[Greens-Media] Weaning Western Australian's off excessive power and water use

[Annie Mayo]

Beyond Yarragadee weaning WA of excessive use of water and power

"The Greens are delighted that the government has seen the wisdom of not tapping into the Yarragadee to supply water to Perth," says Paul Llewellyn, Greens MLC for the South West Region. "This is a great win for the people of the south west, and those who worked so tirelessly to achieve this outcome must be congratulated.” 

The decision to pursue a desalination option for Perth now brings our attention to three important Green issues: climate change, energy and water.

It must first be recognised that the decision not to pump the Yarragadee may be a red light for Perth’s water users, but it shouldn’t be viewed as a green light for ‘water-use as usual’ for those in the southwest.  As our water resources dwindle through climate change, one of the greatest values of the Yarragadee will be in supporting the vast biodiversity of the southwest. For the sake of future generations the people of the southwest must now be as vigilant about conserving Yarragadee’s water as they were about preventing it going to Perth.

The government’s desalination option has its merits, but is not necessarily the logical alternative to tapping the Yarragadee. If our aim is to provide long-term water security for the State we need solutions that change how we view water and not just provide a quick fix for more. We need solutions that encourage our community, including business, agriculture and households, to regard water as the precious resource it is. In contrast, the desalination solution supports the community demand to turn on taps at will.

The Greens see a need to instead engage fully in large-scale water recycling; water efficiency; water conservation and environment recovery programs. We must restore our water catchments areas such as the Upper Collie so that fresh, rather than saline water flows into our dams. To implement a full range of such integrated programs offers a cheaper, and more sustainable alternative to desalination. The Greens believe such an approach has the added bonus of fully engaging the community in treating water with the respect it deserves. 

It must also be considered that, if the desalination plant goes ahead, with our current rate of water use and population growth we’ll be searching for another 45GL of water per year within 10 years and the pressure will be on again to pump the Yarragadee for Perth. Currently our State is the wealthiest it has ever been and can meet the cost of a desalination plant. But will we be able to afford replacing it and its associated renewable energy after a useful life of 20-30 years?
 
With water conservation in mind, the Greens are currently finalising a ‘Water Conservation Target Bill’. This Bill will oblige the Water Corporation to implement a water efficiency, conservation and recycling plan to reduce our per capita water consumption in line with staged targets. With this approach, we expect to save over 60GL pa on the water supplied via the southwest water grid.

A good outcome from the Yarragadee debate is confirmation that overdrawing groundwater can’t be sustained * as is evidenced in the environmental collapse of the Gnangara Mound. On top of our extravagant use of tap water, we devour copious amounts of bore water. In Perth alone there are over 154,097 bores of which less than 5,000 are licensed and even less are metered. Water extraction private backyard bores is estimated at 120GL pa.  An additional 45GL is extracted by Local Authorities to water Municipal Parks and Gardens. Clearly we also need a strategy to wean ourselves off being over dependent on these ground water sources.

There is then the issue of power. It is a little known fact that the Water Corporation is one of the biggest users of power on the southwest electricity grid because most of our water is pumped for kilometres and it takes a tremendous amount of energy to push water through pipes. Desalination adds to this demand as it is an extremely energy hungry technology. It takes an incredible amount of energy to clean the water, carry out extensive maintenance and replace the filtering system. Western Australia’s first desalination plant has already increased the Water Corporation’s power use by 50%. Should the second desalination plant go ahead, Water Corporation’s energy use will double within 5 years.  Add to this the power used to pump household bore water and the figure grows more.

It is commendable that the government is requiring renewable energy to power the desalination plant, but it will still push up our already extravagant appetite for power. The proposed 45 GL desalination plant will require approximately 200 GW hours of electricity. A renewable energy plant that size could cut the State’s greenhouse emissions by 200,000 tonnes, if it wasn’t being used to power a desalination plant. It is unclear why the government sees the benefit of renewable energy for desalination plants, but doesn’t demand its use elsewhere. 

On the subject of renewable energy, if the government were serious about climate change it would support the Greens WA Renewable Energy Target Legislation. This requires 20% of renewable energy to be put into the southwest grid by 2020.  The legislation was passed in the Upper House last year with the support of the Liberals and Nationals and is now stranded in the Lower House, waiting for the government to have the courage to adopt it. 

The government recently reviewed the power industry and is in the throes of reviewing water. While it has made some far-reaching changes to the arrangements for both, in all its deliberations it has fallen short of introducing legally enforceable targets for renewable energy, water conservation dn efficiency.  Instead its targets are non-enforceable ‘aspirational’ targets and it has been proven worldwide that aspirational targets don’t work.  Having an aspirational target is rather like aspiring to lose weight without either cutting food intake or increasing exercise. As millions can confirm, this sort of approach just doesn’t work.

Now that we’ve breathed a sigh of relief over Yarragadee, we need to take stock and generate a push for sensible legislation that provides meaningful energy and water targets and restores balance to our environment.

For more information call Paul Llewellyn 0428 317 182


Annie Mayo
Electorate Officer
Hon Paul Llewellyn 
Greens MLC
South West Region
P O Box 541 Denmark WA 6333
Tel: 08 9848 1555
Fax: 08 9848 2200
FREECALL 1800 641 440