Greenwash Political Action Party and Urban Grassroots Movement for the Green Party

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Public wants permanent water restrictions

Reports today that the NSW Government will scrap mandatory water restrictions as early as this August suggest the Government has learnt little from the desalination debacle.

Sydney has enough water. We just use too much and waste too much.

And what’s more, Sydney-siders know this. A huge majority think they can and should do more. 74% think water restrictions should stay in place (see previous post Feb 7th). Of course, this makes sense. Best to save water while you can.

We need to get used to using less water - for tougher times are ahead with reduced rainfall and higher temperatures expected from climate change.

Using less water – so called ‘demand management’ – is the best option. The best environmental solution and cheaper than recycling.

This is why we need to keep the pressure on the Government so it doesn’t continue down the slippery supply side solution slope of profligate and unsustainable ground water use - or heaven forbid - dusting off the desalination plant after the election.

Someone asked me what the cost of recycled water would be.

It is true that recycling to drinkable standards can be expensive. However recycling to a standard suitable for industry use and agriculture is much cheaper… freeing up the remaining supply of drinkable water.

And there are creative solutions.

A proposal by AGL - uncovered by the Greens - would have used their disused gas pipe network to pump recycled water. This would significantly reduce one of the biggest costs associated with recycling water – the need for a second pipe network. The AGL scheme was estimated to cost $250 million and would have produced almost as much water as the small scale Kurnell desalination plant which had a price tag 5 times as much at $1.3 billion.

posted by Ben Oquist # 10:03 AM 0 comments