CORRECTED VERSION

ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE

Inquiry into ’s future water supply

Melbourne — 2 February 2009

Members

Ms J. Duncan Mr J. Pandazopoulos Mrs C. Fyffe Mrs D. Petrovich Mr C. Ingram Mr M. Viney Ms T. Lobato Mr P. Walsh

Chair: Mr J. Pandazopoulos Deputy Chair: Mr C. Ingram

Staff

Acting Executive Officer: Mr D. Benjamin Research Officers: Mr N. Bunt and Mr B. Hall

Witness

Ms J. Bell, convenor, Royal Park Protection Group.

2 February 2009 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 1 The CHAIR — Thank you, Julianne Bell, for appearing; I am sorry we are running over time. All evidence taken at the hearing is protected by parliamentary privilege as provided by the Constitution Act 1975 and further subject to the provisions of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. Any comments you make outside the hearing may not be afforded such privilege.

Thank you very much from joining us. We know you have been attending all the hearings we have had in Melbourne. We appreciate that and I now hand over to you.

Ms BELL — Thank you, and thank you to the members of the committee for hearing me and the views of the Royal Park Protection Group today. I did not put the disk up so as to save time because we would have had to turn the lights out. I have photographs which are at the back of the document.

I will make some key comments. It is stating the obvious to say we have had extreme heat during which time the state water consumption has increased alarmingly and water storages have rapidly dropped. I think if you can hear the public views on talkback radio, the public are extremely fearful about the provision of water and water sourcing. We consider it imperative that if it will be some time before the desalination plant and Sugarloaf interconnector pipeline come on stream, the government proceed urgently with advancing sustainable local urban water sourcing and management plans and creating a diversity of water sourcing. We hope the government will see the need to utilise stormwater and recycled water from sewage.

We are addressing two terms of reference — no. 2 and no. 3 — and we want to refer to the outstanding submission by Monash University and Professor Tony Wong and just to quote from that submission under the heading ‘Stormwater, an underutilised resource’ he said that, ‘Urban stormwater is a readily available and underutilised resource in cities that can be cost effective …’.

He goes on to make the claim that harvesting stormwater for non-potable household users could lead to a 20 per cent to 60 per cent reduction in the demands on mains potable water supply; and he says that research and development coupled with a demonstration project needs to be supported to transition Melbourne into the city as a water supply catchment. I would just like to refer to his submission and say that we thought it was excellent in that there are 21 academics and a range of institutes and Monash University departments who contributed to it.

This might be unique in presenting a submission, we are vitally concerned of course about Royal Park but also the health of other parks and gardens in Melbourne and the supply of water. Royal Park, being planted with indigenous vegetation, is better equipped to withstand drought. Many of the old, exotic trees in parks and main avenues in the central city are dying. We are interested in the capacity of Victorians to keep private gardens going and maintain habitat, indigenous flora and fauna.

In launching Melbourne 2030, former Premier Bracks characterised Melbourne as the most livable city in the world. The claim relied upon the fact that extensive parks and gardens used to adorn the city. We were, in Premier Hamer’s time, the garden state and one point that appears to be overlooked is that our parks and gardens are the lungs of the city and assist in offsetting carbon emissions and reducing temperatures.

Additionally we are concerned about the conditions of sports grounds and the fact that rates of injury to sportspeople caused by hard and compacted grounds are increasing. People’s health depends on healthy parks and gardens and adequate sporting facilities. We should like to add here the need for the Victoria Racing Club to use recycled water on its rose garden and the public outrage about the use of mains water on the racecourse — obviously a candidate for the use of recycled water.

We maintain that for years we have had adequate demonstration models of stormwater catchment in Royal Park. We have had the Royal Park wetlands, the supply of recycled water for sports fields and the golf course and the trees in Royal Park. Since 2004 we have had the example of world-first water harvesting from the roof of the State Netball Hockey Centre. This supplies 89 per cent of needs of the centre.

If we look at the aerial photograph of Royal Park, this was used when we thought that there would be road tunnels going through under the Eddington review. Fortunately they have been deleted from the plan now but you can see the wetlands — the tunnel would have gone through one of the wetlands, the two storage ponds and the State Netball Hockey Centre with its huge white, expansive roof.

2 February 2009 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 2 In addition, we know that there has been a revolutionary model of sewer mining in Princes Park, Carlton, ready and waiting since 2007, which could have been supplying recycled water for all Melbourne’s parks and gardens plus the , plus the — one of the city’s biggest potable water consumers. Proposed by the and City West Water, it did not proceed due to the state government’s reluctance to fund local projects as opposed to PPP projects.

I have set down our recommendations. We recommend the state government look to funding local water sourcing initiatives such as wetlands, water harvesting from roof tops and sewer mining projects. Again we refer to Monash University’s submission by 21 academics which provides the direction for cities as catchments. Ours is a very modest submission given the weight of Monash University’s, which we just think is excellent.

I will quickly look at Royal Park’s local water sourcing projects. The Royal Park wetlands provides an alternative water source for irrigation of the park, and it also provides protection of ecosystems through removal of pollutants. The wetlands have created new habitat, increased biodiversity plus given recreation and environmental education opportunities. The wetlands stormwater reuse scheme harvests, treats and reuses stormwater from an urban catchment in the northern suburbs. It delivers 74 megalitres of class A water per annum and a further 309 megalitres of clean water flows through to the bay. It has two wet-linked ponds and the processed water goes through to the storage wetlands, which is used to irrigate areas of Royal Park in summer. I have here a picture of the wetlands storage pond next to CityLink.

The stormwater comes from the northern suburbs to Royal Park in the creek, and provides the opportunity for diversion. It takes all of the stormwater, as I understand it, from a huge area — 187 hectares of urban catchment. I will not go through the construction because it is detailed. I thought it was very useful to have it as a detail for somebody to pick up in case you go on to make a recommendation about wetlands. It is a ready-reference, so to speak.

I should say that it was funded by the state government — top-up funding was given. It was proposed by the state government that the wetlands be incorporated into the Parkville Gardens property development, which was used for the Commonwealth Games Village, but fortunately they were not alienated and they were retained for public benefit.

One of the interesting features of the construction is that the second stage is going ahead. There are playing fields next to the wetlands, and it provides for storage tanks under the huge Ross Straw playing fields area which will enable watering of further sports fields and also Royal Parade and city avenues. We think that this source of water is extremely important because in the past managers were forced to purchase waste water from the Werribee and eastern treatment plants. They were trucking it in which is not energy efficient, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and adds immeasurably to traffic congestion. I made a comment here that it was gratifying that the destruction of the wetlands and the storage tanks under the sports field has been averted. The open cut roads — freeways — that were to come through have been put on hold.

We should like to recommend the committee look at the example provided also by Boroondara — there is a photo of the Glen Iris wetlands development, which is an excellent project and is coming on stream — and at the state government funding local initiatives such as we have cited. The cities of Melbourne and Boroondara have proved that they have the capacity to build adequate wetlands that are most effective. They have also involved the community. The Royal Park master plan committee, that I have been a member of for eight years, was one of the initiators of this project. It is terrific for the community to be able to be involved in these local water-sourcing projects.

On a comment on the water harvesting from the State Netball Hockey Centre roof, in the first week after the centre opened, the indoor netball court was flooded. I am on the advisory committee. Members of the committee raised the question: why don’t we tap the water source? We were instrumental in advancing the plan. The State Sport Centres Trust, that the committee reports to, was of course fully enthusiastic about it. It is supposed to be the first sports facility water recycling project of its kind in the world. It was installed with a state government Smart Water Fund grant in 2004 and began operating in 2005. I have the pamphlet at the back of the submission. I will not worry you with the details. It describes how it operates.

The wet surface hockey pitches consume a great deal of water. There is a lavish use of water — 13 swimming pools full — every time the hockey pitches are used. Therefore it was imperative that something was done about what we perceived to be waste of potable water. The project now supplies 89 per cent of the greywater needs of the State Netball Hockey Centre. I know that it has been replicated in Bendigo, but I have not managed to find out whether other sports centres have managed to replicate this.

We advocate that the state government subside the retrofitting of sports stadiums, railway stations like that at Spencer Street and city office rooftops to harvest stormwater for use as greywater on sportsgrounds and in toilets. For some years

2 February 2009 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 3 Union Solidarity has been advocating retrofitting buildings to implement water harvesting. This morning I spoke to Dave Kerin, who is the project officer for that. They got a grant from the state government to investigate it. Their aim I think is to set up manufacturing in the northern suburbs to produce solar panels and the means by which to retrofit buildings for water harvesting. They do not have the funds yet. I think they are looking at $1.5 million. It would be admirable for the state government to fund that. It would also involve the union movement, get the unions onside, which would have a leavening effect and get the support for local water sourcing.

Just to go to sewer mining in Princes Park, there has been quite a saga about this. I comment that alarm bells were ringing in May 2007, when the reservoirs hit the low-water mark of 29 per cent. The City of Melbourne and City West Water came up with this really exceptional project to mine the main sewer located under Cemetery Drive in Carlton and Parkville and to construct the Princes Park recycled water treatment plant, which could have supplied recycled water to Melbourne’s major parks and sportsgrounds, including Royal, Princes and Yarra parks; the Fitzroy, Treasury and ; the Melbourne Zoo; and Melbourne University.

It was envisaged that the plant would produce class A recycled water suitable for use in parkland and that it would be located underground in Princes Park, with storage tanks in other parks. The community groups throughout the city of Melbourne were consulted and gave the project unqualified support. The treatment plant’s overall maximum capacity was given as 700 megalitres and it was to free up potable water now being used to irrigate the council’s parks and gardens. Princes Park was seen as a suitable location due to its proximity to a large sewer and its geographical central location in the city of Melbourne. We were very disappointed that although the proposal was placed before the National Water Commission by the then state Minister for Water, it did not go close to getting the fifty-fifty funding. The then Minister for Water, Minister Thwaites, did not make an adequate proposal. We think it was only a 3:1 split at the best. That was extremely disappointing, as the proposal had the backing of the City of Melbourne and City West Water. I know that the then Lord Mayor, John So, made approaches to Minister Thwaites, but there was no result from the meetings.

We are advocating that, perhaps in the interests of finding alternate water sourcing, the committee commission another authority to investigate whether this might be a viable method of sourcing water. The whole direction of my submission is that we consider the supply of water to parks and gardens to be extremely important to the Melbourne.

The CHAIR — Julianne, are you aware whether the City of Melbourne is still pursuing that Princes Park project?

Ms BELL — I am not aware about the new council. There was a proposal. At the first committee meeting Cr Clarke raised it and a resolution went through to investigate water sourcing projects from parks in the city of Melbourne, so it may well be. We will be making a submission to that.

Mrs PETROVICH — Thank you very much for your submission. You have obviously done an enormous amount of work for your community, so thank you for that. If Melbourne is to become a truly sustainable city, what sort of work do you think it would take to implement this program, particularly the sewer mining that you have spoken about today? Can you tell me how much potable water would be saved if this project were to be implemented?

Ms BELL — I did quote here at the beginning the Monash assurance that if alternate water sourcing means were found there could be a 20 per cent to 60 per cent reduction in the demand on the potable water supply for Melbourne. It is not a political comment or anything, but I see that the state government has been so pre-occupied with public-private partnerships that there has been very little attention paid to funding local councils or a diversity of water sources.

I think the time might have come where this could perhaps become a task for the state government, to see how councils could best come up with wetlands in particular, and with sewer mining. I know Boroondara is proceeding with its own investigation into sewer mining.

Mrs PETROVICH — Are you saying that the work is being done out there by local government in particular and other groups and perhaps there needs to be a more direct approach between the government and those groups?

Ms BELL — I would say so. The impasse that was reached over the Princes Park water treatment plant was a bit indicative of the attitude of the state government previously. I hope there can perhaps be a new view because of the crisis that is facing us. I heard the submission from somebody from the University of Melbourne — which submission was given on the same day as the one from Monash University — who said that there will be a gap between the time when the desalination plant comes on line and when the Sugarloaf interconnector comes on line, and that rainfall since 1996 has declined phenomenally in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, and therefore there needs to be some kind of crisis management because we are not assured of water supplies.

2 February 2009 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 4 Mr WALSH — I think you have covered all the questions I was going to ask, so thank you very much.

Ms DUNCAN — Thank you for your submission. We have had a number of submissions about stormwater capture, storage and reuse. We are struggling to find any around the world of the sort of size to replace the volumes of water that would be required for some of the parklands that were mentioned in your submission. Are you aware of any in the world?

Ms BELL — No. I have not gone that far. I started doing some research with a firm called Barry Brothers. I wanted to find out about the transport of recycled water from the Werribee and Carrum Downs treatment plants. All I managed to find out from the chap who was the manager was that they were engaged privately in sourcing from, for instance, telecommunications installations. I find it quite extraordinary that there is a lot of wastewater that is recycled, and the sports fields of Port Phillip are watered entirely using retrieved greywater from telecommunications installations. I can only say there must be an extraordinary amount of activity going on that we do not know about.

Ms DUNCAN — Are you talking about capturing water from roofs and storing it in tanks and using it to water gardens, or are you talking about stormwater capture — that is, water running down gutters?

Ms BELL — No. It is water used in telecommunications installations. It is wastewater from them. I cannot be more precise. That is one reason why I quoted Monash University, because I think of the absolutely extraordinary resource there is there for the government to access, and the amount of academic expertise there is in this area.

Ms DUNCAN — Have you had any figures on the costings of the water in those stormwater projects?

Ms BELL — Ages ago — in 2007 — the sewer mining project was costed at $30 million. Compared to the big projects they are relatively modest.

Ms DUNCAN — Per gigalitre? We have seen some sewage mining; we saw some up in Queensland. It is expensive, and it is providing fairly small amounts of water. The cost of the water per litre is extraordinarily high. Have you seen any of those sorts of figures, or do you have any projects that produce those sorts of figures?

Ms BELL — I know the City of Melbourne did an initial one in somewhere like the Alexandra Gardens or the Royal Botanic gardens, and that was small and extraordinarily expensive. We were reassured that in fact the cost of the Princes Park sewer mining project was not astronomical; it was within reach.

Ms DUNCAN — Who assured you of that?

Ms BELL — The City of Melbourne and City West Water; it was their project. It was developed by engineers, and in fact it was ready to go. It was just the funding that held it up. I can only assume that it is probably now much more expensive. It was the reason I quoted the example, because not being an expert that was the only thing that came into my field of vision.

The DEPUTY CHAIR (Mr Ingram) — Thank you very much for your presentation to the committee today, Julianne.

Witness withdrew.

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