“Use what you have, before you exploit others”
The Government has produced a model that is available to water utilities and councils to predict the water available from rainwater tanks. For a small to average sized house in Newcastle, a single 5,000 litre tank (2m high by 1.8 m diameter) can generate reliably 95,000 litres per year, or approximately half the typical water consumption! And government at all levels is promoting the use of rainwater tanks. So why is it that the installation of tanks in urban areas of the Hunter is so low? – The Hunter does very little recycling (4%) and only 0.1% percent of households have rainwater tanks (on average, Australia recycles 9% of its water, and yet Adelaide has rainwater tanks in 28% of households).
Could it simply be that Hunter Water (and by default the NSW Government), as a monopoly supplier of a necessary resource may stand to lose windfall profits if rainwater tanks were widely used.
Although Tillegra Dam is not required to meet the needs of water consumers in the Hunter Valley, it is the Hunter Valley consumers whose water rates and usage charges that will rise to pay for the construction and maintenance of this new infrastructure. The exact costs are unknown as HWC has not submitted its pricing changes to the Independent Pricing and egulatory Tribunal (IPART). However, when infrastructure of this magnitude is introduced into a water authority, it is not uncommon for water rates to increase between 25-50%.
In addition, the dam location is on a geological fault and will require significant and costly strengthening measures to ensure that the dam is safe and will not breach during a flood or seismic event.
What can be done?
- Sensible, liveable water conservation
- Non potable recycling for industry & irrigation
- Potable recycling planned for future demand
- Urban water seasonally harvesting for new and existing buildings
- Pricing that is on & off-peak targeted
- Sustainable water cycle planning & management strategies that are auditable
- Improve understanding of water resources within global earth systems
- On-site harvesting of rainfall
- On-site storage of rainfall
- On-site plumbing to use water in:
Toilets (20% of current use)
Laundry(20% of Current use)
Hot water supply (15% of current use)
- On-site grey-water reuse
- On-site entry point for recycled water or adoption of indirect potable recycling
For more information see Overview of sustainable water supplies for the Hunter and Central Coast regions, without the construction of a new dam at Tillegra by Prof. C. Essery.