News from WA today – Wellington Dam desalination plan to boost local agriculture It seems that Collie Water is this project here by Aqua Ferre Holdings Pty Ltd (Aqua Ferre) and Harvey Water. I look for project details but it seems that is not available freely on the www – you have to register with them. How disgusting that the WA Govt would be party to a project where information is not freely available. I checked Harvey Water and could see nothing about Collie Water. (See 4th comment for copy & paste of June 2016 article on the Collie Water Project plus their detailed map.)
Our Bunbury correspondent has sent in the following which will be expanded as time allows.
West Australian Water Using Taxpayers – Please Stand and Salute – An
Election is Coming.
This Election is Official because “Premier Water Guru Barnett” has once again raised Water as one of his lead promises.
Yes people, this is the same man who came up with a “foolproof cure” for Perth’s ailing water supplies in 2008 with the now famous “Colin’s Canal” project of delivering vast quantities of water
from the north west of the State to Perth, via a large lined canal at a cost of a mere $?.
But in Colin’s normal cautious way, he sought expert advice from a large Perth engineering group during a luncheon meeting at a restaurant in Perth.
This long and intense meeting resulted in carefully putting the plan down on paper, or a number of serviettes.
Initial costing for this audacious project was also calculated on even more serviettes until all agreed, Perth’s water problems were solved forever and Colin’s Canal solution was born and used as
an election promise.
The problem was the approximate costing given, bore no relationship to the actual cost and his good friends and benefactors. The Federal Government would not provide the funding sought and just as well
because an subsequent enquiry found a series of fatal errors in the plan.
Not to be daunted, Colin just prior to another State election, announced a $300,000 investigation into future water source options for Wellington Dam, the largest and safest dam in the SW of this State.
Interestingly, from a field of 18 proponents the field was reduced to three including Agritechsmartwater, Water & Rivers Commission (Gov.) Forest Products (CALM GOV).
The subsequent winner was Dept of Water, whose brilliant idea of diverting the east Collie river behind the dam into an “alleged” unused coal void, then taking it out in Summer, treating it with a fossil fuel powered RO plant and then pumping the water uphill to Harris Dam.
The pilot study of this proposal became an unmitigated disaster and once again, yet another “foolproof” Government plan and a few million dollars of taxpayers funds went out the window.
