Page 1548 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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in the ACT are implemented and the role of Canberra as Australia’s national capital in providing water to the largest population in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Whilst Water2WATER does look at restrictions, there are other things which are very important—such as maintaining the health of trees and gardens, as in Dr Foskey’s motion, and maintaining trees and sporting fields, as outlined by Mr Stefaniak in his amendment to come to the Assembly. There are quite a few important things to look at there.
As I said, there are differing community views on how we should be providing water for the ACT, and those views need to have a forum for allowing input before government makes any decisions on a new dam or any recycling. I would like to quote one of those views from Terry Kiernan in his position paper for Water2WATER. He calls it “Canberra’s inconvenient truth”. I will not read the whole lot but some of the points are very valid. He says:
With stage four water restrictions just around the corner, the water2water debate so far seems disinterested in discussing the inconvenient truth of water loss due to climate change and bushfire regeneration.
In 2003 the ACT Government warned that as a result of the Firestorm, the Cotter catchment could be reduced by between 25 and 50 percent. The ACT Government also said in the same year that Canberra had more water than it did under the previous Water Resources Management Plan.
Three years on, we now have less water and within the next three to five years the combined impacts of climate change and catchment regeneration will commence their spiralling impact of reducing Canberra’s potable water resource.
The Ngunnawal Native Title Claimant Group recognised this approaching water crisis and developed a water conservation plan to cut Canberra’s domestic water consumption by replacing tap washers with pressure reduction tap valves … converting ALL single flush toilet cystines to dual flush (saving up to 7 percent) …
The paper also talks about efficient showerheads et cetera. It continues:
Sadly, enlarging the Cotter Dam and filling it with treated sewage effluent simply does not make sense because the Cotter Catchment of 146 billion litres is set to lose up to 65 percent of its water resource. The addition of between 9 or 11 billion litres of treated sewage effluent may only be a drop in the bucket when compared to the expected resource loss of around 95 billion litres some time in the not too distant future.
Clearly, there are differing views on how we should be using our water resources. As I said, people need a forum and need to be able to come back to the Assembly before the government makes any decisions.
The planning and environment committee will have completed and reported on its very busy inquiry into ACTION buses in the not-too-distant future. We understand that, with the new changes to the Planning and Development Bill, there may be less
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