For reasons best known to itself, Clarence Valley Council administration has not publicly dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s for elected councillors and the Clarence Valley resident population when it comes to root causes of increased water turbidity and poor quality drinking water.
It's all about dirt. The deep soils and topsoils which cover and strengthen the rocks which hold Clarence River Basin mountains, hills and slopes in place; soils which are building blocks for both vegetation & biodiversity growth; soils which allow arable farming on valley floors big and small - including on the identified Clarence River floodplain.
The connection between clear-felled land, disturbed soils caused by mining, state-owned & private forestry, land laid bare by largescale wildfires, sloping land eroded by rain bombs, river banks scoured by record flooding, waterways thick with suspended soil particles and, a decline in water quality, is there for all to see.
As is the poor stewardship of the NSW Government - which is supposed to ensure healthy waterways - but whose actions in allowing inappropriate levels of native vegetation removal, poorly monitoring mining exploration activity and its own continuous native timber forestry in sensitive catchments & sub-catchments is contributing to turbidity issues in north-east New South Wales.
It appear that absolutely no-one in the Perrottet Coalition Government is looking to address the root cause of water turbidity and erratic urban water quality.
There appears to be a political blindness in 2023 to the following:
(i) the 2019-20 megafires started a process of exposing soils over wide areas of what had been closed and open forests in the Northern Rivers region;
(ii) the further clearing of some of those fire grounds for retrievable native timber exacerbated this process;
(iii) in 2022-23 the sensitivity and environmental risk associated with these forests is recognised as a continuing issue by the NSW Environmental Protection Agency - especially in areas where commercial native timber forestry is still occurring;
(iv) the 2022 extreme flooding increased the rate at which destabilised and/or degraded soils, particularly the exposed dispersive soils which create high levels of turbidity, made their way into streams, creeks, rivers and major waterways; and
(v) riverine landscapes do not have an infinite ability to withstand population pressure coupled with an increase in the frequency of natural or climate-induced disasters. The resilience Clarence River Basin waterways have demonstrated in the past does not guarantee their future capacity to experience recurrent disturbances while retaining essential function, structures and feedbacks.
A filtration plant may be advisable for urban water supplies, but it won't keep Clarence Valley waterways healthy, alive with biodiverse aquatic ecosystems and productive.
Ecotourism, water-based activity tourism and freshwater recreational fishing tourism, as well as the lucrative local wild-caught prawn industry, depend on healthy rivers. Rivers that are not just healthy but that can be seen to be healthy.
.jpg)
Clarence Valley Independent, 1 March 2023:
Future filtration for Valley water
Filtration of the Clarence Valley’s drinking water supply is again back on the agenda following this months Level Four severe water restrictions which lasted 11 days.
The Rushforth Road Water Treatment Plant RRWTP masterplan, which aims to replace the existing reservoir without impacting future construction of a filtration plant, is on the agenda at the February 28 Clarence Valley Council CVC meeting.
Prepared for council by consultant Beca H2O, the masterplan includes the replacement of the existing 32 megalitre reservoir, which is included in CVC’s 2022/2023 Operational Plan, and for future construction of filtration.
“It is recommended that Council progress the Masterplan by commencing the planning approval process for a future filtration plant at Rushforth Road Water Treatment Plant,” council papers state.
Council staff recommend councillors note the masterplan and commence the planning approval process for future construction of a filtration plant by calling open tenders to undertake an Environmental Impact Statement.
CVC first adopted a Drinking Water Management System DWMS at its August 19, 2014 meeting and an updated DWMS was adopted at the May 2020 meeting.
Up until the 1990s, drinking water was extracted regardless of turbidity, then in the early 1990s selective extraction was introduced to improve water quality when turbidity was below 10 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU).
Councils 2014 DWMS saw the turbidity level drop to 5 NTU, then the May 2020 DWMS further dropped the turbidity level to 3.5 NTU.
Currently, CVC water supplies are disinfected at Rushforth Road “by chloramination (adding ammonia to chlorine) as this provides the most stable disinfectant in lengthy pipeline systems because chloramines decay at a lower rate than free chlorine,” council papers state.
Tenders have been called for stage one of the masterplan which will see a 1.5 ML Chlorine Contact Tank and a 16ML Treated Water Storage Tank installed at the RRWTP, estimated to cost $14.7 million in October 2021.
“The provision of a Chlorine Contact Tank will allow the primary disinfection at Rushforth Road by free chlorination while, by adding ammonia after the contact tank, continue to provide for a chloramine residual in the lengthy pipeline network,” council papers state.
Stage two of the masterplan is the conceptual design for filtration to be constructed at the RRWTP and is estimated to cost $63.8 million, with an annual operating cost of $2.1 million.
“The Masterplan has confirmed that gravity flow through the plant is feasible, and all elements of the plant have been conceptually located so that the current plant (with the addition of the chlorine contact tank) can continue to operate during construction,” council papers state.
“Due to its construction cost the filtration plant is classified as State Significant Development, and therefore needs planning approval via an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
“It is recommended that Council commence the approval process for a future filtration plant by calling tenders to undertake an EIS.”
The last time council considered filtration at its April 15, 2014 meeting it was estimated the construction and operation of a filtration plant would add $275 annually to the typical residential bill.
“The drinking water risk is not assessed by the State Government as being high enough for funding assistance under the current Safe and Secure Water Program,” council papers state.
“The Rushforth Road water treatment has been allocated a risk score of “4”, while the program funding is currently only sufficient to provide assistance for projects with a risk score of “5”.”
Due to this situation, it is likely that CVC will require loans to fund the water filtration project.
No comments:
Post a Comment