By Dr Rebecca Vonhoff | OPINION
I GREW up on a farm on the Darling Downs and in those first few years, Mum would boil a kettle and pour the water in the bathtub. In ascending order of dirtiness, I would have the first bath, then Mum, and lastly Dad.
That meagre amount of water had to do the lot of us. We were always conserving water and I’ve lived by the mantra, “You dig a well before you need it.”
In the years since, I’ve lived in Brisbane (among other places) but Toowoomba is home and it’s where we’ve decided to raise our family.
I was in Toowoomba in 2006 when a plebiscite saw a proposal to introduce recycled water rejected by our community 62-38 and have lived through more
dry years than not.
South-East Queensland is growing. The State Government recently forecast that over the next 25 years, the population will increase by 2.2 million people.
Folks are coming principally from New South Wales and Victoria (who wouldn’t?) as well as from overseas through immigration.
More people means we will need more water.
Water security has largely been an issue consigned to regional and rural Queensland. But no more.
A few weeks ago Seqwater released its 30-year roadmap for supplying water to South-East Queensland, flagging the need for “major enhancement” to existing water sources by 2035.
That “major enhancement” will likely be a multi-billion-dollar desalination plant to complement the existing Gold Coast plant.
The Water Security Program 2023 document also says recycling water for industry and agriculture using the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme is part of the solution.
Then: “The scheme will also continue to remain a drought response measure.”
Which means if water levels get low enough, recycled water will be used for drinking. What remains unclear is if there will even be a choice.
Population projections and Queensland’s current approach to water security suggest we might not end up drinking either desalinated water or
recycled water. It could be both.
The need for climate resilient water resources such as desalination and recycling is used currently to justify not building dams.
An aspect of a changing climate, though, is more intense rain events. Toowoomba Region has three dams and last year when they filled over three days of torrential rain, I lamented that if we’d had a fourth dam, it too, would have filled, giving us potentially an extra decade of water security and positioning us to ride out the weather pattern we seem to have fallen into: Flood followed by 10 years of drought. A fourth dam might also have served as an important flood mitigation measure.
Yes, dams are expensive. Yes, they take a long time to build. But should they be part of the suite of solutions to combat drought as we accommodate millions of additional people in South-East Queensland?
Yes.
Water security has been front of mind for Toowoomba Region residents for decades.
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But now water security isn’t just an issue for us – it’s an issue for everyone. The South-East Queensland water grid connects us all, making local government boundaries somewhat obsolete.
From Warwick to Toowoomba, through Brisbane, Logan, Gold Coast, Moreton, Noosa, Ipswich, Redlands and beyond; we’re all connected by pipes and pumps.
With millions of extra people needing to turn on the tap over decades and debate about desalination, recycled water and dams, water security is about to rocket up the list of priorities for people regardless of whether they live in metropolitan, region or rural Queensland.
The debate is coming to kitchen tables across the state.
**Dr Rebecca Vonhoff is Deputy Mayor of Toowoomba Regional Council where she is also Chair of the Water and Waste Portfolio.