WASTE OR WATER – WATER OR WASTE

This is nothing new, Launceston has been wasting water for a very long time. However it is nonetheless disturbing for ratepayers to see water wasted, and not only that, see their rates used to exacerbate the waste – plus see their rates wasted along with it.

Trevallyn ratepayers are having the experience of watching Council spend $1.8 million on separating stormwater from their sewage. That is possibly a worthy project but in the way it has been implemented, well it turns out that it is by-and-large a wasteful exercise.

Where is the waste? Firstly, Launceston’s ratepayers should NOT be involved in this project at all because it is the responsibility of the new Ben Lomond Water Authority But it does not stop there!

Secondly, the plan was conceived without consultation with the ratepayers and the project budget seems to have been pulled out of the air – or worse still concocted on the back of an envelope. Apparently the budget is an extrapolation of $15,000 per property. But without line item budgeting how could you trust or control that figure?

Thirdly, there is no evidence that the project was researched and designed to fit either the ‘geography’ or the 'ecology'. In fact the engineering shows every sign of the project being designed for a region with a rainfall at least treble that of Launceston.

Fourthly, it is environmentally irresponsible to be piping stormwater into rivers from urban landscapes. Rather current research [1 • 2 • 3 • 4] is telling urban planners that in water sensitive design processes, stormwater should be retained in the landscape and filtered through the soil profile. Why? Mainly to water the landscape and reduce to the pollution, nutrient and contamination levels in rivers that pass through urban landscapes. So without research or consultation, Launceston, and Trevallyn residents in particular, are being delivered a lazily designed, overly expensive, wasteful and environmentally inappropriate stormwater management regime.

The icing on the cake comes with the city's General Manager, Frank Dixon, saying that "the council will be exploring opportunities to reuse rainwater." This is a hollow promise and it totally lacks credibility to say the least. Excuse the long suffering ratepayers – the city's shareholders – if they might think that in regard to this project an opportunity to do just that has already been bureaucratically squandered.

The short and long of it is that the Trevallyn Stormwater Separation Project is an exemplar of civic mismanagement and the lost opportunities such projects amplify. They say, "if you pay peanuts you buy monkeys." But, Launceston pays its bureaucratic management TOP DOLLAR!

When looking for waste in one place it very likely that when you find it, it will take you everywhere else!