Switchwise.com.au Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Water Prices’

Melbourne water bills set to skyrocket

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

The Essential Services Commission of Victoria yesterday released its final decision that water and sewerage bills for Melbourne households will have to increase in real terms by 51 to 64 per cent over the next four years. Such hefty rises have been deemed necessary to fund projects to improve the water and sewerage infrastructure, including new sewage treatment plants and the desalination plant.

The impact on a typical Melbourne household’s water bills depends upon where you live:

  • City West Water customers: a $290 increase in your annual bill by 2012-13 (from $568 in 2008-09 to $858 in 2012-13)
  • South East Water customers: a $328 increase in your annual bill by 2012-13 (from $566 in 2008-09 to $894 in 2012-13)
  • Yarra Valley Water customers: a $375 increase in your annual bill by 2012-13 (from $585 in 2008-09 to $960 in 2012-13)

Note that the figures quoted above are real prices meaning that the 2012-13 figures could be around 10% higher at current inflation levels.

Read more: ESC Media Release.

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SE Queenslanders halve water use but pay more

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

The Australian reports that the residents of South-East Queensland have halved their use of water over the past 5 years in response to the drought and resulting water restricitions.

It’s great to see people actively reducing their water use or installing rainwater tanks to overcome the water shortages that were caused by the drought. Now that water storage levels are back up to 74 per cent it will be interesting to see whether usage trends back toward pre-drought levels or whether the water wise philosophy will continue.

The Queensland Government has been investing heavily in water infrastructure in an attempt to drought-proof the State for the future. This investment has led to a significant increase in the price paid for water by Queenslanders – prices have risen by around 20 per cent over the last year and are forecast to increase again each year at the same rate over the next 2 to 3 years.

The Government is being criticised for this infrastructure spending now that the drought has receded. I view this criticism as unfair and short-sighted as the likelihood of future droughts is high. However, I strongly disagree with the Government using a desalination plant as the linchpin of its drought-proofing strategy. The amount of electricity required to operate such a plant is staggering and flys in the face of the so called climate change strategy.

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Reducing your water footprint

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

We’ve all seen numerous carbon footprint calculators which tell us how much carbon dioxide is created in the production and distribution of different products, including electricity & gas. Now there is Water Footprint to tell us how much water is required to produce everyday items.

The water footprints of some common, everyday products are staggering:

  • 16,000 litres of water required to produce 1 kg of beef;
  • 140 litres of water required to produce 1 cup of coffee;
  • 75 litres of water required to produce 1 glass of beer;
  • 40 litres of water required to produce 1 slice of wheat bread;
  • 3,400 litres required to produce 1 kg of rice;
  • 2,700 litres required to produce 1 cotton shirt;
  • 5,000 litres of water required to produce 1 kg of cheese.

This makes you seriously question why we are growing water-intensive products such as rice and cotton in very dry Australia. I guess it all comes down to pricing – if water were appropriately priced (instead of being free or very cheap) then no longer would it be economic to produce certain types of crop in certain countries.

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