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Recycled Water Should Stay In MelbourneThe National Party says Melbourne’s recycled water should stay in Melbourne to meet the needs of fresh vegetable growers in areas such as the Mornington Peninsula and Werribee. By Peter Hall - 30th October 2006 - Back to News Gippsland MP and National Candidate for Upper House Eastern Region seat, PETER HALL, toured the Peninsula this week and came more convinced than ever that Gippsland’s water should stay in Gippsland as much as possible.
"It makes much more sense for water from the proposed recycling plant at Carrum to be used in the immediate region, where it is desperately needed," Mr Hall said.
"There is a $100 million a year vegetable industry on the Mornington Peninsula alone that needs water to survive.
"Why spend taxpayers money to send recycled water to the Latrobe Valley, and have another pipe going the other way to take Gippsland water to Melbourne? The cost of establishing two systems to transport long distances doesn’t make sense when existing water supplies are required close to their source."
Mr Hall’s comments were backed up by The Nationals candidates in Morwell and Narracan, Russell Northe and John Verhoeven respectively.
"The Government has been talking about taking water away from the Tarago Reservoir for Melbourne," Mr Verhoeven said. "If they thought it through more clearly, the sensible thing to do is use recycled water from the city in areas like the Peninsula and Werribee, which would free up other water for Melbourne proper. Then they could leave our water alone."
Mr Northe said the State Government, in its announcement that the recycled water would be used in power stations in the Latrobe Valley, had skipped over one vital fact – would the power generators agree to use it?
"Power generators operate in a finely tuned, high technology precision industry," he said. "They will not and should not be expected to put billion dollar infrastructure at risk simply because the Bracks’ Government dreams up some scheme to rip off Gippsland’s water supplies and send us their recycled supply, with the hope of picking up votes in Melbourne."
Mr Hall said the Bracks’ Government had paid no heed to the increasingly dry conditions over a number of years and now left many Victorian communities perilously close to running out of water.
He said The Nationals had long campaigned for imposing a cap on Melbourne’s water use, the construction of new water storage dams and greater use of storm water collection and waste water re-use.
"There is little doubt that Victorians are facing a hard summer. The very least the Government should be doing is committing to practical re-use schedules like that proposed for the Peninsula and leave Gippsland’s water alone," Mr Hall concluded.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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