A new stormwater harvesting and reuse project in Adelaide will save more than 500 million litres of Adelaide’s drinking quality water per year.
Through the construction of significant infrastructure, including 23 kilometres of mains pipelines, Waterproofing the West – Stage One will use treated stormwater to irrigate parks and gardens in the City of Charles Sturt.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham, and South Australian Water and the River Murray Minister Ian Hunter were at St Clair today to congratulate the City of Charles Sturt on the completion of the project, a major initiative for the Council.
“The Australian Government has invested $20 million into this project to support the long-term sustainability of groundwater resources in Adelaide, reduce the demand on water supplies from the River Murray and prevent stormwater runoff that pollutes and degrades the Gulf of St Vincent’s coastal and marine assets.”
“Now that the infrastructure is fully operational, the system is capable of capturing, treating and storing up to 2400 million litres of stormwater annually and then distributing the stored water throughout the region” said Senator Birmingham.
This multi-objective stormwater initiative by the City of Charles Sturt was made possible through collaboration and funding commitments by all three levels of Government.
“South Australia is the driest state on the driest inhabited continent on earth. This fantastic project will capture and reuse the equivalent of almost 1000 Olympic size swimming pools each year, greening the western suburbs with water that was previously wasted,” Mr Hunter said.
“Adelaide now has capacity to harvest more than 20 GL of stormwater, which together with other significant investment in water infrastructure, has diversified our water sources and guaranteed the State’s water security to 2050,” said Senator Birmingham.
For more information on the National Urban Water and Desalination Plan visit http://www.environment.gov.au/water/policy-programs/urban-water-desalination/index.html.