Published on IDRA Global Connections Fall 2020 Issue

By Mr. Roch Cheroux

Sydney is a city of waterways – our iconic harbour, rivers and famous beaches shape our identity and lifestyle. Sydney is also the economic, cultural and employment heart of NSW, and arguably Australia – it is also the largest city in the world’s driest continent. Managing water well to maintain and enhance liveability and lifestyle in these conditions is not a new prospect – as Australia’s largest water utility, Sydney Water has been doing this for 130 years, contributing to a legacy that dates back 60,000 years through the traditions and practices of our First People who have successfully managed and sustained our lands and waterways.

What is new, is a rapidly growing population, sprawling urban footprint and changing climate with more frequent, extreme weather events.

About 80 per cent of our water supply comes from Warragamba Dam with the remainder supplied from smaller dams, rivers and when necessary a desalination plant. We recycled about 10 per cent of treated wastewater for use in irrigation, industry and in some areas, nonpotable use around the home.

Until February 2020, Sydney was experiencing its’ worst drought on record. Despite our vast storages, dam levels were dropping at the fastest rate ever, and were reduced to 38.8 per cent at the peak of the drought. The February rains provided a reprieve and brought storage levels back to almost 95 per cent. The New South Wales Government is investigating opportunities to diversify water supply to improve resilience.

The pressures of population growth and our community’s expectations of clean, healthy waterways means that Sydney Water will need to make significant investments in both our water and wastewater infrastructure in coming years. The timing of these upgrades presents a unique opportunity for expanding the use of recycled water within our city.

With the recent drought still very much in Sydneysiders’ minds and the need for infrastructure augmentation to meet growth demands, Sydney Water has embraced the opportunity to begin a conversation with our community and customers about resilience and the role of water in delivering a cool, green liveable city.

Purified recycled water is a sustainable, affordable and safe water supply to 35 cities around the world, including Perth in Western Australia. Long before the last drought broke, Sydney Water began considering all water options for Greater Sydney. In collaboration with the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and independent experts, we began exploring the lessons learnt from these other cities, to understand the critical success factors. Close collaboration between water utilities, government, regulators and stakeholders is critical to implementation of these schemes – but perhaps more importantly it requires the community to be engaged and educated before they can make informed decisions about what they expect from their water utilities.

All water on earth is used and reused in an endless water cycle. Anyone living in a community that is downstream of another community, relies on recycled water, however, modern conveniences have led us to treat water as a single-use product. Changing this perception is vital if we are to fully optimise the water cycle and build thriving, sustainable cities.

In 2019, WSAA asked nearly 10,000 Australians if they were interested in hearing more about how the water industry can purify water from various sources to drinking water quality or better, and 68 per cent of Sydneysiders surveyed responded positively.

In the past 12 months, Sydney Water consulted with more than 2500 customers about the urban water cycle and outlined the local challenges and opportunities for water supply and management across Sydney. After this engagement, 76 per cent of participants were strongly in favour of, or open to, the idea of using purified recycled water as a water source for the city. This was a significant increase from our community baseline of 38 per cent and demonstrates the immense power of education in driving change.

Our community expects us to consider all options as we plan for Sydney’s future water needs. Sydney Water is exploring opportunities to incorporate an education centre in one of its advanced water recycling plants to enable the community to engage, educate and explore thriving, sustainable and resilient cities. By demonstrating the performance and reliability of existing treatment technologies, we hope to build on the trust already established and develop greater understanding and acceptance within our community – seeing is believing.

As part of a range of other supply opportunities, purified recycled water can play a major role in building a resilient, sustainable and affordable future. We have the tools at our disposal to create some of the purest water on the planet – but we need to work with our community to decide how we use it.