Jim Soorley of Unitywater said get used to it.
Our dams are full at the moment.
Yet for the first time we are faced with real pricing on the water we consume and we are told that the price we are charged will go up.
The truth might be that the price we are charge will go up so much water will become a significant budget item for us.
What will drive up water prices?
Population increases in South-East Queensland. The population here is rising fast consistently and putting massive pressures on infrastructure such as water supply. Let’s not pretend for a second that this is something easy to manage. It involves huge amounts of capital to supply infrastructure and no matter how much is built more is always needed for more people. But more infrastructure doesn’t mean Nature will supply one drop more rain.
Climate instability with climate change. Our rainfall is among the most variable in the whole world and we cannot rely on getting enough rain. There will be long periods of drought as well as enough rain to cause floods if it wasn’t controlled.
The freakiness of where our rain falls. Although it rains a lot in Brisbane this side of the range our main dams are on the other side of the D’Aguilar Range and only get real inflow on rare eratic occasions if a big rain event comes from exactly the right direction.
The price of power is likely to increase 4-fold in the next four or five years and it takes a lot of power to run desalination plants or water purification plants and pumping stations and sewerage systems. Our water and sewerage supply take a lot of power.
Revenue from selling us water will inevitably we profitable. Now that our ‘Water Commons’ have been taken away from us water is one more product that can be made money from. Lots. Now that all the dams and water assets have been purchased from councils a return on these assets is being sought. This asset value seems quite a bit higher than what was paid for them!
Apart from price we have an incentive to keep our dam levels above 40% full. If the water levels in our dams drop to 40% our State Government has told us they will add ‘purified recycled water’ directly into Wivenhoe Dam. Like it or not this water starts off as sewerage from our homes and factories not only with faeces and urine but also with pharmaceuticals hormones and toxic waste. Many scientists warn strongly against relying 100% on purification plants for sewerage to turn it into water we can safely drink. We have a real incentive NOT to let our dams fall to 40%!