Victorians are being warned that water costs will rise in future due to a failure to use more rainwater and stormwater to ease the pressure on Melbourne's overburdened mains supplies.
Almost 10 years after the end of the Millennium drought – viewed by experts as Victoria’s worst drought since European settlement – the state is still lagging in its embrace of alternative water supplies that would reduce the need to draw on dams and the desalination plant.
Even simple innovations such as promoting water tanks for new housing have been missed.
“Less than 30 per cent of new homes in Victoria currently choose a rainwater tank compared to NSW where over 90 per cent of new homes, outside of recycled water schemes, install tanks,” an issues paper by Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning says... Read more >>>