Page 2429 - Week 08 - Thursday, 6 June 2013
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refurbishments and extensions. The review is to recommend ways of significantly expanding the acceptable mandated measures to achieve the target and provide maximum flexibility to developers so they are able to manage their costs.
The commission also gave detailed consideration to the ACT government’s urban wetlands and stormwater harvesting programs. The government has accepted the recommendation that given the current water security outlook, no further developments of this kind—that is, wetlands built for stormwater harvesting purposes—should be undertaken until an evaluation of a trial of the north Canberra system is undertaken. The north Canberra system will be assessed after it has been operating for five years.
The commission made its recommendations before the Murray-Darling Basin plan was settled in November last year, which resulted in the setting of the ACT’s sustainable diversion limit of 40.5 gigalitres.
The issue now facing the ACT is that there is a limit on what we can draw from the basin. We are well within that limit currently, but population growth and encouraging water use with inappropriate pricing need to be guarded against. If the limit is reached, it will need to be increased by water entitlement trading to increase the ACT’s sustainable diversion limits. The uses of secondary water and of stormwater for irrigation are uses that fall within the definition of use for the purposes of the sustainable diversion limits. This is irrespective of our actual water supply capabilities as determined by our successful implementation of the think water, act water strategy. The ACT still needs to be conservative and judicious in its use of water.
The government’s response notes the commission’s recommendation in relation to greywater treatment system accreditation. The government is working within the COAG framework to pursue water reforms. A significant step in that process is the formation of an intergovernmental working group to review and update water quality standards, including nationally consistent standards for greywater regulation. The government response indicates that whilst there are too few greywater systems in the ACT to warrant specific regulation at present, development of an acceptable national system will avoid unnecessary red tape.
The commission recommended that a clear pathway for approval of private sector multi-dwelling secondary water systems be developed. The response notes this recommendation and indicates that processes and conditions for the development and instalment of secondary water systems will be developed.
The commission also recommends that a clearly defined third-party water infrastructure access regime be developed. The response notes that there is no current restriction on ACTEW Water providing third-party access, but there is no evident demand for these schemes in the ACT at present.
The commission recommends that the utility that owns the Canberra integrated urban waterways project stormwater pilot reticulation network be licensed under the Utilities Act. The government has agreed with this recommendation.
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