Agency overview | |
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Formed | 1992 |
Jurisdiction | Government of Victoria |
Headquarters | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Agency executives |
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Website | www.melbournewater.com.au |
Melbourne Water is an Australian statutory authority owned by the Victorian State Government, which controls and manages much of the water bodies and supplies in metropolitan Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. Its jurisdiction includes all the reservoirs, lakes, wetlands, canals and urban creeks, and the sewerage and drainage systems that services the city.
Melbourne Water was formed by the merger of Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works and a number of smaller urban water authorities in 1992. Melbourne Water primarily operates under the Water Industry Act 1994 and the Water Act 1989. [1]
Melbourne Water is wholly owned by the Victorian State Government. It manages Melbourne's water supply catchments, sewage, rivers and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region. Governance of Melbourne Water is by an independent Board of Directors in conjunction with the Minister for Water.
Melbourne Water supplies water to the metropolitan retail water businesses (namely, Great Western Water, South East Water and Yarra Valley Water [2] ), other water authorities, local councils and the land development industry. [3] The Victorian Water Industry Association (VicWater) is the peak industry association for water companies in Victoria.
In 1994, Melbourne Parks and Waterways was separated from Melbourne Water, and became part of Parks Victoria in 1996.
The Victorian Desalination Plant is a A$3.1 billion desalination plant that was built in the Wonthaggi region of the Bass Coast. [4] The plant can provide an additional 150 gigalitres of water each year. [5] [6] The base fee payable to the owner of the plant, even if no water is ordered, is $608 million a year, [7] or $1.8 million per day, for 27 years. being between $18 and $19 billion in total. [8] On 1 April each year, the Minister for Water places an order for the following financial year, up to 150 gigalitres a year, at an additional cost to Melbourne Water and consumers. [8]
Northern Sewerage Project is a major infrastructure project to increase the capacity of the sewerage system in Melbourne's growing northern suburbs. It will also help protect the Merri and Moonee Ponds Creeks by virtually eliminating sewage overflows that can occur after heavy rain.
Melbourne Water has a system of restrictions to manage water supplies into the future. It reports on storage levels on Thursday each week [9] while an interactive graph compares actual use. Further reviews of restrictions were needed to counter an ongoing drought, poor rainfall, record low storage levels and rising water use compared with past years.
The water supply system operated and managed by Melbourne Water comprises:
Melbourne Water manages the ten Melbourne reservoirs. The total storage capacity is 1,810,500 megalitres. [10]
Reservoir | Capacity (ML) | Year completed | Location |
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Thomson | 1,068,000 | 1983 | 37°50′34″S146°23′56″E / 37.84278°S 146.39889°E |
Sugarloaf | 96,000 | 1981 | 37°40′30″S145°18′18″E / 37.6749°S 145.3051°E |
Cardinia | 287,000 | 1973 | 37°57′49″S145°24′37″E / 37.9637°S 145.4102°E |
Greenvale | 27,000 | 1971 | 37°37′53″S144°54′17″E / 37.63139°S 144.90472°E |
Tarago | 37,500 | 1969 | 38°1′S145°56′E / 38.017°S 145.933°E |
Upper Yarra | 200,000 | 1957 | 37°41′S145°55′E / 37.683°S 145.917°E |
Silvan | 40,000 | 1932 | 37°50′S145°25′E / 37.833°S 145.417°E |
O'Shannassy | 3,000 | 1928 | 37°40′30″S145°48′20″E / 37.67500°S 145.80556°E |
Maroondah | 22,000 | 1927 | 37°38′05″S145°33′47″E / 37.63472°S 145.56306°E |
Yan Yean | 30,000 | 1857 | 37°33′S145°08′E / 37.550°S 145.133°E |
Around 80% of Melbourne's water is sourced from uninhabited forests in the Yarra Ranges and Central Highlands. In excess of 1,570 square kilometres is reserved for water catchment. These forests primarily consist of Mountain Ash. Catchment areas have been closed to the public for over 100 years . [11] [12] [13]
Catchment | Area (ha) | Inflow (%) | Comment |
---|---|---|---|
Thomson | 48700 | 35.3 | mainly State Forest and a small section within Baw Baw National Park |
Upper Yarra | 33670 | 18.7 | within the Yarra Ranges National Park |
O'Shannassy | 11870 | 11.4 | within the Yarra Ranges National Park |
Maroondah | 16540 | 10.8 | within the Yarra Ranges National Park |
Sugarloaf | 0 | 10.7 | water is pumped from the Yarra River and fully treated |
Yarra Tributaries | 13480 | 3.8 | Armstrong, Cement, McMahons and Starvation Creeks (State Forest) |
Wallaby | 9100 | 1.9 | within the Kinglake National Park |
Total | 92.6 |
In addition to the reservoirs in the table above, water is harvested via a number of diversion weirs:
Clearfell logging is permitted in the Yarra Tributaries and Thomson catchment areas. Some studies claims this reduces Melbourne's water supply arguing that young regrowth forest uses more water than existing forest [14] [15] [16] Some environmental groups claim that up to 30 thousand megalitres of water could be saved per annum by phasing out logging. This represents 6% of Melbourne's annual usage. [17]
Yarra Ranges National Park is located in the Central Highlands of Australia's southeastern state Victoria, 107 km northeast of Melbourne. Established in 1995 and managed by the statutory authority Parks Victoria, the park features a carbon-rich, temperate rainforest and a subalpine eucalypt forest on its northern plateau. It is home to large stands of mountain ash, the tallest tree species in Australia and among the tallest in the world. A wide diversity of fauna make their home across the park's 76,003 hectares, including kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, platypuses and 120 species of native birds. Among the conservation challenges facing Yarra Ranges National Park are climate change and invasive species of weeds.
Water supply and sanitation in Hong Kong is characterized by water import, reservoirs, and treatment infrastructure. Though multiple measures were made throughout its history, providing an adequate water supply for Hong Kong has met with numerous challenges because the region has few natural lakes and rivers, inadequate groundwater sources, a high population density, and extreme seasonable variations in rainfall. Thus nearly 80 percent of water demand is met by importing water from mainland China, based on a longstanding contract. In addition, freshwater demand is curtailed by the use of seawater for toilet flushing, using a separate distribution system. Hong Kong also uses reservoirs and water treatment plants to maintain its source of clean water.
The Thomson River, a perennial river of the West Gippsland catchment, is located in the Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria.
The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was a public utility board in Melbourne, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city. In 1992, the MMBW was merged with a number of smaller urban water authorities to form Melbourne Water. MMBW was abolished in 1992.
Yan Yean Reservoir is the oldest water supply for the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. At the time of its completion in 1857 it was the largest artificial reservoir in the world. It is 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of the city within the eponymous locality of Yan Yean, and is built on the Plenty River, a tributary of the Yarra River. An embankment 9.5 metres (31 ft) high holds back 30,000 ML (1.1 billion cu ft) of water.
Water Corporation is the principal supplier of water, wastewater and drainage services throughout the state of Western Australia. It is the seventh successive agency to deal with the services in Perth, Western Australia.
The Upper Yarra Reservoir is located east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, beyond Warburton within the locality of Reefton. Water from Upper Yarra Reservoir supplies towns in the upper Yarra Valley, and Silvan Reservoir, which transfers water to most parts of Melbourne.
Cardinia Reservoir is an Australian man-made water supply saddle dam reservoir. The 287,000 ML water store is located in Emerald–Clematis–Dewhurst in south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. Construction started in May 1970 and was completed in 1973 at a cost of more than A$11.4 million. The dam that creates the impoundment is called the Cardinia Dam.
The Victorian Desalination Plant is a water desalination plant in Dalyston, on the Bass Coast in southern Victoria, Australia. The project was announced by Premier Steve Bracks in June 2007, at the height of the millennium drought when Melbourne's water storage levels dropped to 28.4%, a drop of more than 20% from the previous year. Increased winter-spring rains after mid-2007 took water storage levels above 40%, but it was not until 2011 that storages returned to pre-2006 levels.
The North–South Pipeline, also known as the Sugarloaf Pipeline, is a water pipeline in Central Victoria, Australia, northeast of Melbourne that is part of Victoria's water system, acting as a link between Melbourne's water grid and the Murray-Goulburn water grid, supplying water via a series of existing and proposed pipelines. The 70-kilometre pipeline was connected to Melbourne in February 2010 to carry water from the Goulburn River to Melbourne's Sugarloaf Reservoir. It is the government's policy that it only be used in times of critical human need: when Melbourne's total water storages are less than 30% full on 30 November of any year. The pipeline can transfer a portion of Lake Eildon's water that is set aside for Melbourne, called the critical water reserve. This was 38,400 megalitres at 2 June 2014, and any changes are based on Goulburn-Murray Water's advice.
As Australia's supply of freshwater is increasingly vulnerable to droughts, possibly as a result of climate change, there is an emphasis on water conservation and various regions have imposed restrictions on the use of water.
The Binningup Desalination Plant is a desalination plant near Binningup, Western Australia, about 150 kilometres (93 mi) south of Perth. It supplies water to the state capital Perth, as well as the nearby regional city of Bunbury and is known as the Southern Seawater Desalination Project It was designed to initially deliver 50 gigalitres of potable water per year but was expanded to deliver 100 gigalitres of potable water per year, or 33% of Perth's requirements. The plant was officially opened in September 2011 at reduced output, and was completed and operating at full capacity in January 2013.
The 2000s drought in Australia, also known as the millennium drought is said by some to be the worst drought recorded since European settlement.
Australia is the driest habitable continent on Earth and its installed desalination capacity has been increasing. Until a few decades ago, Australia met its demands for water by drawing freshwater from dams and water catchments. As a result of the water supply crisis during the severe 1997–2009 drought, state governments began building desalination plants that purify seawater using reverse osmosis technology. Approximately one percent of the world's drinkable water originates from desalination plants.
The O'Shannassy Reservoir is an Australian man-made water supply dammed reservoir. The 3.123 GL water store across the O'Shannassy River is located near the locality of McMahons Creek, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) east of Melbourne, Victoria. The dam that creates the impoundment is called the O'Shannassy Dam.
The Watts River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip and Western Port catchment, located in the Healesville area, in the Central region of the Australian state of Victoria.
Toorourrong Reservoir is a small water supply reservoir located on the southern slopes of the Great Dividing Range approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The reservoir is formed by the Toorourrong Dam across the Plenty River, and an interbasin transfer. The dam is operated by Melbourne Water and the reservoir forms part of the Melbourne water supply system. Water from the Toorourrong Reservoir flows by aqueduct to the Yan Yean Reservoir.
City West Water Corporation was a Government of Victoria retail water corporation that provided drinking water, sewerage, trade waste and recycled water services in the Melbourne central business district, inner and western suburbs. The service area included the local government areas of Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Melbourne, Moonee Valley, Wyndham, Yarra and parts of Melton and Hume.
Water management in Victoria deals with the management of water resources in and by the Australian State of Victoria.