Dr Dennis Jensen - Vision and Issues

Water

Water is critical to the wellbeing of our society. Apart from the southwest of Western Australia, there has been no historical evidence of a long-term decrease in rainfall. The problem has been a lack of infrastructure development (Sydney, for example, last constructed a dam about 40 years ago). In addition to dam construction, we need to examine various ways of better tapping and acquiring water. Plans to replenish Gnangara Mound with wastewater is one good method of doing things. We also need to find a method of capturing stormwater.

One interesting method has been suggested by a Tangney constituent. It involves piping water from the northwest not only to Perth, but to the eastern states as well. The interesting part of his method is the funding model which essentially involves getting farmers to pay for water rights which they can then use as a tradeable commodity The benefit here is that there needs to be no public money spent and the farmers know they will always have an adequate supply of water – thus ensuring a more reliable form of income, and any excess water can be used for city consumption.

Desalination is a method of last resort, not a politically motivated expedient first-resort – as is the case with the WA and NSW state governments. Desalination is expensive, and environmentally unfriendly. In WA’s case, the Kwinana desalination plant is an appalling example of bad planning. The Cockburn Sound is not very well flushed, and you have a thriving mussel industry (mussels are filter feeders and as such concentrate impurities). Highly saline water will be pumped back into the sound. Salty water is heavier than fresher water, so this discharge will sink and become deoxygenated, killing sea grasses and other sea life. A factor that is not mentioned by the EPA or the state government is that tonnes of chemicals such as chlorine and descalants will also be pumped into the Sound.