The Carr Government’s 11th state budget represents another wasted opportunity to take the urgent steps necessary to reduce Sydney’s water use or to announce any initiatives to recycle the massive amounts of wastewater being dumped at sea, Greens MLC Ian Cohen said today.
“The ‘build it and it will come’ approach by the Carr Government to solving Sydney’s water crisis has again ignored the solutions to overuse and dwindling supplies. A huge infrastructure spending program will not solve our water woes.”
“Hundreds of millions of litres of stormwater and wastewater is there to be harvested but it will continue to simply drain away because the Carr Government has chosen to pursue options that clearly will not work unless it rains.”
Mr Cohen said water saving initiatives - such as recycling stormwater and sewage, more efficient toilets and permanent low-level water restrictions - would save more water than the Carr Government’s spending on deep water storages and reservoir upgrades can hope to produce.
“Sydney Water discharges more than 450 gigalitres of wastewater each year, almost as much water as Sydneysiders consume each year. So far, only 11 gigalitres of this is recycled.”
“Sydney’s water future will not be saved simply by spending more money sinking new bores, deepwater pumping and building new pipes to the Shoalhaven River.
“Sydney could have a sustainable water supply but that would require much greater effort to conserve and recycle water than this government has so far made.”
Further Information: Paul Sheridan, 0410 516 656
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