Groundwater Supply Used For Years By Perth Drying Up, Says Aussie EPA

[hatrack]

AN underground aquifer that supplies more than half of Perth's drinking water and much of the city's irrigation is drying up after years of overuse. The West Australian Environmental Protection Authority has accused the state Government of failing to heed years of warnings.

A damning EPA report released yesterday says the amount of water being drawn from the Gnangara groundwater mound north of Perth is unsustainable.

The aquifer supplies up to 60per cent of Perth's drinking water, irrigation for horticulture, agriculture and parks and thousands of garden bores. EPA chairman Wally Cox said local wetlands were drying out, soil was acidifying and some species had died as Gnangara's water levels continued to drop.

He said urgent action was needed to reduce pressure on the aquifer, which has had years of reduced rainfall, unsustainable water allocations and the impact of thousands of hectares of pine plantations draining water from the mound. Water Resources Minister John Kobelke conceded the aquifer was drying but denied the Government was ignoring it. He blamed global warming and said $7.5million was committed this week to develop a new sustainability strategy for the area.

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21493708-30417,00.html

[DCKit]

1. Desalinization technology has come a long way in the last few years

and can now provide water at competitive prices to fresh water sources.

They were in the process of building a HUGE plant in Sydney last I heard, the the Middle East relies heavily on it as well. Dubai couldn't exist without it.

[NickB79]

2. Except they use fossil fuels to power the desal. plants

Coal or natural gas, usually. And that just adds to the problem of global warming, which is causing the Australian drought in the first place.

[depakid]

3. The new plant in Perth uses wind....

It's pretty damn cool:

Perth Seawater Desalination Plant, Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO), Kwinana, Australia

With the official opening of the Perth Seawater Reverse Osmosis Plant in November 2006, Western Australia became the first state in the country to use desalination as a major public water source – and this may be simply the beginning. Facing a drying climate, the Water Corporation of Western Australia is actively exploring a variety of options to meet growing demands, which makes building a second SWRO facility a serious prospect to consider.

Located at Kwinana, some 25km south of the city, the new plant has an initial daily capacity of 140,000m³ with designed expansion to 250,000m³/day, making it the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere and the biggest in the world to be powered by renewable energy. Ultimately supplying 17% of Perth’s needs, the plant will be the largest single contributor to the area’s integrated water supply scheme and provide an annual 45GL, to help serve the 1.5 million population.

<snip>

The plant is designed to operate continuously, drawing water with an input salinity of 35,000mg/l to 37,000mg/l at 16°C to 24°C via the new intake structure. This amounts to under 0.02% of the water in the sound being removed per day, which first passes through a pre-treatment filter to protect the pores of the membranes, before being forced through the spiral wound membrane elements of the RO treatment trains.

After treatment, the product water is treated with lime, chloride and fluoride before being stored and ultimately being blended with water from other sources and entering the municipal integrated supply system. The filter backwash and concentrate stream is returned to the sound.

Although the concentrate flow is about 7% salt, the discharge nozzles are designed to act as diffusers, ensuring that mixed water salinity falls to less than 4% within 50m of the discharge point. As a result, there will be less than 1% increase in the salinity of the receiving waters.

Electricity for the desalination plant – which has an overall 24MW requirement and a production demand of 4.0kWh/kl to 6.0kWh/kl – comes from the new 80MW Emu Downs Wind Farm, which consists of 48 wind turbines located 30km east of Cervantes.

More: http://www.water-technology.net/projects/perth/

[NickB79]

4. Sweet

That is some good news for once.

[hatrack]

5. Good! Signs of intelligence from the Land of Howard!

:toast: