Stormwater Harvesting instead of Traveston Crossing Dam
20th November, 2007
Federal Member for Wide Bay Warren Truss has welcomed the announcement by Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Government Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, that a re-elected Coalition Government will commit $20 million to assess the potential to harvest stormwater in Brisbane.Mr Truss said the recycling of stormwater in Brisbane could be an alternative to building the Traveston Crossing Dam.
“The Coalition will do what Queensland Labor should have done — look at all the options for supplying Brisbane with water rather than plough on with an ill-conceived option like the Traveston Crossing Dam,” Mr Truss said.
“In a year of normal rainfall, 550 billion litres of stormwater falls in Brisbane. This far exceeds the hoped for yield from the Traveston Crossing Dam of 70 billion litres a year.”
“Obviously not all of the 550 billion litres could be harvested, but a considerable proportion could. Why did the State Government’s assessment of water supply options for South East Queensland not even consider stormwater?”
The 550 billion litres that runs off Brisbane’s roads and rooftops into rivers and ocean outfalls is more than Brisbane uses in a year.
Mr Truss said “I believe this water could be captured, treated and reused to irrigate parks, gardens, playing fields and public open spaces, and for commercial, industrial and agricultural use.”
“If State Labor can’t think of ideas like this, and Federal Labor is the same, it begs the question: how will Queenslanders fare if there is wall to wall Labor?”
“The Coalition wants to make every drop of water count. Labor stands for wasted water, wasted opportunities and wrong projects like Traveston Crossing Dam,” Mr Truss said.
ENDS
