Mr BAYLEY - We know that water availability is going to change across the state as the climate changes and the change isn't necessarily going to be uniform. A couple of years ago when you were before this committee you made commitments around master planning in each local water area to account for future challenges like climate change. Can you provide the committee an update on that master planning process, where you are at with it and how many have been completed, which ones have been completed, which ones haven't and how the progress is going basically?
Mr THEO - I'll ask Matt Derbyshire to answer that question in a moment. Over the last 18 months that I have been here TasWater has been working diligently at finalising what are effectively 18 master plans across the entire state, both for water and sewage, in addition to a water security plan for the entire state. There has been a lot of work gone into those two plans. The master plans you are referring to in particular are about being able to inform what the ultimate servicing solutions will be for those catchments over the next 50 years so we can accommodate not just for growth but we can also accommodate for renewals that need to be occurring as infrastructure ages and starts to perform substandard. Matt, could you provide some further information regarding the master plans and where we're at with them?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Can do. As George said, there are 18 and they're divided up into nine regions across the state, one for water, one for sewer. The components that are applicable to all master plans like climate change and growth projections are done. We have also modelled areas across the state where recycled water can be applied. Our first master plan is due next year and we will have finished all of the master plans in the next two and a half years.
Mr BAYLEY - So you've done 18 now? Is that what you're saying?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - No, they're all under way. There are components like the impact of climate change or growth in population that are applicable to all the master plans, so we've started with those pieces of work that go across all of them.
Mr BAYLEY - So you're aiming for 18 in total, two of each in the nine regions but none of them are complete? They're all works in progress but you're making good progress - is that what I'm hearing?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Correct, but when you think about Macquarie Point and the Launceston sewerage improvement program, there are investments that are already underway as part of the master plans. We've completed a high level directions paper for all of the master plans so we know at a high level what the ultimate configuration of our network and infrastructure will look like. At the moment we have approximately 180 treatment plants. We know we can reduce that number quite drastically over the long term.
Mr BAYLEY - Do you envisage this work feeding into state planning policies and guidelines, particularly around subdivisions in some of those drier areas with tank water reliance and the like? Is this going to be feeding into those processes and this is your contribution to that overarching kind of planning process?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Absolutely. Our goal is to work with councils and feed in their strategies into our master planning so that we know the areas that councils are looking to develop and we can send appropriate price signals to develop the same parcels of land that councils are looking at.
Mr THEO - Our master plans are informed by local council planning schemes and state planning schemes. Infrastructure, from TasWater's perspective, is planning-led. It is really important that those inputs are reflective in our master plans.
Mr BAYLEY - When do you expect to have them completely signed off and published?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - The very last one is due in quarter four financial year 2025 but they are all scattered through that period up until then.
Mr BAYLEY - Is there public consultation as part of the development of them?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Absolutely, George also mentioned the water security strategy. As part of our next price and services plan, we will go on and engage with the communities around Tassie next year, next calendar year. Then we will feed levels of service from the water security strategy into the master plans to decide on what types of offline storage we might need, the volume of treated water around the state.
Mr BAYLEY - That is the one overarching strategy.
Mr BAYLEY - Thank you, Chair. Again, in 2021, we were told that TasWater was engaging with the Bureau of Meteorology to try to determine some of the most high risk areas when it came to water and your water systems. Can you give the committee an update on that work? What did the Bureau tell you? Do we know which areas are the highest risk and what are you doing to address that or to accommodate that?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Back to our master planning, that process does look at sea level rise and flood zones. So we look at infrastructure that may be impacted over the long run with the rising sea level and then make plans to relocate it or put infrastructure in the ground that can deal with an increase in the water table.
Mr BAYLEY - What about water, rainfall catchments, water availability, your capacity to harvest water? What have they told you in relation to that? Are you looking at new and upgraded storage and reservoir facilities, for example? How are you going to address those risks because they must be as great, or a greater risk, to your infrastructure than sea level rise?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - It really depends on the catchment. In some catchments there's an opportunity to create offline storages so that we're not dependent on the run of the river. Other rivers, like the Derwent, have really high certainty in the volume of water. We take a very small percentage out of that river. There are areas where dams are not large enough and we feed that into the master planning to look at upsizing dams and holding more storage so you can get through a dry summer.
Mr BAYLEY - Will there be an ongoing engagement with the Bureau of Meteorology about that? Do you have regular engagement with them to keep updating your plans? Will the master plan be reviewed and updated every five years or so?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - It is basically updated when we get new information, but we have incorporated climate change data into our system. We know where there is less certainty because rivers aren't going to flow in certain years.
Mr BAYLEY - Where are those areas?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Some of the records for the BOM go back to 1970. The river in Scamander had never stopped flowing and a couple of years ago it did stop flowing in that year so it was an outlier. The river in Zeehan also did the same thing last summer; some of the lowest flows we've seen on record. All those things mean we need to look at all options, including desal and offline storages so we can have enough volume for customers when we have a dry or multiple dry summers.
Mr BAYLEY - Which communities are you looking at desal for? Is that a real option for you in some areas?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - The approach to planning, at the moment, is all options are on the table. That is what all of the industry is doing. We have to run the ruler over things like desal. So far, it hasn't stacked up for any communities, but we have looked at the east coast. We looked at Bridport, that's still being assessed. We even considered it for the greater Hobart strategy as one of the options we need to consider.
Mr BAYLEY - I want to go back to the climate challenges, water availability and planning. I think a lot of people would be alarmed and somewhat shocked to think that a state like Tasmania is even entertaining the notion of desalination plants and I guess that's a sign of the place we are and the prospects going forward. In Bridport, for example, I know there's overlapping irrigation schemes up there managed by Tas Irrigation and allocated to farmers and so forth. Are there active conversations between the entities about water and water challenges and priorities and how this is going to be planned in the long term? Do you feel like you're getting enough attention or enough of that conversation to be able to reassure domestic and other customers that their interests are a real priority?
Mr THEO - Absolutely. Matt can elaborate but we look at what is best for community and we need to consider a broad range of options. We're actively in dialogue with TI on a regular basis on whether they have the availability of water where we could be a purchaser of raw water into our water treatment plant and we can treat the water and then provide the community with secure water and improve water security.
We need to be mindful of the fact that with climate change, all water options need to be on the table and looking at small gas, small-scale desalination, especially for some of our coastal communities where the yields aren't high when you're relying on rain, it's just an option that needs to be considered and I think we would be negligent in our optioneering if we didn't look at all the options.
Mr BAYLEY - I think you came in here a couple of years ago and acknowledged the declining river health and we acknowledged that TasWater is not entirely responsible for that and it's something you have to respond to, but in considering options for future supply, we should also be considering options for what is being done today to address declining river health and so forth. Do you feel there is enough being done to address declining river health? I don't just mean volumes there, obviously the quality of the water that is coming down into your treatment facilities is important as well. Do you feel we as a state are doing enough, not just the planning piece we've talked about a little bit but the actual action to improve water quality to address declining river health?
Mr THEO - It's fair to say we can do better. TasWater is supportive of understanding river health, reporting on river health and looking for ways to improve river health. It comes down to understanding catchment management practices and activities that occur within the catchments. We're quite happy to play our role. All I can say is no matter how well you do, I think there's always an opportunity to do better and I think it starts with being able to report on river health and then make informed decisions on where you would like to take it.
As a water business that takes water out of rivers and then has to treat that water to meet the requirements of the Australian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines in order for people to be able to drink, we don't want to be building more and more sophisticated and more and more expensive treatment plants because we're not working in the catchments to actually improve the quality of water that is flowing down our rivers.
Mr BAYLEY - A few years ago you were raising some concerns about the Rural Water Use Strategy and the direction it was heading and then you seemingly got some assurances from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment that things would be okay and so forth. I think you said that the proof will be in the pudding at some point in the future. Can you reflect on the Rural Water Use Strategy now and how it is working and whether it's serving your needs?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - We are obviously a participant in the Rural Water Roundtable and were quite enthused by the last progress report they published a month or so ago. It shows good progress in a number of areas like climate yield science, groundwater assessment, water accountability and metering, river health and a water-quality monitoring program.
Just to go back to your last question before that, we work with all stakeholders in the catchment, so we've -
Mr BAYLEY - Sorry, this is Bridport?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - No, across Tassie, really. We have other stakeholders that also extract water and you talked about TI, but Hydro is another one. With the north-west water strategy, which is our long-term strategy to rationalise treatment plants for the communities of Devonport and Burnie across to Port Sorell, we've negotiated some water from Hydro that they will release from their Paloona Dam and then we'll purchase that water. The other thing to note is that NRE also issued surety 1 licence for extractions to TasWater. Surety 5 is for irrigation, so we have a higher surety of water in those areas like Prosser, Forth and Leven where the water is mostly allocated.
Mr BAYLEY - Have some of your original concerns about over-allocation of water to irrigation purposes been addressed by that surety?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - There were some changes made where if you can build the infrastructure, you can extract as much water as you want when the river is in flood and the water will just go out to sea anyway, so provided that TasWater had the infrastructure in place, we could take floodwater and store it for the summer.
Mr BAYLEY - I just want to return to the Bridport example to ask a broader question about the consideration of a desalination plant and the local irrigation scheme. I think 16 000 megalitres of water are going to primary producers. I certainly don't have an issue with that; they're clearly important uses. There's in depth planning around the master planning process. There are the nine regions where there's going to be planning. Is this happening within an integrated catchment management framework? Do you feel it's fully informed in an integrated way with all users within that catchment and undertaken under integrated catchment management principles?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - Maybe I sent the alarm bells off when I talked about desalination. All I was saying was there's always a long list of options. We put everything on the table when we're considering which preferred option. At the moment, there is no preferred option for desalination anywhere in Tasmania. There are a number of options in all catchments that stack up in front of desal, whether it's water from hydro, water from TI, extraction from the water, offline storages. All of those options are done on a holistic planning approach. We work with NRE to secure licences, extra licences if we need to. If the river is fully allocated, we'll work with a partner like Hydro to purchase water from them.
Mr BAYLEY - What about integrated catchment management, taking into account all land users in the catchment? Is your higher level planning being informed and does it fit within that integrated catchment management or is that still a missing piece in the way we deal with water in the state?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - It's integrated in that all of the stakeholders in a given catchment are sitting at the Rural Water Roundtable and represented on the Rural Water Roundtable. Those voices are heard.
Mr BAYLEY - There must be some significant tensions between them at times?
Mr DERBYSHIRE - There are competing priorities. TasWater has always maintained that we believe that drinking water is the most important, along with environmental flows within rivers. That is reflected in the surety levels we get from NRE. We have a surety one extraction compared to surety five, six and others in the same catchment. It means that our drinking water has a high priority.
