Alex Salmon, Perth
The campaign for the February 26 Western Australian election has become dominated by the issue of how to solve the problem of water supply in the state's south-west, including metropolitan Perth.
In the drought-stricken farming area around the town of Ravensthorpe, 536 kilometres south-east of Perth, the situation is so bad that hundreds of thousands of litres of water have to be brought in by trucks. The cost is estimated by the WA environment department to be up to $30,000 a week.
In his February 2 TV debate with Labor Premier Geoff Gallop, Liberal-National Coalition leader Colin Barnett unveiled plans to build the world's longest canal to deliver water to Perth from the Kimberley. The proposal has immediately come under criticism from the government, environmentalists and many scientific experts after Barnett failed to answer key questions on the project's environmental impact and the cost of the water it would supply.
Tenix, the construction firm behind the project, has carried out a preliminary estimate of costs — rounded up to about $2 billion. On February 4, WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief John Langoulant and Institute of Public Affairs director Mike Nahan said they were sceptical about the cost of the project being contained to $2 billion.
The costs are going to need to include the accommodation and support facilities for people in remote locations for extended periods of time, facilities to prevent evaporation and material to line the canal to prevent seepage. These costs would make it unlikely for the project to come in at anything like $2 billion..
The Gallup Labor government has proposed to build a desalination plant in Kwinana, at a projected cost of around $350 million.
On February 7, Australian Conservation Foundation campaigns director John Connor criticised both projects, saying: "Massive, environmentally-damaging infrastructure projects — like the plan to build a 3700 kilometre canal to bring water from the Kimberley to Perth — will create more problems than they will solve. Many people in the Kimberley depend on a healthy Fitzroy River for fishing and tourism.
"Desalination also has drawbacks, particularly the greenhouse pollution it generates."
Connor also observed that if "the sort of money being talked about by the premier and the opposition leader was put towards water conservation and efficiency measures for business, industry and households, Perth wouldn't be facing a water crisis".
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, households use only 13% of WA's total water consumption, compared with 28% for industry, and 40% for agriculture. While household use is not expected to rise significantly over the next few years, industry's water consumption is growing at a rapid rate.
As WA Greens MP Dee Margetts observed in a February 8 statement, "There are enough southwest resources — if properly managed — to cope with urban [household] demand, and the Coalition's canal appears to be more about plumping up the cotton industry and other huge commercial consumers at taxpayers expense."
Both Barnett's canal project and Labor's desalination plant project would involve the use of private construction firms at public expense, with the canal being privately owned. This confirms that both projects are being driven by corporate profit-making.
The Socialist Alliance, which is standing six candidates for the WA upper house, argues that industry should pay the full costs of its massive water usage, and the revenues generated should be used to fund investment in water-saving and recycling technology and publicly constructed and owned desalination plants.
From Green Left Weekly, February 16, 2005.
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