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June 15, 2005
The rains have come but:
Asa Wahlquist, writing in The Australian, highlights a point that I've often made about the governance of water: that the state water utilites are a major problem. She says:
Spending on water infrastructure has plummeted in the past two decades as state governments have plundered the profits of water utilities and failed to reinvest in the sector.
She says that twenty years ago, Australia's infrastructure spending was about 4per cent of gross domestic product, against an OECD average closer to 3per cent. But the latest figures, from 2002, show Australia spent only about 0.5per cent of GDP on infrastructure, or one-seventh of the OECD average of 3.5 per cent.
She quotes Paul Perkins, the head of the Barton Group, who says that the finger can be pointed at the state Treasury's:
We so-called reformed our utilities, but the money went straight into Treasury and decisions on investment started to be made by Treasuries.
The state water utilites have become water corporations who are now more interested in making a profit, than ensuring a more sustainable use of water in the cities.
This represents a failure to apply the national competition policy to water in our urban areas.
Update: 20 June 2005
The winter rains have come in Adelaide and Canberra this last week, but not so Sydney. I was in Sydney from Thursday 16th to Sunday 19th and only a few drops of rain fell early on Sunday morning. The rest of the time was clear blue skies and losts of sparkling sunshine.
I caught a program on the NSW Statewide on Friday night before I went out to dinner
about water levels at Warragamba Dam and the low levels. The Sydney Water offical did not mention climate change once and exuded heaps of optimism about the future.
Crisis? What crisis? It was just a matter of waiting for the rains to come we were informed. The graphs of history showed they would come he said.
Update: 22 June 2005
They are a little more sensible in Melbourne. There they recognize the significance of climate change:
Global warming will stretch Melbourne's water resources to their limit, forcing the city to find new sources of supply, a report by the nation's top science agency has revealed... the CSIRO report, outlines a worst-case scenario for Melbourne, in which the city would lose 35 per cent of water flowing to dams by 2050. Under expected climate change, Melbourne will lose water due to less rainfall and higher temperatures says the report, commissioned by Melbourne Water. The scientists' "mid-range" scenarios project an 8 per cent loss of average flows by 2020, rising to a loss of 20 per cent by 2050.
That does even factor in the increased demand for water due to the increase of population. They are talking in terms of permanent water-saving rules to conserve water and recycling water as well as seeking new supplies.
Sydney by contrast is continuing to say that as recycling's not a key to Sydney's water shortage, ans desalinisation is the key, so all the storm water and treated sewerage can continue to flow into the sea.
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Vee,
I accidently deleted your post. sorry.
From memory it said that the rains did not come where you lived you only got a minimal amount.
But given the cartoon, maybe that was the point I was making.
Gary