Perth Water
Users
Starting in
mid-2004 we are concerned that current WA Government water policies
which are focused unwisely on a $500 million (allows for cost
over runs etc on top of $350Mill announced) proposal to build a grossly
extravagant desalination plant at Kwinana, will fail to best serve the
interests of Perth people. Now in May 2007 the Govt announces a
second seawater desal plant near Bunbury, flagging a cost near
$1Billion. Just remember who is paying for these
"White Elephants".
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June 2005 Update, following over 200mm of catchment rain in May 2005
we ask Government, "Where has all the water gone ?
This lead to an article in the Rockingham local newspaper, the "Sound
Telegraph", (that's Cockburn Sound)
Interesting that the Govt. response is so weak. They say that
40GL PA could be saved (~=KDP production) so the headline is spot
on. They do not contradict our claims that rainfall has been
pretty steady for 30 years and that catchment yields have collapsed to
~3% since the mid-1990's.
We say, "well may the Government be sensitive." We predict the
Premier will become the State's least visible water Minister in history.
August 2007
update, following 560 mm of catchment rain May-June-July the Govt has
wasted another 58 GL.
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May 2005, read our submission to
WA Govt. ERA water price inquiry, (pdf version on the ERA website)
Check our 13 point comments on the Premier's 29
July press release go ahead for RO plant.
There
is much evidence that the current "water crisis" and future climate
impacts are being overstated. There never was or is a "water crisis".
Dam levels were steadily reducing before 2001 due to rising
demand, neglect of new sources, all exacerbated by over a decade
of increasing understory regrowth choking catchment flows.
This means
that had catchments been managed we would have started 2001 with say an
extra 200 GL of supply. Faced with these simple realities
the Govt. opted to blame climate change and avoid ruffling Green
feathers by avoiding the essential task of thinning the
catchments. To prop
up the mantra that climate change is the bogey, basic issues of
rainfall statistics are presented to the public in a slanted manner.
For example, contrary to what we are told in the media,
rain at stations near catchments has been average for the months May to
August 2004. The map of rainfall contours in the SW
of WA by Martyn Keen, WA Dept. of Agriculture, shows how
much
more rain falls in the catchments and drives home the irrelevance of
quoting Perth rain figures in the media as Water Corporation
does. Click here for full map
with legend. Questions
for Water Corporation
Graphic showing Perth
annual rainfall in mm 1970 to 2005, The Govt slogan "..our drying climate.." used
from 2002 , is shown by this graphic to be utter hogwash.
Click on graphics for larger versions. We say
the Government should keep a cooler
head and work through the current period of lower than desired dam
levels by a combination of policies which do not include the
desalination plant.
Graphic of Catchment Efficiency
1980-2007 showing disastrous falloff in catchment yields
1996-2007 after
ceasing
catchment
management.
2006 was the
dryest year in Perth (since records began in 1876). Yet in
the catchments, 2006 was relatively not so dry as Perth. Link to see 1975-2007 catchment rainfall in perspective.
Link to see various Blog
articles on WA Govt bungling Perth water resources
The major fall-off in rain for SW WA took place in the mid
1970's, more than 35 years ago, the Govt should stop BLEATING
about that now and get on with using the rain we do get. For a
discussion of recent statements by the WA Premier that “..It
has stopped raining in the south west of Western Australia. The
rain no longer falls from the sky in sufficient quantities to fill the
dams to fill the pipes to fill the cups for people to drink…”., see new
page, Perspective
on SW WA rainfall.
Note: Catchment yield in % on
the
right axis of the above graphic is the GigaLitres of stream flow into
dams (figures from WaterCorp) over the Giga Litres of rainwater that
falls over the 3500 square kms of catchments from May to October,
rainfall figure in mm on left axis.
The bullet
points below set out some of the ways the Government should
progress water policy, some need more investigation, some are
"ready to go". who knows in years ahead a desal plant may be an
economic option and if that comes to pass we know for certain
technology will
have improved the process and reduced the real costs. Perth annual water consumption is circa
300GL.
- enhancing runoff
by catchment thinning starting NOW. Since the dry winter
in 2001 we have wasted nearly SIX years of improved water inflows by
not commencing this common
sense
work that would increase inflows an extra $100 million in terms of
value of retail water and also reduce some of the unemployment in
timber towns; The above
thumbnail shows the drop off in Catchment Efficiency (CE) since the mid
1990's. This measures the loss of inflows due to regrowth in
catchments. Click on thumbnail above for full graphic.
- The Agritech proposal to desalinate the
slightly saline water now wasted from Wellington Dam has obvious merits
compared to the more expensive KDP that the Govt. has panicked
into. Wellington
Dam storage 2002-2007
PWU also draws attention to 300GL of weakly saline water wasting to sea
every year in the Avon and Murray Rivers in addition to the Collie
flows, see the PWU ERA submission above. For Agritech project
- The Water
Corporation has a timetable out to 2030 published at the 2002 Water
Symposium
to progress its timetable of future dam and stream engineering works
enhancing future storage and supply, (without the RO plant), WaterCorp
should be told to get on with this;
- We draw 150 GL of water per year from
the Gnangara Mound which equates to more than three times the proposed
new Kwinana Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant (KRODP). The EPA want to
shut down some of these bores on environmental grounds. Which usually
means preserving urban wetlands = swamps and small lakes.
Do we really want to preserve some urban swamps in return for giving up
a large component of our groundwater supply ? Clearly any
production from the KRODP
might be cancelled out quickly by groundwater shutdowns. In fact more
KRODP's
might well be on GovWater's agenda. The capital cost could be enormous.
The
Gnangara pine plantations are suppressing 40 GL of water per year and
if
converted to a mix of urban use and native bush over a decade could add
130
GL per year to capacity. Read what we say about the Gnangara Mound
and pines.
- Circa 150Gl of stormwater is trapped in
Perth drainage each year and then is wasted to the sea. PWU says surely
some of this could be treated to potable standard cheaper than the
KRODP option.
- take sensible steps to buy surplus
water from irrigator groups if such water can be found;
- encourage reduction of water losses
where improved engineering can save water in irrigator schemes;
- investigate cloud seeding to enhance
catchment flows using the most up to date technology from operators
with track records of success, from wherever they may be in the world.
It is ludicrous for the Water Corporation to shelter behind a
1969 report to justify their continuing to turn a blind eye to cloud
seeding . Imagine if a cancer researcher said, "..yeah well we
have a inconclusive report from 1969 so we are ceasing all further
research...".; Check out web site of
Weather
Modification Inc
- the Government should take less notice
of exaggerated Green concerns about flora & fauna that are
obviously blocking catchment thinning.
- and also not build current policy
on pessimistic climate models which have no success record in
predicting the future;
- the Government should see that rainfall
and water supply statistics are publicised in a more scientific
way;
- of course moves towards greater reuse
of processed wate-water by industry should continue and all sensible
urban conservation measures;
- longer term a pipeline south from the
abundant water in northern WA should be investigated as part of a
process where along the route the water contributes to "Nation
building", establishing new communities in new
economic zones, involving food production by new migrants, supplying
Pilbara industry, WA mining regions etc. Not simply a pipeline to
Perth.
You read it first here.
Our ideas and policies are developing as our group expands, Warwick
Hughes is one of the initiators.
Join us and help us to put in a submission the the ERA water price
enquiry. You could help by spreading the word of this website to
friends, family, workmates, neighbours, by email, and word of
mouth, they are ALL water users. The entire effort is done by
volunteers, you could help by putting leaflets in local mailboxes. Just
print the text off this page.
We need assistance with photocopying, advertising, mailing.
We are very interested to hear from people in WA regions.
You can email us at perth_water at sign yahoo.com.au
Links:
Web site by one of our founders, with factual information on the
Perth rainfall history, water supply catchments history, Perth
water shortage and water supply options including information on silly
extravagant desalination option and how forest regrowth continues to,
degrade our catchment potential.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/water/
Go to http://www.era.wa.gov.au/water/
for Perth Water Users submission to ERA water price inquiry.
Bureau of Meteorology FTP site, Australian high
quality rainfall data 379 stations, but maybe ~300 updated thru 2003
ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/change/
Global Historical Climate Network data
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn/ghcn.SELECT.html
Indian Ocean site by Jean-Luc Le Blanc
http://indianocean.free.fr
Jacobs Perth Climate data pages, links to real time weather
observations
http://members.iinet.net.au/~jacob/weather.html
Follow link on right to "Snowfall Augmentation by Cloud Seeding",
many pdf reports to read note Searle 2002.
http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/
Ryan and Sadler overview of cloud seeding in
Australia
http://www.dar.csiro.au/publications/cloud.htm
CSIRO media man Paul Holper's summary of cloud seeding.
http://www.dar.csiro.au/publications/holper_2001c.htm
Northwest Cloudbands, site by Nicola Telcik UWA scientist
http://www.cwr.uwa.edu.au/~telcik/menu.html
The Water Corporation, administers WA water supplies. Look in
downloadable reports for useful info.
http://www.watercorporation.com.au.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, research projects of Dr. Warren
B. White, including forecasts for global rainfall.
http://jedac.ucsd.edu/PERSONNEL/WHITE/index.html
his home page
http://jedac.ucsd.edu/PROJECTS/index.html
papers by Dr White
http://jedac.ucsd.edu/acw/
his Antarctic Circumpolar Wave web pages
Viacorp, background on Perth water supply
http://viacorp.com/perth_water.html/
WA Water and Rivers Commission, much rainfall, river flow and
groundwater data, little that is long term
http://www.wrc.wa.gov.au/
Water Forum, new web site with what the Government wants us to know.
http://www.ourwaterfuture.com.au
Nothing below here.
