I saw this news today – The West and Our ABC – so I dropped the Minister for Water a line.
Minister for Water,
I see the news today –
Recycled water need “urgent”
au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/30671382/recycled-water-need-urgent-for-wa/
and
Sprinkler ban extension on cards as Perth faces drying trend
www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-28/sprinkler-ban-extension-on-cards-as-perth-faces-drying-trend/7119268
Quoting the Water Corporation chief executive Sue Murphy telling a parliamentary estimates committee yesterday “Four of the last five years have been the driest ever.”
This is utter nonsense when you look at catchment rainfall.
www.warwickhughes.com/agri16/perrain15.png
Facts are that four of the last five years 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 have seen very useful May to October catchment rainfall of 948mm, 874.4, 993.4 and 918mm. These are all stunning good rainfall amounts compared to many other cities around the planet. Those four years would have seen ~3250GL on average of rain falling free from the sky each year into our ~3500 square km of catchments. Now if catchments had been prudently managed to produce even a 5% yield – there would have been an extra ~162GL of water in your dam system in each of those four years.
What colossal mismanagement – now extend back further in time and add up the cost of this mismanagement – must be in the $Billions.
The facts Minister are that starting about 20 years ago catchment vegetation has not been managed/thinned to produce the pre-1995 water yields into dams. That story was in The West Australian in 2002
www.warwickhughes.com/water/thinning.html
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www.warwickhughes.com/agri16/perdams15.png
So Minister, what is to be done? Here is what I would do if Minister for a day. Instruct Water Corporation – or the Dept of Water – to talk to the right bush experts in CALM or wherever in your byzantine bureaucracy and set up field teams to commence catchment management NOW. Choose the areas that have the best chance of an improved yield in the 2016 wet season.
This will be a vastly cheaper and better option than rushing this foolish plan to mix treated sewage into your potable groundwater at maybe $100Million. A policy that flies in the face of a couple of hundred years of advanced nations water/health policies which is grounded in keeping sewage and potable streams separated.
I have been writing on these issues starting around 2003-2004.
Some of my key articles including my 2007 – ” There never was a rain shortage to justify seawater desalination for Perth’s water supply” and my 2012 exchange of letters with Minister Marmion – ” Ongoing decline in efficiency of Perth Dam catchments – reply from WA Minister” – can be downloaded at my blog article.
“Perth water utility pleads for more water – the solutions to Perth water problems are not hard to grasp”
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=4220
All the best Minister, I will be sending this material to the Shadow Minister too.
Feel free to ask me any questions.
Warwick Hughes in Canberra
PS: Please feel free to circulate to other Parliamentary estimates committee members as I can not find any names except for Dave Kelly.
Reading all this, then taking a deep breath and trying to grasp the enormity of a supposedly responsible Water Utility decommissioning their dams, while constantly whining about OUR DRYING CLIMATE.
All this while contriving to ignore very significant rain quantities mother nature is dropping into their catchments in most years.
It is probably too much to ask that they would reverse policy, trim some bush back and actually let some valuable runoff into dams.
Very true beachgirl.
Unfortunately we no longer have a water utility held in the public trust.
All assets were shifted into a corporate entity to be managed under corporate rules.
This includes subcontracting a French company to do the work formerly done by capable Western Australians.
Hi Warwick
I’m interested in Sue Murphys statement that evaporation exceeded inflow.
All of the water produced by the Kwinana desal plant is pumped up the hill and into the Wungong dam. How much of this extremely expensive water is then subject to evaporation???
Cheers Phil
Yes Phil I have read that too – in fact this WaterCorp page says so.
www.watercorporation.com.au/home/faqs/water-supply-and-services/what-is-the-integrated-water-supply-scheme
It would seem more sensible to fill reservoirs lower down first – maybe they do that. But I agree – once in the dam the desal water will evaporate like any other water – a loss I have not seen quantified.
In Sep 2012 I did post on – Management of entire Perth water supply outsourced to French desalination company –
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1768
I do not know where the Govt and the Minister for Water fits in the hierachy of power.
The Minister for Water is Mia Davies, with a degree in Economics I believe and from the Nationals. I have found her very agreeable and a doer, so I expect you will get the right answer.
Hi Warwick
I believe I was your Perth reader in the Degrémont article. (Still delighted to be so)
My uncle used to work in a senior role with the former water board.
He and my aunt lived for 20 odd yrs in the water board property on top of Mount Eliza. (Where the reservoirs are)
My memory of him and his views were of a very serious and conciencious “public servant”.
For any that remember this meant someone who took pride in providing to the people of Perth not just water delivery but protecting and maintaining those assets.
This in my view was the public trust. A trust that held public assets. The board were trustees with fiduciary responsibilities to the people of Perth. The beneficiaries.
I believe that under this corporate structure the directors no longer have a fiduciary responsibility to the people of Perth. I also believe that the water minister has a very limited capacity to influence the directors.
I don’t know this for fact but this is where I have progressed to.
BTW I love your tenacity. You keep giving. 😃
Cheers Phil
Warwick, the Water Corporation’s own data clearly shows the large reduction in streamflows.
www.watercorporation.com.au/water-supply-and-services/rainfall-and-dams/streamflow
People don’t appreciate how much water trees use in our climate. I calculate that a large native tree uses approximately as much water as a Perth household. It’s a simple choice water for people or water for trees.
The best and biggest trees absorb up to 5000 litres a day, the River Redgum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis. I guess there’s also another fine line, more vegetation equals slower stream flow, little vegetation encourages silting and erosion.