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.
Examples of river and creek turbidity in the Clarence River catchment, 2022. IMAGES: The Daily Telegraph (top) Clarence Environment Centre (bottom)
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.
.jpg)
