Australia Eyes ‘On' Switch At Idle, $4B Desalination Plant

Australia, the driest inhabited continent, may boost its use of desalination as some of its states muddle through a dry spell.

A $4.1 billion desalination plant on the southeast coast has gone unused since it was built four years ago, but that policy may change, according to Bloomberg.

“The state of Victoria will decide by April whether to switch it on, sucking water from the Bass Strait through an underground tunnel into a complex of more than two dozen buildings in a seaside town south of Melbourne. At the heart of the facility is technology that can remove salt and supply as much as 150 billion liters (40 billion gallons) of water a year, or about a third of the city’s consumption,” the report said.

“A decline in Melbourne water storage to the lowest level in almost four years and a drop in rainfall have stoked expectations that the plant may not be in limbo for long,” the report continued.

Victoria’s Water Minister Lisa Neville, who will decide what to do with the plant, spoke to Bloomberg.

“Right now is probably the first time since it opened where there is a really serious decision to be made,” she said. “Unfortunately, indications are at the moment that the trends are likely to continue.”

A spokeswoman for Neville told The Age that the government “has always said that the desalination plant is our insurance policy for drought. The minister will consider the advice of the water corporations and make an announcement in coming weeks.”

If challenging conditions continue, the government may consider mandatory conservation policies.

“Another year of big storage decline could also see the city reach the point where drought response measures such as water restrictions are considered,” the report said.

Australia managed to trudge through a previous dry spell known as the Millennium Drought largely relying on low-tech methods. It focused in large part on improving the conservation behaviors of its residents, according to Take Part. When the drought ended in 2009, “residents of Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, were using half the amount of water they had when it began,” the report said.

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