LOOK UP: Stunning water tower artwork turns heads

ARTIST Sam Wilkinson needed a high risk, boom lift license to pull off this dare devil artwork, but the results speak for themselves.

A jaw-dropping painting of a pink galah on a water tower brings beauty to the bush.

Soaring 18m high, the artwork in Moura, about 180km west from Gladstone, is best captured at dusk according to the Brisbane artists, Sam and his girlfriend Xana Denruyter.

The art on the Dawson Highway behind the Rotary park has been funded by the Queensland Government's Works for Queensland program.

The Brisbane based visual artists, LEANS, watched as up to 30 drivers a day would stop to take a photo.

Using only spray paint and a couple of cans of house paint the pair painted the enormous water tower canvas in just five days, working from morning to night.

"The most surreal part was when we were painting pink galahs would actually come and perch on the boom lift and fly around us," Sam, 23 said.

"I think that's when we knew it was the best choice of painting for the community and it gave us some great real-life inspiration."

The pair have been travelling to regional towns across Queensland, including Roma and Stanthorpe to bring water tanks, like the one in Moura, to life.

"We were approached by Biloela's art gallery to do something with the tower," he said.

"My style is usually abstract but this realistic style was a perfect fit for the town.

"The hardest part was manoeuvring the boom lift around the tower.

"On a straight wall it's a lot easier."

Sam said the pair's spray paint machine didn't make it to Moura but they were lucky to hire the only one in Biloela for the job.

"I think my favourite part of the artwork is the sky. It was definitely the most technical part," he said.

"If you want to get a great shot I suggest going at sunset."

Banana Shire arts and cultural officer Shanna Muston said the artwork has strengthened the local pride.

"This project bring energy and colour to our landscapes," Ms Muston said.

"The result leaves a cultural tourism assets for our community and visitors to enjoy and brings Moura into the conversation and excitement that is happening nationally around large scale, contemporary artworks in regional areas."

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The Pulse, SA’s breaking news blog: Severe weather warning as rain and strong winds lash SA

The Pulse, SA’s breaking news blog: Severe weather warning as rain and strong winds lash SA

AFTER a day of wind and rain — and with more coming — Adelaide is the coldest city in Australia.

The severe weather warning issued by the Bureau of Meteorology for the metropolitan area has been cancelled as the heavy rainband shifts towards the state’s South-East.

Mid North districts through to the Riverland remains on high alert with the potential for damaging winds and heavy rainfall.

At 4.30pm, Adelaide’s temperature was 13.2C, and dropping, the lowest temperature of all Australia’s major cities.

Adelaide’s weather as at 4.30pm.Source:Supplied

An overnight minimum of 11 is expected.

Thursday morning’s deluge kept emergency services busy, with flash flooding inundating houses, shops and roads across Adelaide.

Houses in Glenelg North and Modbury Heights, shops at Modbury North and an office in Hillcrest flooded during the downpour.

Part of a rumpus room roof collapsed at a Rostrevor property at about 10am.

The inclement weather also forced the closure of some southbound lanes on South Rd at Bedford Park.

Between 9am and midday, 5.2mm of rain was recorded at West Terrace and 7.8mm at Kent Town.

But the greatest rainfall was measured in the higher regions, with 15.6mm recorded at Mount Lofty and 12.4mm at Mount Crawford.

It prompted SA Police to urge motorists to slow down and take extra care when driving in the Adelaide Hills because rain was reducing visibility.

The wet and windy weather comes just days after the Bureau announced SA experienced its hottest April on record.

The state averaged a daily maximum temperature of 23.01C, beating its previous record of 22.99C in 2005.

South Australia also recorded its driest April since 2005, with total rainfall 78 per cent below average.

Meanwhile, Adelaide had its second warmest April in history, with its average maximum daily temperature reaching 26.2C, slightly cooler than in 1923 when the mercury averaged 26.9C.

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Australia’s biggest river is running dry, despite plans to save it

PADDLE steamers once chugged up and down the Darling, the main tributary of the Murray river, ferrying wool from remote farms to the port of Adelaide. The Murray-Darling basin, which is larger than Ethiopia, gives life to Australia’s arid interior (see map). But these days the Darling is reduced to a putrid standstill with alarming regularity. Parts of it disappear altogether at times, a phenomenon which was almost unprecedented before this century. Robert McBride, whose parched sheep station in the state of New South Wales depends on its flow, estimates that 600km of the lower Darling will run dry this year.

This is just the kind of disaster that should have been averted after Australia launched an ambitious plan to preserve the river in 2012. The four states that depend on the Murray and its tributaries had been fighting bitterly over its contents. Since the 1970s enormous farms growing irrigated crops such as cotton and nuts had spread across the basin. When a catastrophic drought struck in the early 2000s, the mouth of the river almost ran dry. So politicians thrashed out a plan to conserve the river, while sustaining the farms and communities that depend on it.

Australia already had an elaborate system for trading water rights, allowing farmers to buy or sell entitlements according to their need in any given season. The idea of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was to reduce water consumption by at least 2,750 gigalitres a year, either by purchasing water licences from farmers who were willing to sell them or by funding projects which could deliver “equivalent” outcomes—for instance, by making irrigation systems more efficient. So far, the government has spent over A$8bn ($6bn), and in theory cut usage by two-thirds of the target. Yet, somehow, the river is still at a low ebb.

The first independent review of the plan, published last year by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, found “no evidence yet to demonstrate improvement across the basin as a whole”. Another report, by the authority which administers the scheme, concluded that irrigation in the basin’s upper reaches was still depriving those farther downstream, like Mr McBride, of water. Richard Kingsford, a scientist in Sydney, says that the plan’s targets were not ambitious enough in the first place. But it also seems that more water is being siphoned from the stricken river system than was intended.

Theoretically, water saved with taxpayers’ money should stay in the river. But not all of it does: the Wentworth Group says state governments use several tricks to “retard” that process. Victoria hoards water in dams. New South Wales has altered local water-management schemes along the Darling’s tributaries, allowing irrigators to pump out more. This means that liquid purchased by the government in Queensland is guzzled back up again when it crosses the state border, explains Jamie Pittock, a member of the group.

Illegal extraction is a second problem. Farmers are meant to use meters to monitor how much they pump. But last year, cotton irrigators in New South Wales were accused of tampering with their machinery to mask how much they were taking. Two families face charges associated with breaches of their licences. There is also concern that money which was supposed to fund projects that would conserve the Murray-Darling is being misspent, allowing irrigators who have sold water to the government to replace it with flows to which they are not entitled. One big cotton farm is currently under investigation.

Wide-scale abuse has been possible because states and local governments have failed to enforce the rules. Last year, New South Wales’s top water bureaucrat was caught on tape offering to share confidential information with irrigation lobbyists. (He was referred to the state corruption watchdog.) From the shelter of his veranda, Mr McBride fumes that “the greatest man-made destruction in Australian history is being condoned by New South Wales and the federal government.”

The federal government has handed oversight of the plan to the farm-friendly National Party, the junior partner in the governing coalition. Since then, critics claim, regulatory oversight has slackened. The Environmental Defenders Office NSW, a pressure group, notes that there is no legal bar to stacking the board of the authority in charge of the plan. Four of its six members have links to the irrigation industry.

Parliament recently ordered the publication of details of a series of “buy-backs” of water rights. In one case, the government spent A$78m—almost twice the sum recommended by its own researchers—on a water licence belonging to an agricultural company, Webster. The purchase was not put to a public tender. Webster had taken over Tandou Limited, which owns the property in question, only 18 months earlier. Nick Xenophon, an independent senator at the time, complained that the plan was being “systematically undermined”.

This month the Senate approved an amendment to the plan which lets communities in the southern part of the basin consume more water. The extra consumption is supposed to be offset by 37 “efficiency-saving” projects. New South Wales had threatened to abandon the plan altogether if the amendment failed. But the Wentworth Group questions whether the projects will really deliver the promised savings; it believes that only one of them is watertight, as it were.

Communities which rely on irrigation detest the plan because it threatens their livelihood. Yet their thirst hurts farmers downstream. Indigenous tribes who imbue the river with spiritual significance say that their elders are dying with it. Scientists worry about the loss of fish and birds. The Coorong, an important wetland near the river’s mouth, has been polluted with salt and algae as the river’s flow diminishes. David Paton, an ecologist, has spent decades monitoring its fairy terns. Their numbers are a quarter of what they were in the 1980s. “We’ve pushed this system to the point of collapse,” he laments, “and we’re watching the species go to extinction.”

Hope comes in the form of greater accountability. Overwhelming evidence of theft and mismanagement has led to more prosecutions. New South Wales has established a new regulator, and South Australia has launched a royal commission to look into breaches of the plan. If state governments walk away, the national government could, by law, enforce the rules instead—if it were so inclined.




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Water bills for average WA household should be lower, WA watchdog says

Western Australia's three State Government-owned water utilities are charging more for water than it costs them to provide, a report has found — and it has recommended changes that could save the average household $400 a year.
An Economic Regulation Authority (ERA) inquiry has found the Water Corporation, Aqwest and Busselton Water were all recovering significantly more revenue than they were spending on supplying water services, including wastewater and drainage.

The ERA said as a result, the State Government was set to receive $338.4 million more in revenue from Perth customers alone.

The watchdog has recommended changes to the way bills are structured.

Under the changes, the fixed service charge would be cut and, in turn, the per unit price for water would increase to $2.41 per kilolitre, in an attempt to encourage smarter use.

But it would also mean households that use a lot of water would face higher bills.

Give people incentive to save water: scientist

Environmental scientist and gardening presenter Josh Byrne has long been arguing for such a change.

He and his family live in one of Perth's most water-wise homes.

They have a rainwater tank, collect greywater to use on their garden and share a bore with another house on their block.

As a result, they use about 90 per cent less mains water than the average WA household and, for most of the year, they only pay the service fee on their water bill.

Dr Byrne said if West Australians were charged more based on consumption, it would drive residents to use water more responsibly and would also serve as an incentive for people to invest in water-saving technology in their homes.

"I think what we need to look at is how else can we value the role of these technologies," he said.

"There's probably an argument to rethink the service charge component of bills for those people that are taking the strain off the infrastructure."

But UWA water expert Anas Ghadouani was not convinced that was the best approach.

"People have tried it in other places with fairly mixed reviews," he said.

"Maybe it will even send the wrong message — 'if you can pay it, you can use it' — which is not necessarily what we want."

In July, the Government increased water services charges by 6 per cent, with a further 6 per cent increase to be imposed in 2018-19 and increases of 2.5 per cent each year thereafter.

Treasurer Ben Wyatt said more work needed to be done before any changes to tariffs could be made.

"The Government would, for example, be keen to see the distributional consequences of any proposals," Mr Wyatt said.

"The ERA's recommendations will be considered as part of the 2018-19 budget process."

Earlier this year, a Monash University study concluded that Perth residents used twice as much water per capita as those in Melbourne and Brisbane — but the Water Corporation disputed some of the findings.

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Prediction Melbourne could begin to run short of water by 2028

Melbourne could begin to experience chronic water shortages within about a decade, even if the desalination plant is cranked up to its full capacity, as climate change and population growth rapidly deplete the city's dams.

Demand for water could begin to exceed supply by 2028, triggering tough water restrictions and a costly 25 per cent boost to the capacity of the desalination plant, under a worst-case scenario modelled by Melbourne's water corporations.

This scenario suggests the city must take major steps in the next few years to guard Melbourne's water storages from reaching dangerously low levels that could put it on a permanent drought footing.

Demand for water in and around Melbourne could grow by about 75 per cent in the next 40 years, while flows into the state's catchments could decrease by more than 40 per cent, according to projections published this month by City West Water, Yarra Valley Water and South East Water.

According to the three state-owned corporations' 50-year urban water strategies, Melbourne's water supply is secure for another 10 to 15 years, "even under high climate change and high population growth scenarios", largely because of the desalination plant.

Beyond that date, supply becomes uncertain.

Environment Victoria's acting chief executive, Nicholas Aberle​, said the $6 billion desalination plant had given Melbourne a 10-year buffer to get its water supply under control.

"The risk is that we don't take this warning seriously until it's too late," Mr Aberle said. "We need to use that 10 years really wisely and to get serious about harvesting stormwater and re-using water for all sorts of purposes."

Evidence suggests, however, that many Melburnians have begun to forget the lessons learned during the severe millennium drought of 1997 to 2009.

Average residential water consumption rose to 166 litres a person a day in 2015-16, the highest level seen since the drought ended, figures from Melbourne Water show. It dipped slightly to 162 litres a day in 2016-17.

Melbourne Water spokesman Joseph Keller said Melburnians were "encouraged to limit their consumption to 155 litres per person per day", in line with the government's Target 155 campaign.

This year has been dry with below-average rainfall in five of the first six months.


Melbourne's dams were 72 per cent full at the start of summer last year and are 62 per cent full now.

The millennium drought depleted Melbourne's water storages to 25 per cent, the lowest seen since the 1970s, before the vast Thomson dam was commissioned.

The water strategies predict that droughts like it may occur more frequently as the climate changes.

The potential shortage by 2028 is one of three possible scenarios modelled by Melbourne's water corporations.

If population growth and climate change occur more incrementally, it's predicted demand for water will exceed supply by about 2043.


If Victoria avoids the impacts of climate change, and water consumption does not rise significantly, the city's supply will be secure for at least another 50 years.

The strategies, which are based on guidelines for climate change adaptation set by the Andrews government, effectively rule out building another dam in Victoria, because it would exact too great a toll on the environment.

"The removal of water from rivers, and the construction of any associated infrastructure such as weirs or dams, can have significant environmental and social impacts," the strategies state.

"For these reasons, it is difficult to justify further investment in infrastructure to harvest more water from rivers."

Coalition water spokesman Peter Walsh criticised the advice against ever building another dam, arguing it could limit the ability to store water during future wet periods.


"If you look at climate scenarios in future projections, it's likely that there will be more extreme events, wet and dry," Mr Walsh said. "So we should be storing water for the dry times. You never say never."

What is recommended is boosting the $6 billion desalination plant, already one of the world's largest, from 1500 billion litres a year to 2000 billion litres, even though this would bring an increase in household water bills.

Water bills rose $12 last year because of the first order of 50 billion litres from the Wonthaggi plant.

One way the water corporations have already begun to boost water security is by recycling sewage into non-drinking water.

At the Western Treatment Plant on Melbourne's south-western periphery, City West Water's West Wyndham recycled water project has begun to provide recycled water to new outer suburban housing estates.

A 20-megalitre tank feeds water to about 5000 homes in and around Werribee, via purple pipes that signify it is not for drinking.

The water is a "shandy" of 50 per cent recycled water and 50 per cent drinking water. A salt-reduction plant is being built so the tank can provide 100 per cent recycled water.

It will eventually service about 40,000 properties in Wyndham, one of Australia's fastest-growing municipalities.

The $205 million project will save Melbourne an estimated 250 million litres of water a year, City West Water said.

"As our city experiences growth, we wanted to position ourselves as providing a modern, long-term and secure supply for our residents," the corporation's general manager of strategy and planning, Cameron FitzGerald, said.

It's a significant amount of water but it is also a relative drop in the ocean; about 0.1 per cent of Melbourne's current annual demand of 272 billion litres a year.

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Murray Darling Basin Authority powerless to act against farmers harvesting floodwaters

The Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is powerless to prevent upstream farmers harvesting overland floodwaters desperately needed to flow through the river system for the benefit of all users, the authority's head has admitted.

It comes as details emerge of massive earthworks built to enable upstream farmers to carry out "floodplain harvesting".

When torrential rains lashed Queensland in 2016, Chris Lamey wasn't surprised his Goondiwindi farm flooded.

What did surprise him was that seven weeks later, his property was still completely under water.

"When we found there was no flood downstream we got a chopper straight away and we went to the air and we tracked down to see what was wrong," Mr Lamey told 7.30.

What he found was a section of more than 52 kilometres of earthworks holding the water in place

"Massive amounts of earthworks, chronically across the floodplain," he said.

"They're just banks, north-south, across the flow of the water."

The earthworks are constructed on a large, irrigated cotton aggregate, Norman Farming, that has received tens of millions of dollars through the Commonwealth's Healthy Headwaters program to make its operation more water efficient.

Mr Lamey said the Federal Government's $1.5 billion plan to save water had backfired.

"It's a scam of massive proportions," he said.

He alleges the Queensland Government, which administers the plan, has allowed Norman Farming to use Commonwealth funds to catch and store enormous volumes of water as it flows over the floodplain.

"They're using government funds to store water on other farms that would normally not get it, and it's allowing them to take up to 25 times more water than they're offered in savings, and the taxpayer has funded it for millions of dollars," Mr Lamey said.

"No meters, no-one knows how big the dams are, no-one knows how much water is going where. They just call it leakage.

"It's a loss but it's a massive number. It's wiped out all the [water] savings in Queensland completely."

The Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines denied claim.

In response to 7.30 questions, the Department said the regulation of levees on the floodplain was the responsibility of local government.

Queensland Police investigating

Norman Farming is run by Cotton Grower of the Year John Norman.

Mr Norman declined to be interviewed by 7.30, but told the ABC the bulk of the unapproved banks and roads were in existence when he took over the properties in 2012.

He said drains allowed water to run through.

Norman Farming is seeking retrospective approval for the earthworks from Goondiwindi Shire Council.

Queensland Police's Major Crime Unit is investigating whether taxpayer dollars given to Norman Farming have been used appropriately.

The ABC understands the company has received at least $25 million for eight separate projects.

The months-long covert police operation was revealed last September when police raided Norman Farming properties as well as the properties of several contractors.

Norman Farming is now on the market, with an expected sale price of well over $100 million.

It lists impressive water resources in its marketing documents.

Bill Johnson, a former senior employee of the Murray Darling Basin Authority, said Norman Farming's extensive earthworks were typical of irrigation practices across the Queensland and northern NSW floodplains.

"In the north, most irrigation is based on those works, the big on-farm storages, the channels, the levees," he told 7.30.

"Irrigation up there is based on private works on large properties.

"The intent is to harvest as much water as possible. It's as simple as that."

Authority powerless to act

Mr Lamey first sought help about the floodplain harvesting 18 months ago.

"I contacted 74 bureaucrats," he said.

"Some I never heard back from, some people handled me, some wanted to shut me down.

"It's a huge amount of water that's being held back in Queensland.

"We want the river to flow. We want these massive volumes of water to keep flowing down the river system, to communities like Wilcannia and Bourke, to the irrigators, the cattle people, the horticulturists and the fishermen."

Last week, MDBA head Phillip Glyde travelled to Mr Lamey's farm to see first hand what was happening.

"I've learnt a lot," Mr Glyde told 7.30.

"For people like the Lameys, it's very hard to negotiate through and find what's the best way to make sure the problems they're experiencing don't occur."

Although he admitted floodplain harvesting was a serious issue, he acknowledged there was nothing the authority could do in relation to the approval and regulation of irrigation earthworks.

"There's overlapping responsibilities: local, state, different departments," he said.

"Then you've got the Commonwealth, then you've got the Murray Darling Basin Plan."

On Wednesday, the Senate decides whether to pass a proposed reduction in the amount of water Queensland irrigators give back to the ailing Murray Darling River system.

"We don't want the irrigators to be keeping even more water, we want the banks pulled down in Queensland," Mr Lamey said.

"We want the river to run like it should."

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SA Water to put floating solar panels in Happy Valley water treatment plant to bring down power bills

FLOATING solar panels will occupy the Happy Valley water treatment plant as SA Water turns to renewable energy to cut down on its considerable water bills.

Water Minister Ian Hunter said the $10.5 million investment in solar panels would keep water bills as “low and stable as possible” but said it was too early to put a figure on how much households could save.

The measures are accompanied by three privately funded renewable energy trials as part of an ambitious plan to substantially slash SA Water’s power bill, reducing its net electricity costs to zero dollars by 2020.

SA Water’s annual water bill currently costs $55 million, but it hopes the new renewable energy initiatives will allow it to pump water when electricity prices are cheap and sell power back into the grid at times of high demand, bringing the overall cost to zero.

The plan involves:

FLOATING solar panels on the Happy Valley reservoir, set to be installed by French company Akuo Energy.

TRIALLING a 128KW flywheel energy storage system, developed by SA company Greenfields Energy.

$500,000 towards a 100KW solar pv, to be paired with a 50 KWh battery storage system, to be located at SA Water’s Crystal Brook depot.

SOLAR panels ot be installed across metropolitan Adelaide facilities, at a cost of $10 million.

The State Government had already announced a $1.6 million grant for 1414 degrees Celsius to trial new silicon thermal storage technology at SA Water’s Glenelg Wastewater Plant.

SA Water chief executive Roch Cheroux said the trials would last for several months, with the total cost of the renewable energy initiatives to be determined by the success of the trial.

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