Major reform of water management on central coast needed

Wednesday, 28 June 2006 21:42

Total Environment Centre (TEC) and the Community Environment Network (CEN) have written to the NSW Government calling for the creation of such a corporation to take responsibility for water and wastewater services and adopt sustainable solutions to the central coast’s water challenges.
 

TEC Urban Campaigner Mr Leigh Martin said “pursuing mobile desalination reflects an institutional failure to plan for environmentally and economically sustainable water management. Creating a separate water corporation would ensure that these challenges can be more adequately addressed by an organisation whose sole focus would be on sustainable urban water services”.

Creation of a Central Coast Water Corporation would also improve transparency and accountability of water management on the Central Coast.

CEN Chair Mr John Asquith said “a new water corporation like Hunter and Sydney Water would have an operating licence that allows regular, independent audit of performance, while ensuring that revenue collected from customers remains on the Central Coast. The Central Coast is an important enough region to have an upgraded agency”.

A major concern with present arrangements is the failure of the Council’s to promote recycling as a long term answer to water shortages. As an example, in a 2004 submission to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) Wyong Council revealed that less than 0.1% of its effluent was recycled and that it was only planned to increase this to 0.8% by 2005.

“Desalination should only be considered after all environmentally and economically viable recycling and water conservation options have been exhausted. The high cost of desalination means that alternatives such higher subsidies to residents for water tanks and water efficiency measures should be fast tracked”, Mr Asquith said.