27 March 2009

ACT water supply plans

| johnboy
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[First filed: March 25, 2009 @ 14:06]

Simon Corbell has announced his plans to end water restrictions, and we won’t even have to drink our wee.

    The ACT Government has given the green light to build the Murrumbidgee to Googong pipeline and buy water from Tantangara Reservoir improving Canberra’s water security for many years to come, Environment, Climate Change and Water Minister, Simon Corbell, announced today.

    Mr Corbell said the Government had made a decision this week enabling ACTEW to begin construction of the pump station and pipeline from Murrumbidgee, near Angle Crossing, to Googong Dam next year and to buy water from Tantangara when required.

    “These projects are in addition to the Government’s previous decision to enlarge the Cotter Dam. In these tough times, with an ongoing drought resulting in below average-level rainfall, it is essential the Government acts now to ensure adequate supply down the track,” he said

    Mr Corbell said the Government had also decided to defer a project to build a pilot water purification plant.

    “The Government has accepted ACTEW’s advice that the proposed water recycling project is feasible but can be deferred if the expanded Cotter Dam and Murrumbidgee to Googong pipeline project proceed,” he said.

ACTEW have declared that they’re very happy with the announcement.

UPDATED: Simon Corbell has seen fit to rebut claims that there’s not enough water in Tantangara to make this work:

    “Currently the Tantangara Reservoir is at 6.2 per cent of its 254Gl capacity which is approximately 16Gl of water, but this is at the driest time of the seasonal cycle. The low seasonal level is dictatedby the level of the off-take pipe to Eucumbene Dam.”

    “The average annual intake to Tantangara is 301Gl. Spring traditionally sees an increase of inflows for the reservoir, following snow melt and increased rainfall. It is the seasonal flow that makes Tantangara reliable” Mr Corbell said.

Bear in mind a lot of the naysayers have a commercial interest in the criminally under-priced agricultural water which this scheme takes steps towards rectifying.

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peterh said :

johnboy said :

The point remains that the snowy scheme has *relatively* large amounts of water, which it sells for miniscule fractions of the cost of municipal water.

We can afford to outbid the farmers downstream and buy the water to wash our cars.

If this encourages rational water pricing in the interior then it is a positive benefit to the nation.

exactly. The other point to make is that the wastage from the flows into the MDB could easily be managed by a system whereby our flows from the treatment works and other inflows – stormwater etc could be redirected into the murrumbidgee, traveling down to nsw /vic / sa and providing water for sunrice, and other crops, whereas the extremely clean and pure snowy water which is highly potable could be used in the canberra drinking water supply.

No redirection needed – that’s where it goes right now. The only things preventing it are expensive reuse and stormwater harvesting schemes, eg, household rainwater tanks and greywater reuse diverting water on to lawns from stormwater pipes and sewers.

We consumers are paying bigtime for the 5 years plus and counting delays in building another dam. Paying $100 Mill (plus overruns) for the Googong pipeline seems expensive to gain an annual average 9 GL.

Yes, stop pushing the ACT population towards half a million. You morons (the planners & pollies, not my fellow Rioters).

All I can say is good luck however it is a bit like having your thumb in a leaky dyke. As soon as you fix one bit another problem will open up.

Remember we do not own water, we only get to manage it prior to passing it on. Continually building new houses requires more water. How many are currently planned?
Any water solution will only buy some time until the problem occurs again.

Tantagara is a fairly reliable source.

Exactly why it makes sense for Canberra to buy it.

The proposed Tennant Dam would catch the same water which the Tantangara-to-Googong scheme is going to be able to pump across to Googong for storage. Tennant would only be an advantage if Cotter and Googong were both full, and if that is the case, we wouldn’t be worried about the amount of water available.

The only thing that I see as an environmental issue is Tantangara releasing more water into the Murrumbidgee will mean flows (between Tantangara and the pipeline to Googong) will be higher then any time since Tantangara was built. The river isn’t used to that.

deye said :

I wonder if Simon has seen this http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/lakeLevels.asp?pageID=360&parentID=6&mode=submitted

That reason that Tantagara is so low is because the water in it is currently used for hydro electricity generation.
Tantagara is a fairly reliable source.

Also the current cotter dam is constantly full, and indeed overflowing.

extending building a bigger dam there does seem to be a good option.

johnboy said :

What’s unethical is urbans gardens dying so cotton farming multinationals can keep storing water in turkeynest dams for virtually free.

Some sane water pricing might just give us sane agriculture in the interior.

Indeed, however your road block is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory

Probably because the Cotter is a more productive catchment than the proposed Tennant. And it still doesn’t matter to the people downstream whether we take more from a local catchment or from Tantangara – the only people who lose out are the Snowy Scheme, who don’t get to generate hydroelectricity from that water. Which they get compensated for.

But I agree with JB that it is wrong that some notable corporations get water far cheaper than others.

I don’t see how extending the Cotter can be equated with building the Tennent we were supposed to have already, given that it would be sensible to get another catchment area . . .

Not to mention that

1. We *are* building a new dam.

2. Any extra water extracted from any catchment in the ACT through a new dam is water that would otherwise have flowed down the Murrumbidgee – the same place that the Tantangara water would have gone if we didn’t buy it. So there would be no difference to the water users of the lower Murrumbidgee!

What’s unethical is urbans gardens dying so cotton farming multinationals can keep storing water in turkeynest dams for virtually free.

Some sane water pricing might just give us sane agriculture in the interior.

miz said :

Seems unethical to take others’ water. I just wish they would spend the money on another dam, we clearly need one if we are having to cadge water from others.

Do you feel unethical when you go to the store and take that stores products?

Every resource is finite miz, the Government is trading with an organisation that feels that the money is worth more than the water rights. You do the same thing with Woolworths and Joe down at the Butchers shop.

Seems unethical to take others’ water. I just wish they would spend the money on another dam, we clearly need one if we are having to cadge water from others.

shauno said :

Not to much water in Tantangara. Any one been up there and seen how empty it is? Its usually around 4% or so because all the water is pumped into Ecumbene for use in the hydro scheme.

Tantangara was about 7% last I looked and Eucumbene is in the 20s. There aint much to be gained from pumping to/from either of these sources. Not to mention, if you start draining water from Eucumbene and Tantangara, the fisherfolk will start getting annoyed.

AG Canberra said :

No wonder ACTEWAGL are happy – they won’t have to convice us to drink our own wee.

You mean like every town down river between here and Adelaide drinks our wee ?
I wonder how many bodies the drinking water in Adelaide has passed through on it’s way down the Murray Darling River system.

shauno said :

Not to much water in Tantangara. Any one been up there and seen how empty it is? Its usually around 4% or so because all the water is pumped into Ecumbene for use in the hydro scheme.

From memory, you can see Tantangara from the top of Gingera. so people could pretty easily go and have a look.

johnboy said :

The point remains that the snowy scheme has *relatively* large amounts of water, which it sells for miniscule fractions of the cost of municipal water.

We can afford to outbid the farmers downstream and buy the water to wash our cars.

If this encourages rational water pricing in the interior then it is a positive benefit to the nation.

exactly. The other point to make is that the wastage from the flows into the MDB could easily be managed by a system whereby our flows from the treatment works and other inflows – stormwater etc could be redirected into the murrumbidgee, traveling down to nsw /vic / sa and providing water for sunrice, and other crops, whereas the extremely clean and pure snowy water which is highly potable could be used in the canberra drinking water supply.

The point remains that the snowy scheme has *relatively* large amounts of water, which it sells for miniscule fractions of the cost of municipal water.

We can afford to outbid the farmers downstream and buy the water to wash our cars.

If this encourages rational water pricing in the interior then it is a positive benefit to the nation.

Vic Bitterman11:05 pm 25 Mar 09

p1 said :

Actually, I’m pretty sure that the flow through from Tantangara to Eucumbene is gravity only, and that they haven’t actually closed it in years (because even with the water coming through there isn’t enough to fill Eucumbene). If there is a pump on that pipe, it wouldn’t have been used much ever, since the only need for it would be if Eucumbene was full and Tantangara wasn’t.

That’s my understanding too. Tannie and Eucs are storage lakes for the Snowy scheme. Tannie feeds into Eucs at the Providence Portal, simply as Tannie is higher up in the air (gravity fed from Tannie to Eucs). Not a two-way water tunnel.

canberra bureaucrat10:04 pm 25 Mar 09

Of course, there’s plenty of water to go around. It’s just flowing down some river somewhere, and nobody else wants it. We just need to pipe it to Canberra.

monomania: Yeah, I’m not sure why we should pay for the first 30GL or so we pump from the Murrumbidgee, since it should just net off against the existing outflows from LMWQCC.

Not to much water in Tantangara. Any one been up there and seen how empty it is? Its usually around 4% or so because all the water is pumped into Ecumbene for use in the hydro scheme.

Actually, I’m pretty sure that the flow through from Tantangara to Eucumbene is gravity only, and that they haven’t actually closed it in years (because even with the water coming through there isn’t enough to fill Eucumbene). If there is a pump on that pipe, it wouldn’t have been used much ever, since the only need for it would be if Eucumbene was full and Tantangara wasn’t.

The Cotter dam not only adds to storage, it enables more water to be collected from the 200 square kilometre lower Cotter catchment.

The poo factory would cost a fortune and use heaps of electricity. And simply diverts water heading downstream to be naturally purified and reused. Recycling.

Starscream @ work said :

Becasue we should be sensible with our resources and setr good examples for our children and future generations. IMO

Sensible yes, frugal to the point of losing our urban environment no.

Yes we have a form of scarcity pricing. Abstraction tax and $3.70/KL ensure that. Real scarcity pricing involves ramping up the price for even the first KL of water in times of scarcity and reducing it when water is not scarce.

In normal times ACT water consumers use 30GL nett. Irrigators take ground and river water averaging 2500GL before the Murrumbidgee reaches the Murray. The example you want us to set our kids Starscreamer is that we’re stupid.

caf said :

The idea would be that if we buy water from Tantangara, the operators will divert our purchase into the Murrumbidgee instead of pumping it into Eucumbene (the Tantangara-Eucumbene pipeline also works both ways).

Considering that over 2,100 GL per annum are pumped through to the murray darling basin, it probably wouldn’t be hard to redirect some of the hydro water back to the snowy. How about utilising some of the hydro water via pipelines to create a self sustaining dam system? the remainder of the water could be used to be split 50/50 with MDB and the ACT / NSW water issues.

More like a “use all the water you choose to pay for” week.

Timberwolf655:02 pm 25 Mar 09

I wonder, will this be celebrated with a “Use all the water you want weekend?”

The idea would be that if we buy water from Tantangara, the operators will divert our purchase into the Murrumbidgee instead of pumping it into Eucumbene (the Tantangara-Eucumbene pipeline also works both ways).

The long answer to “why enlarge the Cotter Dam” is in this report here.

(When the water recycling plant was on the agenda, the output from it would have been stored in Cotter Dam).

shauno said :

Not to much water in Tantangara. Any one been up there and seen how empty it is? Its usually around 4% or so because all the water is pumped into Ecumbene for use in the hydro scheme.

sounds like a “wanna buy a bridge” scam….

Hasn’t ACTEW already set up a form of scarcity pricing – we now get a base amount at x cents per kL – then pay a higher rate if we use more…..?

Not to much water in Tantangara. Any one been up there and seen how empty it is? Its usually around 4% or so because all the water is pumped into Ecumbene for use in the hydro scheme.

it is essential the Government acts now to ensure adequate supply down the track,

I had to laugh at this.

Now?

What’s so funny about it?

frontrow said :

Why are they enlarging the Cotter Dam? Isn’t that like putting a second condom in your wallet for a night out at Tilleys?

Perhaps they feel the clouds just haven’t met the right Government before?

yeah, lets buy water from Tantangara Reservoir. probably could get far more if we:
drained the lakes (not completely – just enough to top up our dams) subsidised a water tank per household, and I bet it would be cheaper…

Why are they enlarging the Cotter Dam? Isn’t that like putting a second condom in your wallet for a night out at Tilleys?

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy3:21 pm 25 Mar 09

Sweet. I hereby predict my front lawn will be lush by winter!

So we’re buying in more water rather than reusing what we’ve got. Bring on the receycled tinkle!

Was clearly stated on the radio this morning.

up to 20GL per year.
Obviously will be dependent on how much water is actually needed.

http://www.actew.com.au/WaterSecurity/MajorProjects/murrumbidgee_googong.aspx

amarooresident22:48 pm 25 Mar 09

Press release doesn’t mention ending water restrictions.

“The Murrumbidgee to Googong pipeline project is a major initiative that will deliver up to 20Gl of water to the ACT and help provide future water security to the ACT.”

Gotta love meaningless numbers. 20Gl per day? Per month? Per year? In its entire life? Help me out here, Jon.

That would be fine AG if we actually had scarcity pricing, which we don’t

Starscream @ work2:24 pm 25 Mar 09

Becasue we should be sensible with our resources and setr good examples for our children and future generations. IMO

Why no restrictions?…because if I pay for it I should be able to decide how I use it.

No wonder ACTEWAGL are happy – they won’t have to convice us to drink our own wee. After trying to convince us that a power station over our back fence was a good thing I think they should stick to providing the goods not changing our minds.

Starscream @ work2:20 pm 25 Mar 09

Thats all fine and good, but why not keep water retrictions anyway?

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