The Greens Community Water Solutions Package for Sydney

At a glance…

• Double the current rebate for water tanks and allow consumers to pay off the cost of tanks as part of their quarterly water bill
• Improve household water efficiency, including accelerated retrofitting of households and banning water inefficient appliances
• Enhanced BASIX to ensure that all new and renovated dwellings and commercial premises are water efficient and maximise the capture of rainwater, stormwater and wastewater
• Implement local recycling and reuse projects for industrial and commercial premises, including on-site grey water pilot projects with the goal of re-using most water at least three times
• Immediately introduce level IV water restrictions

1. Emergency drought measures

The Iemma government scrapped plans to introduce level IV restrictions when the storage levels fell to 35% in February 2006 in favour of building the desalination plant and aquifer pumping.

With no time left to introduce other water savings measures, the Greens would:

immediately introduce level IV restrictions. These would ban outdoor hosing, further restrict the filling of swimming pools and place tougher limits on some businesses and government agencies. They are designed to reduce water consumption by 30%.

back the restrictions up with enhanced compliance enforcement and community education. Working with the community to develop widespread confidence in compliance is important to the success of the restrictions.

abandon the pre-emptive plans for the desalination plant and aquifer pumping. These are expensive and environmentally damaging. The desalination plant could add up to 1.4% to NSW’s stationary source greenhouse gas emissions.  If a 500 ML/day plant were operated for 50% of the time, it would provide only 15% of Sydney’s annual water consumption. Sale of this water would earn about $30 million in net revenue which is an extremely poor return on a $1.2 billion investment.

Level IV restrictions and compliance measures are only needed because of past failures to treat water as precious commodity. If Sydney had reduced amount it had taken from its dams by 20% over the past five years, then water storage would currently be at 58.5%. There would be no water crisis.

2. Preparing for the next drought

Climate change is likely to deliver Sydney a more hostile climate with increasingly frequent and severe droughts. The lessons of the current crisis should not be wasted.

While protecting the reliability of the water supply requires careful planning, building expensive supply side options like desalination in an ill-considered attempt to drought proof Sydney is likely to be an expensive failure. Demand side options like water tanks and improved efficiency are cheaper and more reliable. They also continue to make economic and environmental sense even in the absence of drought.

The Greens would implement cost effective and environmentally sensitive options to reduce Sydney’s vulnerability to adverse rainfall patterns, including:

banning water inefficient appliances. We would work with other state and territory governments to develop a nation-wide ban on the sale of appliances that unnecessarily waste water.

the widespread use of rainwater tanks in homes, businesses and public buildings, by increasing subsidies, removing barriers and developing financial arrangements that allow consumers to pay off the cost of rainwater tanks as part of their quarterly bill.

financial assistance to low income households to reduce their water demand and increase efficiency. This includes rebates on high efficiency appliances for all pension card holders.

strengthening the water component of BASIX to ensure that all new and renovated dwellings and commercial premises are water efficient and maximise the capture and use of rainwater, stormwater and reuse of wastewater.

3. Making Sydney a world leader in water wisdom

In the longer term, Sydney’s environment and economy can benefit from a change in the way we think about water.  The experience of the drought and the development of new technologies mean that the community is now is a position to break away from outmoded thinking that treats our storages as inexhaustible and the oceans as a dump.

The Greens will work with the community to implement modern notions of water supply and sewerage services that include:

The grey water revolution. The Greens would urgently implement on-site grey water pilot projects with the goal of re-using most water at least three times. The best focus for these projects would be on domestic uses such as clothes washing and shower water. Separating easily re-used grey water before it is mixed with more contaminated products, especially human and industrial waste, will reduce the energy required to process it to potable or near potable levels. Doing this locally will significantly reduce transport costs and pumping energy.

Sydney Water a water services provider, not just a water supplier. Sydney Water is publicly owned. Last year it provided $193 million to the state government. Sydney Water’s business model means the more water Sydney uses, the greater the short term profit that is delivered to the NSW government. Instead of just providing water at the meter and taking sewage at the street, Sydney Water can become a partner with households in reducing water consumption and overall costs. This involves changing the structure and culture of the organisation and removing the incentives to sell more water and make bigger dividends.

No public private partnerships that lock Sydney into a waste-driven future. Public Private Partnerships deliver short term capital at the expense of long term flexibility and environmental sustainability. Most private sector projects, such as sewer mining and desalination proposals, have contractual requirements that work against water efficiency and water self-sufficiency measures.

4. Expenditure and water savings

The following table describes some of the Greens’ water initiatives. The cost for each year over 2007 to 2010 and the total water savings potential per year by 2015 have been estimated using data from the Review of the Metropolitan Water Plan by ACIL and the Institute for Sustainable Futures. The total cost over the four years is less then one half of the cost of the desalination plant.

Option	Additional Cost ($million/yr)	Water Savings (GL/yr) (by 2015)
Water Tanks: double the current rebate and encouraging a six fold increase in the uptake	66	10
Residential indoor water efficiency: accelerated retrofitting and increased rebates, including low income households	20	12
Residential outdoor water efficiency: community education on water efficient gardens and on-site landscape assessments	10	22
Local recycling and reuse programs: developing, implementing and monitoring household and neighbourhood grey water reuse projects. Initially as pilot projects leading to widespread implementation	20	100
Enhanced BASIX: increasing the requirements on water savings in residential housing design	20	23
TOTAL:	136	167

 

For comparison, total water consumption for Sydney between 1 July 2005 - 30 June 2006 was 528 GL.