The News Review:
- Liberals pour in $400m for water
- More water, less tax: Baillieu
- Oilsands activity threatens water supply in Sask., NWT: study
- Rain capture answer to water woe
- Towns drank up before water restrictions hit
Liberals pour in $400m for water
The Australian – Nov 13, 2006
Mr Baillieu said the plant would produce 145million litres a day and be either at Hastings on Westernport Bay or to the west of Melbourne. "If Greater Melbourne is to grow, we will need to have access to a major new source of drinking water and not just take more water from country areas," he said. "Desalination will provide greater security to our water supplies in the future. On water, Labor has fiddled while our water supplies have drained. " A desalination plant built at Kwinana to supply Perth is poised to begin operating in a few weeks. The Liberals say it is a comparable project that cost $387 million. But Treasurer John Brumby said the desalination plant was an admission the Liberals’ proposed dam in Melbourne’s west was a failure and Mr Baillieu wanted to put his plant in an internationally recognised wetland.
More water, less tax: Baillieu
The Age – Nov 13, 2006
Photo: AAP TACKLING the water crisis and cutting taxes are the centralplanks of the Liberals’ pitch to win the state election, withleader Ted Baillieu promising to build Victoria’s firstdesalination plant and offering bigger stamp duty relief thanLabor. As Melbourne’s water supplies continue to fall, Mr Baillieuyesterday used the Liberals’ campaign launch to promise a $400million plant, which he said would deliver 145 million litres ofextra drinking water a day by removing salt from sea water. And in a strategic push for “hip-pocket” votes, the Liberalshave marginally trumped Premier Steve Bracks’ stamp duty package byoffering cuts of up to $3000 — as well as a two-year extensionof the first home buyers grant — for houses valued up to$600,000. Addressing a crowd of 500 Liberal Party faithful at the KingstonTown Hall, in the marginal Labor-held seat of Bentleigh, inMelbourne’s south-east, Mr Baillieu declared Victoria’s”aspirational culture has been trashed” since Steve Bracks came tooffice in 1999. Using the slogan that will dominate the final weeksof his campaign, he promised to change Victoria from mediocrity toa “state of excellence” if elected. “Seven years ago, Victoria had recovered from its rust bucketreputation,” Mr Baillieu said…
Photo: AAP TACKLING the water crisis and cutting taxes are the centralplanks of the Liberals’ pitch to win the state election, withleader Ted Baillieu promising to build Victoria’s firstdesalination plant and offering bigger stamp duty relief thanLabor. As Melbourne’s water supplies continue to fall, Mr Baillieuyesterday used the Liberals’ campaign launch to promise a $400million plant, which he said would deliver 145 million litres ofextra drinking water a day by removing salt from sea water. And in a strategic push for “hip-pocket” votes, the Liberalshave marginally trumped Premier Steve Bracks’ stamp duty package byoffering cuts of up to $3000 — as well as a two-year extensionof the first home buyers grant — for houses valued up to$600,000. Addressing a crowd of 500 Liberal Party faithful at the KingstonTown Hall, in the marginal Labor-held seat of Bentleigh, inMelbourne’s south-east, Mr Baillieu declared Victoria’s”aspirational culture has been trashed” since Steve Bracks came tooffice in 1999. Using the slogan that will dominate the final weeksof his campaign, he promised to change Victoria from mediocrity toa “state of excellence” if elected. “Seven years ago, Victoria had recovered from its rust bucketreputation,” Mr Baillieu said. “Victoria now has a reputation for delay and inaction.
Oilsands activity threatens water supply in Sask., NWT: study
cbc.ca – Nov 13, 2006
, NWT: studyLast Updated: Monday, November 13, 2006 | 2:50 PM ET The Canadian Press Voracious water consumption by Alberta’s oilsands threatens the quality and quantity of water available to Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories through the Mackenzie River system, according to a study released Monday. Oilsands operations draw most of their water from the Athabasca River, a tributary of the Mackenzie, and most of the water used is not returned to the river, says the study by the Sage Centre and World Wildlife Fund-Canada. The study, whichwas released at the United Nations climate conference in Nairobi, Kenya, uses the Athabasca River and Great Lakes as case studies to project what faces Canada’s freshwater supplies in the years ahead. Oilsands use more water than CalgaryWater allocations by Alberta to oilsands projects on the Athabasca River now add up to 359 million cubic metres per year, twice the amount of water required for the city of Calgary. A further 50-per-cent increase in water requirements from the Athabasca is expected when currently planned oilsands projects proceed…
, NWT: studyLast Updated: Monday, November 13, 2006 | 2:50 PM ET The Canadian Press Voracious water consumption by Alberta’s oilsands threatens the quality and quantity of water available to Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories through the Mackenzie River system, according to a study released Monday. Oilsands operations draw most of their water from the Athabasca River, a tributary of the Mackenzie, and most of the water used is not returned to the river, says the study by the Sage Centre and World Wildlife Fund-Canada. The study, whichwas released at the United Nations climate conference in Nairobi, Kenya, uses the Athabasca River and Great Lakes as case studies to project what faces Canada’s freshwater supplies in the years ahead. Oilsands use more water than CalgaryWater allocations by Alberta to oilsands projects on the Athabasca River now add up to 359 million cubic metres per year, twice the amount of water required for the city of Calgary. A further 50-per-cent increase in water requirements from the Athabasca is expected when currently planned oilsands projects proceed. The Athabasca is already losing flow due to the effects of global warming, and its summer flow at Fort McMurray declined almost 20 per cent from 1958 to 2003, says the study. “The combined impacts of water withdrawals from oilsands projects and climate change will have serious consequences beyond the area of the projects themselves.
Rain capture answer to water woe
BBC News – Nov 13, 2006
Scientists found enough rain falls in some countries to supply six or seven times the current need, and provide security against future droughts. A pilot project in a Kenyan Maasai community has improved supplies and done away with the daily trek to collect river water. Currently, 14 out of 53 nations are classified as “water stressed”. This number is forecast to double by 2025. The UN Environment Programme (Unep) says that a cultural change is needed across the continent…
Kenya, with a population of about 40 million people, could collect enough rain to supply six or seven times that figure, Unep calculates; Ethiopia, often regarded as a dry country, could collect enough for half a billion people. “In the popular mind, Africa is seen as a dry continent,” said Dennis Garrity, director general of the World Agroforestry Centre. “But overall, it actually has more water resources per capita than Europe. “However, much of Africa’s rain comes in bursts, and is rapidly swept away or is never collected. The time has come to realise the great potential for greatly enhancing drinking water supplies and smallholder agricultural production by harvesting more of the rain when and where it falls. Some forecasts of future climate predict that extreme droughts will become more common across the continent, so rainwater harvesting could be a cheap and effective way to “climate-proof” some communities, Unep believes. Pilot proofThe technique has been tried in a pilot project in Kisamese, about 30 minutes’ drive from Nairobi.
Towns drank up before water restrictions hit
The Age – Nov 13, 2006
“What we have noticed is that the flow of water from the streamsthat we harvest in the Grampians is at an historical low —they are hardly running at all,” Mr Green said. Several major regional towns are also suffering. Barwon Water, with Geelong on stage three restrictions, is usingsix bores to draw on extra resources and will have two more runningnext year. And Central Highlands Water, which supplies Ballarat, isplanning for the Ballarat-Bendigo pipeline and a new pipeline tothe Newlyn Reservoir by 2007, while Bendigo’s supplier ColibanWater is looking at bores to ease the parched town’s waterproblems.