Carpenter backs $1bn desal plant, scraps aquifer plan

Australian
Wednesday 16/5/2007 Page: 7

SEAWATER will provide a third of Western Australia's fresh water within four years following the Carpenter Government's decision to spend almost $1 billion building a second desalination plant south of Perth. Premier Alan Carpenter announced yesterday that he had dumped a plan by government utility Water Corporation to make the massive South West Yarragadee aquifer the state's next major water source.

Citing climate change and environmental concerns about the plan to tap the aquifer, Mr Carpenter announced that a $955 million desalination plant would be built near Binningup, about 150km south of Perth. More desalination plants were possible in the future. Like the existing wind-powered desalination plant 41km south of Perth the third-largest in the world the new plant will be powered by renewable energy and will provide 45 gigalitres of fresh water a year enough for 150,000 homes when it opens. And it will have the capacity to provide up to 100 gigalitres of fresh water a year as demand increases.

Western Australia's integrated water scheme at present supplies 270 gigalitres of water a year to the southwest, wheatbelt, Goldfields and metropolitan areas. Mr Carpenter, who recently assembled a panel of experts to consider projects to reduce the state's greenhouse gases, said the new desalination plant could be powered by geothermal energy. "There is a very exciting prospect with geothermal energy technology potentially being available for base-load power in the southwest of Western Australia in coincidence with the time lines we are talking about here (for the new plant)," he said.

He said that 30 years ago, 90 per cent of the state's fresh water came from dams, but that had fallen to 25 per cent. The percentage of recycled water in the integrated system had increased from 2.6 per cent in 2001 to 13.6 per cent. Mr Carpenter said new water sources, recycling and demand management had delivered an extra 180 gigalitres a year. "Western Australia is now recognised across Australia, even by the federal Government, as the nation's leader in water management, to the extent that Perth is the only major capital city where people can use sprinklers through the summer," he said.

Mr Carpenter defended his decision to shelve the tapping of the aquifer in the southwest. "A lot more work needs to be done on assessing the full impact of climate change before we entertain utilising South West Yarragadee in the way that was proposed," he said. "Rainfall is declining, it continues to decline and we don't know if it will continue to decline." A sum of $750 million towards the cost of building and connecting the desalination plant has been paid out of this year's surplus. A further $205 million would be set aside next year.

Opposition Leader Paul Omodei said he was delighted at the decision to take the Yarragadee option off the agenda and he cautiously welcomed the desalination plant. Any decision that will stop the Government taking water from the southern Yarragadee is a good decision and we will take some credit for that." he said.