big business wants control of water, page-10

http://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/the-folly-of-bottling-water-in-a-drought/2006/11/03/1162340049032.html#

The folly of bottling water in a drought

November 4, 2006
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With diminishing water supplies, Victoria can ill-afford to squander its precious underground resources.

STAGE 2 water restrictions came into force in Victoria's capital this week, causing aggravation as Melburnians adjusted to the inconvenience of operating their automatic watering systems only every second day or using a bucket to wash the car. In the city, the reality of life with diminishing water supplies is just beginning to dawn. In the country, both life and the restrictions are harsher. Lack of rain has long been considered part of the natural cycle in the land of drought and flooded plains. But, in an era of climate change, the expected rain can no longer be relied on and repeated crop failure has caused personal hardship as well as having economic consequences for the nation. Life revolves around the availability of water and for Australians it is a diminishing resource. None of this is new but the necessity of considering how we treat water, what we pay for it and who has the right to harvest it is made more compelling by the revelation that a commercial operation will gain access to millions of litres of Victoria's best quality drinking water at a fraction of the price farmers are forced to pay for water that is essential to their existence.

As reported in today's Age, Sunkoshi, a Melbourne-based company that has commercial links with multinational soft drink manufacturer Coca-Cola Amatil, has secured a licence to extract 150 megalitres annually from an aquifer in Powelltown, 85 kilometres east of Melbourne. The water will be bottled and marketed at prices that could well see one bottle costing about the same as Sunkoshi will pay for a million litres — $2.40. As a result of this mining, the Learmonth Creek, source of the town's drinking water, will have reduced flows. Locals are angry, and rightly so, that their supply is threatened.

The water from the aquifer supplies other waterways including the Yarra and Little Yarra rivers. Without it, they would suffer and the impact could be felt as far away as Melbourne. Aquifers do not provide boundless supplies of water to be squandered at will. They are part of a delicate ecosystem that can be irreparably damaged if used carelessly. It can take decades for aquifers to be replenished and Sunkoshi's plans would result in the source being unavailable to future generations.

For many years, Victorians have skirted around the issue of saving water. City dwellers have made marginal changes to daily habits, feeling virtuous about reusing grey water, lugging buckets from washing machine to garden. The efforts have been more symbolic than revolutionary. Despite subsidies, too few homes are fitted with water-saving devices, let alone tanks or the facility to capture grey water. In this context, the State Government has identified water as being "at the top of (its) agenda" and claims that it has the strategy to "improve water management from the moment the rain falls in our catchments, enters aquifers and rivers and moves to homes, farms and businesses". How then did one of its instrumentalities, Southern Rural Water — which has authority over this aquifer — approve Sunkoshi's application? Worse still, how did the agreement pass the scrutiny of both Melbourne Water and the Department of Sustainability and the Environment?

This week the NSW Government's decision to use groundwater to supplement Sydney's water supply was criticised for failing to properly consider the environmental effects of large-scale pumping, especially on delicate ecosystems. These issues appear to have been equally ignored by the Victorian authorities who have given private enterprise exclusive access to the Powelltown aquifer.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists yesterday called on governments, state and federal, to accelerate plans to protect the country's water resources. Nature had taken over the timetable, they said, as they outlined priorities that included securing the health of rivers by buying water from those willing to sell it; establishing a national water accounting system; and regulating to offset further water losses from timber plantations, farms, dams and groundwater use. If the Victorian Government is serious about leading the nation in sustainable water management, it must take this advice seriously.