Adapting to climate change is at the core of the Water Action Plan 2015-2020 adopted by Wyndham City at its Ordinary Council Meeting on 27 April. According to Cr Peter Gibbons, it’s the first Council plan to do so.
“The focus on climate change is deliberate and necessary. Wyndham’s current annual average rainfall of 470mm is well below the Melbourne average of 650mm and could evaporate down to 283mm by 2100, under likely climate change scenarios. Below average rainfalls have been the norm since the mid-1990s,” Cr Gibbons said.
The plan will boost the resilience of Wyndham’s operations to drought and climate change through improved water use efficiency and the use of alternative water sources over the next five years. The Council has already implemented efficiency measures from connecting sports reserves to recycled water from the Werribee treatment plant to providing more than 11,000 water-efficient showerheads to households. The new plan includes upgrading automated irrigation and monitoring systems for sports fields and improving rainwater harvesting systems at the Refuse Disposal Facility to minimise the use of potable (drinking) water in keeping dust levels down.
Sports reserve irrigation is by far the Council’s biggest single water use, and $250,000 of the $300,000 in direct costs of the Plan will go towards a new open space irrigation system. But the good news is that water conservation and water reuse initiatives will pay back through reduced ongoing costs.
As the fridge magnet says, ‘Waste water today – Live in desert tomorrow’.
(Posted by the Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action)
