Credit: John Bull/COSMOS
Hundreds of millions of litres of wastewater flow into the sea from the Australian coast every day. Take Sydney: the federal government's 2001 State of the Environment report calculated that the Sydney Water Corporation released 548 GL of wastewater, and 420 GL of stormwater to the sea in one year. If the utility had reused this water completely, it would have been able to supply Sydney with enough water for 18 months. It would mean no more water restrictions for Sydneysiders, imposed in June 2004 when the city's major supply, Warragamba Dam, dipped to 46 per cent capacity. But instead, this water goes into the ocean where it benefits no one, and in fact may harm marine life.
In some places in Australia, treated wastewater is reused. Within the Salisbury municipal area, treated wastewater from the Bolivar plant is mixed with treated stormwater and piped to a new suburb called Mawson Lakes. Residents use the water to keep their gardens green and flush their toilets. A few teething problems aside, most are perfectly satisfied with the 'dual-reticulation' system. Sydney has similar areas called Rouse Hill and Newington, Melbourne has the Sandhurst development, and Queensland is working on an even more comprehensive scheme at Pimpana-Coomera combining recycled water, rainwater tanks and other 'water-sensitive urban design' ideas.
Residents are reportedly very proud of their status of technology pioneers. So much so, that the good folk of Rouse Hill use vastly more water than their mains-water neighbours, happily watering their gardens through the driest days of the recent drought.
Almost every capital city in Australia has plans to increase the amount of sewage they recycle. Some cities are planning more dual-reticulation schemes for new residential developments, others are selling the recycled water to industry, agriculture and sporting grounds.
Adelaide is blessed in this respect, having many farms within earshot of the sewage-treatment plants as well as farmers willing to purchase the treated water - hence its enviable recycling rate of 21 per cent. Sydney, by contrast, with its paltry 3 per cent, has its treatment plants largely located on the coast, surrounded by suburbs that have been there since Australia became a nation in 1901 and even before.
To recycle anything of volume from these plants, Sydney would need to dual-reticulate the surrounding suburbs (at exorbitant cost), pump the treated water back across Sydney to industry and sporting fields, or pump the water dozens of kilometres to the nearest agriculture. Some of these are viable options for Sydney, and water industry experts have publicly condemned the Sydney Water Corporation for not doing more to make the most of this valuable resource.
Charles Essery, an adjunct professor at the University of Western Sydney and a former advisor to the New South Wales state government on water, decries Sydney's slow pace on the issue. "Sydney Water, since 1995, has been completely unimpressed by the concept of recycled water. Then we had the cryptosporidium scare in 1998 from the overflow of sewage into the drinking supply. Well, it just gave Sydney Water the excuse they needed to abandon any plans they might have had for recycling."
Such is the frustration with Sydney's lack of action that a company, Services Sydney, was formed to capitalise on Sydney Water's failures. Its major shareholders and founders are John van der Merwe, a mechanical engineer and Tony Feitelson, an architect and investor. The new company fought the bureaucrats like a cat at bath-time to gain access to Sydney Water's sewers, and had to apply to the Australian Competition Tribunal to declare the treatment of sewage open to competition. It wants to offer to Sydneysiders an alternative sewage disposal solution: it would then hire the sewers from the government-owned utility and pipe the sewage to its own treatment plant. After treatment, the water would be sold to industrial customers or released to the Hawkesbury River to compensate for the water extracted to supply Sydney's drinking water.
State bureaucrats fought the plan to the point where former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr took the extraordinary step of seeking a judge's permission to intervene in the tribunal. But by early 2006, Services Sydney had claimed success, having won the right to access the sewers. Van der Merwe says the company is now "going gangbusters", deep in negotiations with Sydney Water for a fair price in order to access the utility's sewers.
