No limit to water madness over decades in Western Australia.
[1] Refusal for decades to manage catchments – see 2002 press.
[2] Refusal for decades to use desal Wellington Dam water for metro supply, see next link –
[3] Refusal for decades to use mega quantities of desal wheatbelt water constantly wasting to sea in rivers.
A water org that can not even measure rainfall normally. There should be mass sackings in WaterCorporation and WA Dept of Water. Large image.
I have often said and following your WA Govt proudly wastes more money on water story, would add that if the Government and Water Corporation were manufacturing piddle pots, they would put the handles on the inside for easier packaging and handling.
The measly $25.2 million pa for increased costs incurred in producing more water from the Binningup seawater desal plant, is a mere flea bite when compared to the near $2 billion on wasting that money on the plant in the first place when there were far better and cheaper alternatives, particularly
recyling the 45 billion litres, at less than 3000 ppm they are and continue to waste each year or a staggering 600 billion litres since it was built.
Their claim for our continuing “water shortage” is once again Perth’s “Drying Climate” and the inability of our dams to trap and store water.
Last February there was a major flood event in WA, when heavy rains sent thousands of gigalitres of water through the wheatbelt and towns and the SW rivers and streams, before discharging to the ocean.
Most of these rivers and streams were supposed to feed dams along the Darling Escarpment for the people and industry along the SW coastal plain.
BOM and Water Corporation figures for rainfall or dam inflow, are either not recorded because of poor record keeping or seemingly missing or faulty gauges.
The one standout we can advise is the fact that Wellington Dam is usually holding 80% of the combined water in storeage of the 14 Perth Metro Dams and because of above average winter rains this year, the Collie river has broken it’s banks. For info on Agritech Wheatbelt and Wellington dam projects see – Plans to reduce WA wheatbelt salinity and utilise Wellington Dam
The Water Corporation has an “unshakeable” belief that lack of rainfall is caused by Climate Change/Global Warming, caused by high CO2 emmissions and is not a product of their inefficiencies.
That being the case why are they planning to increase the output of Binningup desal, plus building another 3 seawater desal plants north of Perth and to further aggravate global warming they plan more sewerage treatment plants where the treated water will be stored in deep aquifers, then 20 years later, bring that water to the surface (approx 800 metres) for domestic use.
The Agritech wheatbelt salinity recovery and hydro-electric project can supply 250 GL pa of high quality potable and process water and when combined with our Wellington Dam project this increases to 300 GL pa and without using fossil fuel power and at a significantly reduced cost reduction to
taxpayers and industry.
See PDF “Lies more lies and Government Water Spin” to see how they “gild the lilly.” – pdf about 2Mb
Roughly half of Perth’s domestic water supply goes on gardens. There is a huge shallow acquifer under most of Perth. The water is fine for garden use, which is why there are 70,000 bores to tap this water for gardens, parks, etc.
They are currently putting in new water pipes across much of inner Perth. How much more effort would be needed to put in pipes for grey/bore water at the same time? All that would be needed at the household end is a tap in the garden.
This would dramatically reduce the consumption of potable water from the dams.
Some erratic catchment rain in last couple of days. Samson Brook Dam scored 70mm last night. Not a major dam.
Saw that (70mm) too. They take forever to update the rainfall at individual dams, And who can trust them when they do? And update over a weekend? Never.