RE: Letter to the editor on June 18 by Professor David Goldney about a population ceiling for Bathurst because of water constraints.
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WHILE I agree with the broad logic in the article, there are alternatives to seriously consider.
The fact is that large areas of Australia, including the Central West, have never had water security and if cities and towns and farms are to survive in the future, the situation has to change.
In the past, there has been a complete reliance on rain, with acceptance of droughts, because there was no other solution.
This logic no longer applies. Other countries have desalinated seawater and delivered it over large distances for at least 20 years.
Consider a situation where it does not rain in significant quantity in the next 10 years - and this could happen with the climate changing. How will Bathurst and other affected towns survive?
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There is no source of sufficient quantities of water in existing dams, underground or anywhere else.
Do we all emigrate to Sydney or other areas on the coast (where the water may only be available for a short time)?
Talk of raising dam walls and building new dams is hardly a positive solution if no rain comes to fill them and this may be the case with a changing climate.
I do not agree that building desalination plants on the coast is heroic, rather I believe it is a necessity.
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I also do not agree that the user pays principle should apply in situations where water security is needed.
User pays principles did not come into play in regard to public infrastructure until the 1970s, when high interest rates made it possible to make more profit by the use of money only, rather than providing infrastructure that was actually needed, regardless of user pays principles.
For example, main roads were built by the public works without tolls, paid for from general taxation.
User pays principles were obviously not used in the provision of a 750 millimetre diameter water pipeline from Wentworth on the River Murray to Broken Hill - a distance of 270 kilometres, cost $467 million, completed in 2018 to supply Broken Hill, a population under 20,000 people.
Would user pays principles come into play if it is a matter of the survival of cities?
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Israel, a country with a similar water deprivation to Australia, has a population of approximately nine million. The country has six major desalination plants operating, supplying around half of the nation's water needs, and increasing to 70 per cent by 2050. This includes some farming lands.
It will take at least three years to plan and build just one more desalination plant near Sydney and at least that long to build a pipeline to, say, Bathurst and Orange. Some time, however, can be gained by a pipeline from Warragamba.
The desalination plant, which would supply enough water for most of rural NSW, would cost approximately $3 billion and a pipeline from Sydney to Bathurst and Orange would cost approximately $1 billion with pumps. That's $4 billion for water security in the Central West - not much more than the new tramway in Sydney.
The population of Australia will continue to grow and require more water, regardless of whether they reside in Bathurst or elsewhere.
It's time for politicians to act.
