inspecting the Mt Bold reservoir.

Ms. Maywald said increasing the size of the Mt Bold reservoir would require the construction of two new dam walls, including a new main wall which would become the highest in SA at 85 metres - 32m higher than the current wall.

It would double the capacity of water storage in Mt Lofty Ranges from 190gigolitres to 384 gigolitres.

It would also involve the construction of new pipelines to bring water from Mt Bold to the northern side of Adelaide.

Ms Maywald said a decision on either project was still about two years away.

The $850 million project would take 10 years to complete.

[Howie]

Caught a glimpse of that on the news tonight. Wonder what are the pros and cons of firstly the expansion of the reservoir and secondly the building of a desal plant. Either way, 190gigolitres to 384 gigolitres sounds like a massive increase

[jimmy_2486]

This will be great in terms of water supply for SA.

Reservoirs will need to be extended and i do believe a de-sal plant or two will help serve the state better to help fix the drought.

To power these big suckers we would need to go nuclear which I'm all for.

[rhino]

One thing I can't quite understand - Adelaide has two or three water filtration plants, one at Happy Valley Reservoir (water from Mt Bold Reservoir is piped there from Clarendon Wier via an underground pipeline/tunnel) and the other at Little Para Reservoir in the hills behind Elizabeth, which filters water from the northern reservoirs (Warren, South Para, etc). There may be another one at Hope Valley filtering water from Kangaroo Creek and Millbrook Reservoirs, I'm not sure. Since Adelaide is expanding northward at a much greater rate than it's expansion southward, why is the Mount Bold Reservoir being enlarged and not, say, Kangaroo Creek, which is also in a deep valley (less surface area = less evaporation). Instead, the filtered water from Happy Valley Reservoir is going to be piped across Adelaide to where it's needed. Any clues?

[Will409]

I just hope that wherever the water for the northern suburbs comes from, I just hope it is better then what we have now. Have you tried Elizabeth water lately, yick!

[Bulldozer]

Since Adelaide is expanding northward at a much greater rate than it's expansion southward, why is the Mount Bold Reservoir being enlarged and not, say, Kangaroo Creek, which is also in a deep valley (less surface area = less evaporation). Instead, the filtered water from Happy Valley Reservoir is going to be piped across Adelaide to where it's needed. Any clues?

Because Mt Bold/Happy Valley supplies something like 3/4 of Adelaide's water. The demand in the area that it covers isn't going to decline, if anything it's going to increase with line with the increasing density of the area (even though per-capita usage will decline due to smaller/no gardens and the emphasis now placed on efficiency). That being said, it seems that Rann is ignoring his beloved Waterproofing Adelaide crapfest, which was brought about because of the realisation that demand is increasing at the same time that supply is decreasing due to what appears to be a consistent trend towards lower annual rainfall. Mt Bold and the Clarendon weir overflowing is already a rare event.

If the trend continues to hold then we really need to look at other sources of water such as desalination and recycling rather than pumping more from the Murray, especially if they're still targetting 2 million people! The Murray is stuffed and to me it seems irresponsible for Adelaide, Whyalla, etc. to all use Murray water when we have the means to use alternative sources, while farmers and inland towns depend on the Murray for their livelyhoods and don't have alternative sources of water to use.

Now getting sidetracked a bit because I like to try and think of the big picture: If you think the price of bananas was crazy last year then be prepared for worse for a decade if farmers in the Riverland don't get a subsistence allocation to keep their orchards alive this year. If the orchards die they need to be cleared and replanted, which will take a couple of years. The trees will take a few years before they become productive, but before you get to the replanting you have to wait for the production nurseries to ramp up output - something that will take about half a decade (fruit trees you buy in a garden centre take 3-4 years to get to that stage) because there'll be more demand for trees than there is seedstock, budwood, labour and nursery capacity. We're talking about millions of trees here, and I really doubt that a lot of farmers will have the means to rebuild and that the region will be able to cope with the collapse of the industry.

[rhino]

I live in a (very) low density area, have a large block of land, and a nice garden, which has taken more than ten years to establish, and where my family and I spend a lot of time. In fact, gardening is my wife's hobby. Now winter is coming to an end and we are told we cannot water our gardens (we haven't needed to for the last several months) except with a bucket - a ridiculous concept in many, if not most, cases.

Bob Such was on the radio this morning pointing out that something has to be done about these unfair water restrictions - unfair because it is OK to spend 2 hours in the shower, but not OK to water your plants with dripper, which use much less water than a shower does.

John Lamb (gardening guru) was in the paper today, pointing out that it's about time to start planting tomatos, but why would you, if you're not allowed to water them? You could stand in your back yard and listen to your neighbour run his spa bath every night, because he's allowed to have as many spas as he likes, and at the end of each one a large bathfull of water goes down the drain. But you can't water your tomatos.

So, you'll just have to eat store-bought tomatos (and any other fruits or vegies you used to grow in your garden)from now on. Oh, and they'll cost you more, because the water restrictions are hitting the commercial growers too.

Okay, so we have to come up with a fairer way to restrict water usage, because the way it stands right now, you can use as much water as you like, so long as it's indoors, but you can't use any water outdoors. I'd like to hear your ideas. Here's mine:


Water is an essential in life, therefore a reasonable ammount of it must be supplied to each and every household, free of charge (we're charged via taxes anyway), or at a flat, low rate. This should be enough water to reasonably get by for drinking, washing, laundering, cooking, etc. I don't know how much that would be, but there are water boffins who know the amounts. Anything above that usage, should be charged as excess. Now we get to water restrictions. Excess charges should directly reflect the ammount of water we have in storage each quarter. The lower the amount of water held in storage each quarter, the higher the excess charge should be for the following quarter. This should be a published rate (cost per kilolitre vs % capacity in the storages), relatively inflexible, and the amount of water held in storages should also be published each quarter, so that everyone knows where they are heading. If electricity charges can go up and down when more or less is required, why can't excess water rates? This way, those who are prepared to pay for the privilege of keeping their garden alive (and some of these gardens are generations old) can, and those who are not won't have to. BUT - those who decide to have a spa every night or spend an hour in the shower will find themselves paying for the excess water they consume too.

Any other ideas?

[AtD]

I'm just a crazy economist, but the fairest way to restrict water usage is simply jack up the price. Perhaps use a sliding scale so pensioners who use buckets aren't disadvantaged.

Of course, that's political suicide.

[corisson]

I think that it should be mandatory that every houshold is required to have some sort of rainfall catchment system. This water can be used for gardening or if filtered correctly can be fit for human consumption. I realise that this water catchment supply is limited to the size and number of tanks, any help is valuable.

[Pistol]

Man, am I glad I live in one of those hi-rise, medium-density burbs and not out in the low density burbs with big thirsty blocks

[rhino]

Man, am I glad I live in one of those hi-rise, medium-density burbs and not out in the low density burbs with big thirsty blocks

Ha ha, and touche, I expected that from somebody!

Actually, I am not on mains, we collect our own rainwater in a big tank for our own use in the house, and have a grey water recycling system which we use on our garden. We also have an ancient well, but the grape growers in the region have lowered the water table and I don't think our well is going to provide us much water any more. I still think the water restrictions are unfair to those who would rather use their water outdoors than indoors, and I believe a fairer system is not that hard to implement.

[Will]

I think that it should be mandatory that every houshold is required to have some sort of rainfall catchment system. This water can be used for gardening or if filtered correctly can be fit for human consumption. I realise that this water catchment supply is limited to the size and number of tanks, any help is valuable.

In addition it should be mandatory for every house to be fitted with those AAA rated shower heads and dual flush toilets.

[rhino]

I heard some interesting things on ABC Radio this morning about our water restrictions.

SA Water says we have about 5% leakage from the reticulated water system, and it should not need a serious look at for about another 25 years, but the boffins say with the age of the system, that is more likely to be 11% and should be looked at as we speak.

SA Water says about 40% of household water is used on gardens, but they have never done a comprehensive study on this. The NSW govt has, and they came up with 32%, which included all outdoor water use - washing cars and pavements, topping up swimming pools and spas. Gardens probably realisically us about 25% of household water.

Bucket watering wastes a lot more water than drip irrigation, as with Adelaide's clay soils, most of the water tipped out of a bucket does not soak in where it is wanted, but flows over the top of the soil and soaks in where it isn't needed.

Irrigators use 80% of SA's water, a lot of it inefficiently. Households use 9%, but are being restricted, basically, "to be fair to irrigators".

There is more treated water pumped into Gulf St Vincent than there is being stored and re-used.

There is more runn-off making its way into Gulf St Vincent than the entire ammount of water required by Adelaide.

[stelaras]

Interesting Rhino raises some interesting points for which i happen to aggree to.

We fail to collect up to 80% of the rainfall that falls across the country!

In reference to the amount of water used per household, those figures can be skewed as most governments take the total volume of water used and divide by the number of household residents so the usage levels per household may be higher than what the government suggest.

In terms of water restirctions, im not sure im qualified to know, but my logic and opinion dictates that we should be on higher restrictions than what we are, since the chance of the drought breaking is still slim and the forecast is for below average rainfall for spring. Im not sure what advanced level 3 means for SA, but here in Melb we are on level 3A. For us that means no washing windows, cars, concrete and no watering of lawns anywhere. There are 2 gardening watering time slots wither Wednesday and Sunday or Tuesday and Saturday and that depends on whether you live in an odd or even numbered home and a set time during the early morning or late at night at which you can water.

I understand that we are considering level 4 in the imminent future.

It is difficult to know what to do especially with homes that are already established, but what i do know is that we all have to do something collectively.

The Governments will not rebuild infrastructure and replace seepage until it gets to a point of no return.

What they can do is legislate for new dwellings to create gardens that take into account the microclimate and design gardens which use plants are drought tolerant (i dont mean just cacti) There are thousands of plant species of trees, shrubs flowers that need little or no water. These gardens should all have subterranean drip systems for watering and their should be legislation for people to put in water tanks/water bladders (under homes/driveways/decks) to collect water.

I was at garden seminar yesterday the average water use for a garden in a given week based on 20 minutes of watering twice weekly was 2650L of water. This means that most home tanks would use their stored water in a week. The garden designer was arguing that installing tanks below 5000L was of little value and a waste of money.

There are simple mathematical calculations based on the area and slope of your roof to determine how much water you can collect from a single downpour, which can help to determine what sized water bladder you can instal.

Further, it should be legislated that New homes should build in Grey water treatment/storage plants as well.

When you put some thought into it, it is amazing how much water you can save! Sure the cost is high in some cases but just think that the cost of water is set to triple over the next year or so, so money spent now saves money thrown away when you pay for the water you use at a premium.

Bore systems are only a short term fix, If we all sunk bores we would draw unlimited amounts of water, but the water table will rise and so will salinity levels, destroying the soil and the very nature of what we are trying to do (establish a garden)

just my thoughts

[rhino]

How come Greg Norman is allowed to go ahead with his golf course? (He will probably use bore water - but as Stelaras pointed out, that brings with it it's own problems).

How come backyard swimming pools are still being given the green light by planning authorities?