Eurobodalla Integrated Water Cycle Management Strategy

13 Overview
Eurobodalla Integrated Water Cycle Management Strategy
This section is concerned with answering the final of the three fundamental questions in the
IWCM process, ‘how do we know the issue is fixed?’.
An answer to this question is timeframe dependent. This strategy provides IWCM options
for addressing both the immediate and the long term water resource issues in Eurobodalla
at the regional, local and Shire wide level. It is important that the timeframe reflect both the
short term and long term vision of the Shire. In order to evaluate whether the issues specific
to Eurobodalla have been addressed and whether the resource use is optimised based on
social, economic and environmental objectives, it is important to appreciate the study
outcomes. This we believe would give the water utilities a baseline to benchmark future
reviews and to assist in the journey towards achieving sustainable IWCM. It is envisaged
that follow-up assessment and review of this strategy will be undertaken at regular intervals
of around 5 years.
13.1 Study Outcomes
The Eurobodalla’s IWCM strategy has looked at all water resources in the Shire. The IWCM
approach has delivered significant benefits to the community, ESC, the State government
and the environmental as demonstrated in the recommended solutions developed in this
strategy. These benefits are discussed with respect to the triple bottom line outcomes.
13.1.1 Economic Outcomes
The IWCM planning process for Eurobodalla has revealed potential savings to the Shire
and the state government of about $25M in infrastructure investment costs. This has been
achieved by ‘right’ sizing and optimising the infrastructure capacity, through the use of;
Linked climate corrected demand tracking,
Demand and wastewater forecasting and water services system models,
Innovative tenement and water use category data capture systems, and
Improved process designs.
Through utilising IWCM principles, this study has shown that the northern reclaimed water
reuse scheme is viable, with potential savings of $15M in pipeline and pumping costs and a
further $6M through the use of a scheme optimisation process. Initiating the northern
reclaimed water reuse scheme will transfer what has traditionally been considered waste
into a valuable resource. This will not only result in cost savings for the Shire community,
but will assist in the development of a sustainable agricultural industry. Further, the savings
achieved from the pipeline, could potentially be used to implement the optimised southern
reclaimed water reuse scheme. The optimisation of the southern reuse scheme is expected
to result in a potential saving of $10M.
The implementation of the reuse schemes would reduce extraction volumes and may
therefore allow for water trading to occur in the future. This may place Council in a position
to purchase some or all of these unused agricultural water entitlements and increase the
town’s share of the harvestable water from the Moruya and Tuross River catchments.
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