31 March 2008 - Canberra Times;   Revamp of water services a priority  By Patrick Troy

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1   Whatever the cause of the increasing inability of the water supply system to meet demand, whether it is due to demand exceeding the supply, the need to maintain environmental flows, reduced run-off in the dam catchments due to long-run climatic cycles or to global climate change, there is an urgent need to re-examine Canberra's water services' systems.

2   This is needed to make the city more water independent without creating unacceptable stresses on the regions from which water is abstracted or in the Murrumbidgee into which waste waters are discharged.

3   The approach taken in Canberra is to follow the traditional "predict and provide" model in which the demand for water is based on simple predictions of population and consumption and then developing the supply needed to meet demand.

4   This reliance on a big engineering approach is comforting for the monopoly supplier but is inappropriate because it ignores the socio-cultural drivers of demand and is a lazy approach to the issues.

5   It is also environmentally costly and expensive Canberra's water is now one of the highest-priced urban water supplies in Australia.

6   The current drought has brought problems in the management of water resources into high relief.

7   The response has been to seek ways of increasing supply and using water restrictions aimed particularly at reducing water consumption on uses outside the dwelling.

8   The demand for water has some seasonal variation but consumption is fairly constant year on year for conventional housing and throughout the year for higher- density forms of housing.

9   The supply of water through the water catchments is highly variable, depending as it does on rainfall.

10   This was not a concern when the storage was large enough to allow for several years of consumption, but it is now because the increase in population, together with increased per capita consumption, produces a high and relatively constant demand while rainfall over the catchments appears to have declined.

11   Water supply systems once determined by considerations of health and primary hygiene are now more driven by lifestyle behaviour.

12   Water consumption both helps create the demand for, and is a consequence of, the form of development of the city.

13   The traditional separate house in its own garden was (and remains) a strong expression of the needs of households for some independence.

14   This is a special factor in Canberra which was developed in accordance with garden city ideals that remain strongly supported.

15   We may need, however, to reconsider what kind of garden city we want, yet encourage the growth of trees and shrubs to help mitigate the production of CO2 emissions.

16   Rather than simply increasing supply, a different strategy is required to equitably and significantly reduce consumption of potable quality water for uses that do not require it, while acknowledging the need for potable water for drinking and basic health reasons.

17   The current drought provides the need for short-term measures to begin the process of re-educating people, of changing their patterns of consumption, of reshaping some of their behaviour, expectations and attitudes.

18   The increasing acceptance of the reality of climate change and the increased variability in rainfall provides opportunities to change expectations and cultural norms that affect the patterns of consumption in a more profound way.

Two approaches suggest themselves:

19,  1. Measures to reduce consumption of potable water and encourage consumers to accept some responsibility for their consumption by making use of locally available water resources that is, by installing rainwater tanks to capture water for internal uses such as showering and by treating and storing grey water for reuse in toilet flushing, laundry and gardening.

20These components would increase the cost of dwellings but there would be significant savings in the dwellings' plumbing and in the investment in water supply and sewerage infrastructure systems.

21,   2. Employment of technologies that enable the community to maintain sanitation objectives and meet its ambitions of comfort and convenience without consumption of potable water.

22   About a quarter of the internal household consumption of potable water is used to clear the toilet basin and an approximately equal volume of grey water is needed to complete the transport of wastes to the sewage treatment plant.

23   This is a fundamentally extravagant way of using water.

24   Actew has introduced more efficient designs and encouraged use of dual-flush toilets and low-flow showers which have led to small reductions in water consumption but cannot achieve the savings needed.

25   About 10 kilolitres are used in the kitchen for drinking, food preparation and cleaning utensils, suggesting that this is the volume that needs to be supplied at the highest quality.

26   Allowing that some of the bathroom consumption should also be of the highest standard, eg the hand basin and the shower/bath, we might need to supply another 10kl of potable water for bathroom use.

27   That is, 20kl a person a year should become the supply obligation of Actew and an inalienable environmental right to potable water for all residents. The price of the mandated water should be set at a very low level and the fixed charge for water services eliminated.

28   Households could then either buy from Actew the additional water they consume above that level, priced at a rapidly increasing rate to discourage excess consumption and to encourage efficient use of on-site water, or install rainwater tanks to treat and store their grey water.

29   Using rainwater and treated recycled grey water would reduce the sewage discharge from dwellings and lead to smaller volumes being treated at sewage treatment plants.

30    Collection of rainwater, including that stored in the recycled water tank, would reduce the stormwater run-off peaking problem.

31    Securing a similar degree of water independence for households in multi-unit developments would, in principle, be no different although the collection of rainwater and the use of recycled water present slightly different challenges.

32    To ensure that the recycling storage tank always held sufficient water for toilet flushing the "off-take" for garden watering would have to be set at a level which retained the required volume.

33    Households, industry, commerce and public facilities would use significantly less potable water which would mean that the construction of new storage and large-scale water treatment plants could be delayed, possibly indefinitely.

34    A major benefit would be that households and industrial and commercial undertakings would become more responsible for managing their own affairs.

35    Another benefit includes reducing the flow of sewage which means that the sewerage systems would be able to treat the lower volumes to a higher standard, making it available for industrial use and for irrigation of parks and large public spaces.

36    This would also minimise the discharge through outfall sewers.

37    The reduced stormwater run-off could also be captured for treatment and recycling for industrial use as well as for irrigation of public parks and gardens.

38    This approach would require a different approach to the management of sewerage systems and to stormwater drainage systems.

39    Instead of the large-scale drainage to a small number of points, the systems would be managed as a series of systems on the sub-catchments that make up the city.

40    The city as a whole would be less vulnerable to breakdowns in the system and consumers would be made more directly responsible for the environmental health of the water catchments, as well as to the security of their supply.

41    All new housing, whether on greenfield or redevelopment sites, would be required to reduce their use of water supplied by Actew.

42    An important equity element of the strategy would be to ensure that requiring all new dwellings reduce consumption of potable water be accompanied by programs to retrofit existing developments to meet the same objectives.

43   To ensure wide support for the policy, an integrated strategy would also need to apply to new and existing industrial and commercial undertakings.

44    Separately managing black and grey water waste streams from dwellings and industrial and commercial operations would leave open options for the later adoption of alternative approaches or technology for the management of either waste water stream.

45    This is particularly important for black water flows.

46    The popular resistance to the human consumption of recycled water is based on anxieties about the efficiency of systems to eliminate the bacteria, protozoa and viruses as well as many pharmaceutical drugs commonly found in sewage.

47    These anxieties are well-founded because research reveals many pharmaceutical drugs are not eliminated to a high-enough standard.

48    It is questionable whether present sewage treatment and recycling systems, including reverse osmosis, can provide the security of water quality the community demands.

49    While large-scale recycling of waste water might be appropriate for a variety of community, industrial and commercial uses, it should not be used for human consumption.

50    The present health regulations governing rainwater tanks, dry composting toilets and grey-water recycling systems would need to be reviewed.

51    Health objectives need to be secured but innovations in these technologies need to be recognised and improvements acknowledged in revised regulations controlling their installation.

52    Given that all "natural" sources are now fully exploited and there is little spare capacity to allow for the variation in rainfall and therefore of run off from the dam catchments, the currently favoured solutions are to develop recycling plants, coyly called "water purification plants", and desalination plants which is building in a path dependency which will reduce community choices and increase environmental stress.

53    The dependencies we have created in the water services are reflected not only in the technologies used in water services but also in the cultures of the institutional and administrative arrangements devised for water management.

54    This institutional culture has fed and been created by the "predict and provide" approach taken by Actew.

55    The present uses of water cannot be sustained and the current approach to the water crisis by searching for ways of increasing supply is ultimately self-defeating.

56    It would be impossible, however, to arrange for a rapid transition from the way water services are currently provided.

57    The approach suggested here would minimise the problem of stranded assets that would be created if the rate of change to new systems was too rapid.

58    The pricing regime proposed would have the beneficial effect of relating water price to consumption in ways most likely to affect behaviour. It would also provide an incentive for the installation of water-harvesting facilities and lead to greater household water independence.

59    Separating the water supply services from the sanitation services would lead to significant reductions in water use and of sewage flows.

60    Using the water resources on each block for the developments on them would not only ensure that residents and businesses became more aware of, and responsible for, their own supply as much as possible, it would also ensure the provision of local water services for parks and public gardens made better use of the local drainage flows.

Emeritus Professor Patrick Troy is a former head of the ANU's Urban Research Program.