The ACT Government is screaming, “We weren’t told.” ActewAGL which runs the ACT’s water supply has been saving its pennies for some time now to deal with the water-supply catastrophe that is about to befall Canberra this summer. The Government says it has not been told about this.
I get the sense that someone is being set up to be blamed for the hellish summer of garden death that awaits us. And it may as well be ActewAGL.
ActewAGL has thought since 1998 that a major bushfire in the Brindabellas could make water from Bendora and Corin Dams in the Cotter catchment unusable without major new filtration equipment. In that year it prudently asked the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission to increase water charges to do that. The time frame ends next year. It will take $40 million and 15 months to bring the Cotter catchment back on line.
So we have only Googong to rely upon.
The problem is that there is plenty of water – but there are not many drops to drink. Right now, Googong Dam on its own has enough water to supply Canberra for a year without any rain. But there is not enough pumping and treating capacity too get water out of Googong, filtered and sent to Canberra to keep up with summer demand.
From now to the first day of summer the rain can come down in God’s good time till dams fill o’er top and we’ll still be rooned with a lack of capacity to treat enough water for Canberra’s thirsty gardens. Alas, we have a unitary system of water supply so all water delivered to Canberra households has to be treated to drinkable level even if it is destined for gardens.
The pumping and treatment plant at Googong can deliver just 180 megalitres a day (180 Olympic swimming pools, that is). We thirsty Canberrans, however, consume about 240 swimming pools a day in summer. Even with Stage Two restrictions we did not get below 180 megalitres a day average.
Googong’s pumping and filtration can be upgraded to pump an extra 50 per cent or 90 megalitres. It will cost $13 million and take a little under a year – again, too late for the coming hellish summer.
ActewAGL says it will have spent the money it raised in the 1998 plea for an increase in charges in the time stated in the estimate on the equipment stated in the estimate.
In public documents it has regularly stated that money is needed for long-term expenditure on Canberra’s water supply whether it be a new dam or upgrades of existing facilities and has justified price levels higher than supply plus profit as a result. So the Government should not be especially surprised that part of those prudent provision-for-supply contingencies should have been to put better filtration at Stromlo.
ActewAGL was just being prudent. Alas, its prudence is about a year too late.
And even if the Government had known before the bushfires, what would it have done? Would it have said, get on with that filtration plant as quickly as possible? Not likely. It would have just squatted down upon its heel and continued to raid ActewAGL profits to prop up other parts of the Budget as it has done for years.
So we are in for hell in Canberra this coming summer.
The water restrictions so ludicrously based on dam levels will happen anyway. Why base water restrictions on the level of dams you cannot take water from at all, or cannot take water from in enough quantity to satisfy ordinary demand?
The amount of water that can be delivered to Canberra households has little to do with the amount of water in the dams. Rather, it is directly dependent on the pumping and filtration capacity of water as it leaves Googong. We will have to have Stage Three restrictions for at least one summer. Stage One and Two were easy, just put your sprinkler on at night and don’t wash the car. Compliance was not difficult so was widespread. Stage Three is the big hit. No sprinklers. Just hand held hoses at night. Canberrans used to automatic sprinkler systems will have a grim choice: let the plants die or stay up for hours watering or break the law – unless we have good regular rainfall every week on Canberra gardens throughout the summer. Not likely.
And now contemplate this horror. What if the pumping or filtration at Googong fails? And it is more likely to fail when it is running full bore in the absence of Cotter catchment water.
If that happens we will be really rooned.
Someone will have to be blamed. And ActewAGL is showing signs of political meekness in accepting that it could have communicated better. But ActewAGL tried. The Government should not be whingeing that it was not told. It should be praising ActewAGL for its prudence in past years it getting prepared for new filtration at Stromlo.
Well done ActewAGL. Pity the bushfires came a year too early.
In the meantime, pave over your lawns, forget your annuals and give up the vegie garden. For at least one summer.