Are we solving the urban water crisis?
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where we meet and pay tribute to their history, living culture and ongoing contribution to our communities.
Congratulations to NCC. I am looking forward to tonight’s discussion.
Years of inaction and neglect have left the Sydney catchment ill-prepared for climate change and drought.
We need an emergency response plan that has tighter water restrictions as the first, front line option. In the medium term, our day-to-day water habits need to change. The Greens are working for more water tanks, on site grey water treatment and reuse, recycling, and demand management.
The immediate water crisis has been compounded because the major parties have been unwilling to back tighter water restrictions.
The Iemma government and the opposition have underestimated the enormous water savings potential locked up in the community's willingness to change habits and use less water.
When Premier Iemma in February last year abandoned all plans for level four restrictions in favour of a desalination plant he spectacularly misread attitudes on water.
A national study last year revealed that two thirds of Australians support water restrictions. With community education and compliance monitoring, Sydney could entirely avoid the need for a desalination plant.
In early February of this year when the Warragamba storage levels dropped to below 35 percent level 4 restrictions should have kicked in. Instead we were pushed down the road to a desalination plant because on the eve of an election the Premier lost courage to impose water restrictions.
The proposed desalination plant would be a $2 billion disaster that would increase NSW’s stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions by 1.4% and damage the ocean environment.
Even if the drought is protracted, water restrictions will hold storage levels until a well designed system of recycling, water tanks and improved efficiency can secure Sydney’s water supply.
The level 4 water restrictions that the Greens back for dry spells are designed by Sydney Water in consultation with the Drought Management Committee to ensure savings of about 10 percent. It is level 4 restrictions that the govt abolished.
While the government advanced its plans for a desalination plant the Coalition, which had also turned their back on water restrictions, went for a recycling plant.
The Greens acknowledge that a recycling plant is definitely an advance over a desalination plant but let’s not allow ourselves to be sweet talked by the Coalition when they discover the word ‘recycling’.
The Debnam plan is an expensive and energy hungry emergency measure that once operating would only increase Sydney’s water by 10 percent. As a drought relief measure it is a case of too little, too late.
Too late because by the time it is completed Sydney’s storage could be as low as 20% and too little because at that storage level 10% would not be enough.
A far better approach would be to go to level 4 now, and start work on lower cost, small scale recycling. This is the way to reduce our vulnerability to falling storage levels, and begin the business of closing the deep ocean outfalls.
We need to get smarter and move to the Next Generation of water recycling where we have high technology localised treatment, integrated with ultra efficient water use and rainwater and storm water capture.
This will allow leaking sewers and wasteful ocean outfalls to be phased out and decommissioned, rather than being ‘locked-in’ for decades to come.
Next Generation recycling treats and reuses the water and by products locally. It avoids the cost and energy consumption of large pipes moving sewage over long distances. This is the way we will close the deep ocean outfalls.
Melbourne is leading the way with local recycling projects like the Council House 2,
Inkerman Oasis and The Age Print Centre developments that massively reduce their use of water and production of waste by local and on site treatment and reuse.
So we need to keep the pressure on to lead Peter Debnam and Morris Iemma beyond words and into the next stage.
For the Greens this next stage includes government support to extend the number of water tanks; local recycling; and lifting this state’s water efficiency standards.
To achieve this Sydney Water must become a partner with all users to reduce water consumption.
Sydney Water has been an obstacle over the years to better environmental outcomes. But the solution is not the private sector – a win on recycling gained at the cost of losing public control over a crucial part of Sydney’s water system would be a pyrrhic victory that would impose massive social and environmental burdens on the next generation.
These are challenges not just for Sydney and Australia. Battles for the future of water supplies are being waged in many countries. The stand out lesson from around the world is uniform: keep water in public hands.
The only way to ensure that water and sewerage services and infrastructure are operated to maximise environmental performance, security and affordability is to maintain and strengthen public ownership.
The Greens vision is for Sydney Water to cease being a cash cow, maximising revenue for Treasury. It is a vision of publicly owned, community-focused authority whose objectives are to minimise water consumption, and minimise environmental impacts. It is a vision for a water authority, which works with households to reduce their water consumption and their water bills.
It is a vision based on twenty first century possibilities, not a 19th century network of pipes, dams, sewers and ocean outfalls.
The next decade is crucial. The profit motive of private operators will create even greater barriers to creating a focus on environmental outcome than the drive to maximize returns to treasury has done over the past two decades.
At the end of 2006, Labor and Coalition MPs voted together to push through legislation that further opens the door for private water providers to apply for a license to compete with Sydney Water. The break up of public ownership of the water supply is a big step in the wrong direction
Remaking Sydney Water is crucial if we are to achieve the big changes to water supply and usage that the greens see as essential.
The Greens plans includes:
· Local recycling and reuse projects for industrial and commercial premises, including on-site grey water pilot projects.
· Household water efficiency can be improved by working with the others states and territories to ban water inefficient appliances and stepping up the retrofitting of households.
· NSW’s building water and energy efficiency standard – BASIX –needs to be upgraded to ensure all new and renovated dwellings and commercial premises are water efficient and to maximize the capture of rainwater, storm water and wastewater.
· We need to reduce the flow through Sydney’s sewerage system and the deep ocean outfalls. The development and implementation of the next generation of composting toilets designed specifically for urban settings is the key here.
· And we need to massively increase the number of rainwater tanks in urban areas.
As a first step, I am pleased tonight on behalf of the Greens to announce our plan to have half a million-rainwater tanks in Sydney suburbs by 2015. Our plan puts a water tank in the reach of all households.
Only 29,000 tanks have been installed in Sydney and the number per year is now falling. Upfront costs are a major barrier to the widespread use of tanks and they place an intolerable burden on low-income households.
In the next parliament we will introduce a private members bill to establish a government-run finance scheme that will allow consumers to pay off their rainwater tank as part of their water bill. The tanks, with plumbing to toilets and laundry, will be installed at no up-front costs to the consumer. Repayments would be limited to $12.50 per month.
People would quickly be saving money on their water bills. We estimate that the water savings will be as much as 40,000 litres per tank, or half the average usage. Total water saving for the Sydney water catchment would be approximately 20 Gigalitres p.a. [20 billion litres]
On site recycling and demand side options like water tanks and improved efficiency are the future. They make economic and environmental sense and will commence the process of closing ocean outfalls and phasing out the environmentally disastrous pumping of water from the Shoalhaven for use in Sydney.
So how do we achieve all this? The major parties are under pressure to change their water policies. We need to ensure that the fine words we have heard tonight bear fruit after the election.
Keeping progressive independents and minor parties in the balance of power in the NSW parliament could be the key to achieving water sustainability in this state.
