Page 1845 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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Cotter Dam enlargement project is progressing well, despite delays due to the severe rainfall events over summer. The project is expected to be completed, based on advice from Actew, by March 2012, assuming no further weather delays.
Actew commenced initial construction of the Murrumbidgee to Googong water transfer project—known as the M2G project—in January this year. This project involves the transfer of up to100 megalitres of water per day from the Murrumbidgee River through a pipeline to Burra Creek in NSW. It will allow Actew to draw water allocated to the ACT from the Murrumbidgee River and store it in the Googong Dam, the largest of our water storage reservoirs but the one with the most unreliable inflows and most vulnerable to drought. This project is expected be completed in approximately 18 months.
The third ACT water security project is the Tantangara transfer. This project involves the trade and transfer of water allocated to Actew water licenses purchased in the New South Wales regulated Murrumbidgee River to the ACT via the Tantangara reservoir in the Snowy Mountains. This project will give the ACT access, if needed, to a source of water outside of the territory’s immediate catchment.
Actew has completed the purchase of its water portfolio for this project. Actew is progressing the required commercial arrangements with Snowy Hydro for the release of water from Tantangara. The ACT government is working closely with the New South Wales government on the intergovernmental arrangements necessary to finalise these arrangements.
Returning to the specific proposal from Mrs Dunne, the government finds it difficult to understand why this inquiry is warranted at this point. Mrs Dunne makes reference in particular to a number of projects that she believes should be subject to analysis by the ICRC, and the government would like to argue that that sort of analysis is not warranted at this time.
Turning first to the Canberra integrated urban waterways project, this is a joint initiative of the ACT and commonwealth governments, aimed at delivering a range of environmental, recreational and improved amenity outcomes in addition to non-potable water supply opportunities. In return for $10 million of commonwealth government funding, the ACT has agreed to substitute 1.5 gigalitres per year of potable water use by 2011 and three gigalitres per year by 2015.
The project displaces potable water use through investment in stormwater harvesting ponds and pipes and pumps to reticulate the water. It also makes use of underground aquifers for the storage of water. The stormwater is captured in ponds, pumped through pipes to storage tanks to irrigate high priority public sports grounds and other recreational and sporting facilities. Good progress has been made in the construction of various ponds in Mitchell, O’Connor, Dickson and Lyneham, and implementation of three pilot stormwater harvesting schemes for Weston Creek, the inner north, and Tuggeranong are underway. A two-year trial has been agreed, and the actual reticulation of the water commences once these projects are physically complete.
But these projects though are not yet fully physically complete, and I think it would be premature to undertake any detailed assessment of the effectiveness or viability of
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