Victoria’s Wimmera-Mallee pipe­line’s new five-year water plan; Grampians Water revised cost means water price increase of 17.1 per cent for taxpayers and water users

The cost of the Wimmera-Mallee pipe­line had blown out by more than a third to at least $688 million, reported The Age (16/8/2007, p. 6).

Goldfields Pipeline helpful, but fast-growing towns need underground aquifers for water solution, says Steve Gibbons, Member for Bendigo, Victorian

Despite some good recent rains water reserves remained far below normal capacity, with the reservoirs in the Coliban system currently about 15 per cent full and Bendigo’s other main source of supply, Lake Eppalock, at under five per cent of capacity, said Labor MP Steve Gibbons in the Federal Parliament on 14 August 2007.

Bendigo had no natural waterway sufficient to sustain a city of 100,000 people

In his electorate of Bendigo there was no natural waterway sufficient to sustain a city of 100,000 people, said Labor MP Steve Gibbons in the Federal Parliament on 14 August 2007.

Victoria’s desal a public-private partnership; five firms line-up for $1.6b bonanza of guaranteed cash-flow

According to Duncan Hughes, at least half of Victoria’s $3.1 billion desalination plant, the country’s largest, would be delivered as a public-private partnership, Victorian Premier John Brumby said on 19 September, reported The Australian Financial Review (20/9/2007, p.3).

17 September: disaster-fears as Melbourne’s water storages 38.9 per cent of capacity, 8 percentage points below the 46.6 per cent level of September 2006

Melbourne’s water storages were at 38.9 per cent of capacity nearly 8 percentage points below the 46.6 per cent level of September 2006. Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu seized on the figures, warn­ing that Melburnians should not think the worst was behind them. One option to can­cel 20 billion litres of environ­ment flows for the Thomson and Yarra rivers. This represents three or four weeks of average consumption for the city of Melbourne.