Revelations of massive corruption in Melbourne’s Big Build come as no surprise to Mark Robertson, who saw it start during construction of Wonthaggi’s desalination plant. Photo: DELWP
By Mark Robertson
Last week a report by the CFMEU’s administrator revealed corruption involving unions, gangland figures and bikie gangs cost taxpayers up to $15 billion in Victoria’s Big Build.
No surprise to those of us who were here to see the scams and rorting that went on during the building of the Wonthaggi desalination plant from 2009-12. That’s where they learned how to do it.
We had the bikie gangs. We had the intimidation. We had the drug running. We had the private entrances for the drug runners at the other end of the parking lot. We had the strippers, the prostitutes, the brothels. It was like the last days of the Roman Empire.
One of the gangs was apparently so well organised that they had an office in town and they've just continued on the same thing with Melbourne’s Big Build.
Meanwhile, the police were arresting locals trying to protect our precious coast.
Meanwhile, the police were arresting locals trying to protect our precious coast.
Police remove protestors blocking access to the desal construction site.
Bass Coast endured an influx of thousands of highly paid, underworked, union-protected workers. We’d see them on their way to “work” with a can of bourbon in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. If it rained – and boy did it rain once they started building the desal! – they’d knock off, even if they were working under cover.
It was exactly the same as what's been happening in Melbourne but worse for our community because we didn't have the mass of Melbourne to soak it up. We've still got a lingering methamphetamine hangover here because of the desal.
And now here we go again. A report by Infrastructure Victoria flags recommends increasing the production capacity of the desal plant from 150 to 200 gigalitres. They estimate the cost at around $800 million, so you can bet it’ll be at least double that.
We know what happened last time and I don’t see why it would be any different this time. Hopefully it will be on a smaller scale than last time, when the town almost doubled.
There are lots of ways to source, capture, store and conserve water. Desalination is by far the most costly of them all, financially and environmentally.
Let’s look at the money first, because that’s the bit that interests most city people. Desal water is sometimes referred to as “liquid gold” because it’s so energy-intensive and expensive to produce.
It was exactly the same as what's been happening in Melbourne but worse for our community because we didn't have the mass of Melbourne to soak it up. We've still got a lingering methamphetamine hangover here because of the desal.
And now here we go again. A report by Infrastructure Victoria flags recommends increasing the production capacity of the desal plant from 150 to 200 gigalitres. They estimate the cost at around $800 million, so you can bet it’ll be at least double that.
We know what happened last time and I don’t see why it would be any different this time. Hopefully it will be on a smaller scale than last time, when the town almost doubled.
There are lots of ways to source, capture, store and conserve water. Desalination is by far the most costly of them all, financially and environmentally.
Let’s look at the money first, because that’s the bit that interests most city people. Desal water is sometimes referred to as “liquid gold” because it’s so energy-intensive and expensive to produce.
Our desal plant can provide up to one-third of Melbourne’s annual water deman d of 450GL. In six of the 14 years since the plant was commissioned in late 2012, no water has been ordered. In total it’s produced just over 500 gigalitres of water, an average of 35 gigalitres a year, or 8 per cent of total supply.
Over that time Melbourne Water has paid AquaSure a fixed charge of $600-650 million a year as a water security payment, a total of more than $8 billion. It also pays a water charge for orders on top of that though we haven’t been able to find out the charge for that.
It takes around one third of Melbourne Water’s annual budget of almost $2 billion for 8 per cent of its supply. And it’s households that are paying – an estimated $500 per household per year.
Over the 27-year contract period, AquaSure will be paid close to $25 billion.
And yes, we’re paying for the beast too, although not as much as Melbourne households. South Gippsland Water and Westernport Water customers are slugged around $80 a year to pay AquaSure, a multinational company owned by foreign banks.
Have I mentioned that AquaSure doesn’t pay rates? Every other private business on private land pays rates, but AquaSure negotiated a sweetheart deal with the Labor State Government. That deal is costing Bass Coast ratepayers over $10 million a year. $140 million so far and counting.
Imagine what we could have done with that money! Develop the old high school site, build a new library, fix the roads, lower our rates ...
That’s the money side of it but it’s the environmental side of things that worries me most.
I go fishing in our local waters. You see things differently out there. Strands of kelp – golden brown tendrils with bulbous flotation bladders. Tiny squid, using the kelp as cover from predators while they feed on planktonic life. So easy to dismiss as “a lump of seaweed” yet utterly fascinating if you take the time to observe.
The desalination industry has another term to describe this rich ecosystem. They call it “filter cake”. As sea water is sucked into the plant, it’s filtered through fine mesh screens to remove “impurities” from the water. This waste product is collected and dumped into landfill.
Each day the desal plant operates, it produces about 40 tonnes of filter-cake “waste”, equivalent to the mass of an adult humpback whale. This is AquaSure’s dirty secret. Over one year of operation, it equates to almost 15,000 tonnes of plankton, marine algaes and myriad other life forms being removed from our marine food chain and dumped in landfill at the Lyndhurst tip near Cranbourne, conveniently owned by Suez, which owns a share of AquaSure.
To visualise this, imagine a pile of about 400 dead humpback whales rotting away – that’s the amount of biomass being killed each year so Melbourne can flush high grade drinking water down their toilets.
That’s 25 per cent more marine life sucked in and dumped, 25 per cent more chemicals, 25 per cent more electricity. Will there be new environmental studies into the impact? Plus there’s talk of another desal plant to be built west of Melbourne, somewhere near Torquay.
And there’s the rub. We’re going to need more water because the population’s growing and it’s getting drier, but we've just got to get smart about it.
So what’s the solution? We’ve got to think about valuing the water properly, and recycling and storm water capture. Controlling the runoff from the big factories on the outskirts of Melbourne that goes straight into the storm water drains and straight into the bay.
All that good water going to waste, and all the pollution going into the bay.
Have you checked your water bill lately? My last bill showed I used $17 worth of water. What's the point in saving water if the water costs practically nothing? Dropping the service fees and raising the price of water would teach us to value it properly.
You've got to educate people not to waste it. During the Millennium drought, the State Government had a target of 155 litres of water per person per day. Average usage is currently 169. It shouldn't be too hard for people to drop their water usage by 20 per cent.
That costs nothing. Back in the day, people were fairly well educated, putting their bucket in the shower to collect water for the garden. All the little kids knew the mantra: “If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.”
As the climate continues to befuddle and concern our community, the water story becomes more important. The solutions should be smart, environmentally sustainable and value for money, not an excuse to line the pockets of bloated executives.
Mark Robertson is president of Watershed Victoria, a Bass Coast community group that campaigned against the original desalination plant.
Over that time Melbourne Water has paid AquaSure a fixed charge of $600-650 million a year as a water security payment, a total of more than $8 billion. It also pays a water charge for orders on top of that though we haven’t been able to find out the charge for that.
It takes around one third of Melbourne Water’s annual budget of almost $2 billion for 8 per cent of its supply. And it’s households that are paying – an estimated $500 per household per year.
Over the 27-year contract period, AquaSure will be paid close to $25 billion.
And yes, we’re paying for the beast too, although not as much as Melbourne households. South Gippsland Water and Westernport Water customers are slugged around $80 a year to pay AquaSure, a multinational company owned by foreign banks.
Have I mentioned that AquaSure doesn’t pay rates? Every other private business on private land pays rates, but AquaSure negotiated a sweetheart deal with the Labor State Government. That deal is costing Bass Coast ratepayers over $10 million a year. $140 million so far and counting.
Imagine what we could have done with that money! Develop the old high school site, build a new library, fix the roads, lower our rates ...
That’s the money side of it but it’s the environmental side of things that worries me most.
I go fishing in our local waters. You see things differently out there. Strands of kelp – golden brown tendrils with bulbous flotation bladders. Tiny squid, using the kelp as cover from predators while they feed on planktonic life. So easy to dismiss as “a lump of seaweed” yet utterly fascinating if you take the time to observe.
The desalination industry has another term to describe this rich ecosystem. They call it “filter cake”. As sea water is sucked into the plant, it’s filtered through fine mesh screens to remove “impurities” from the water. This waste product is collected and dumped into landfill.
Each day the desal plant operates, it produces about 40 tonnes of filter-cake “waste”, equivalent to the mass of an adult humpback whale. This is AquaSure’s dirty secret. Over one year of operation, it equates to almost 15,000 tonnes of plankton, marine algaes and myriad other life forms being removed from our marine food chain and dumped in landfill at the Lyndhurst tip near Cranbourne, conveniently owned by Suez, which owns a share of AquaSure.
To visualise this, imagine a pile of about 400 dead humpback whales rotting away – that’s the amount of biomass being killed each year so Melbourne can flush high grade drinking water down their toilets.
That’s 25 per cent more marine life sucked in and dumped, 25 per cent more chemicals, 25 per cent more electricity. Will there be new environmental studies into the impact? Plus there’s talk of another desal plant to be built west of Melbourne, somewhere near Torquay.
And there’s the rub. We’re going to need more water because the population’s growing and it’s getting drier, but we've just got to get smart about it.
So what’s the solution? We’ve got to think about valuing the water properly, and recycling and storm water capture. Controlling the runoff from the big factories on the outskirts of Melbourne that goes straight into the storm water drains and straight into the bay.
All that good water going to waste, and all the pollution going into the bay.
Have you checked your water bill lately? My last bill showed I used $17 worth of water. What's the point in saving water if the water costs practically nothing? Dropping the service fees and raising the price of water would teach us to value it properly.
You've got to educate people not to waste it. During the Millennium drought, the State Government had a target of 155 litres of water per person per day. Average usage is currently 169. It shouldn't be too hard for people to drop their water usage by 20 per cent.
That costs nothing. Back in the day, people were fairly well educated, putting their bucket in the shower to collect water for the garden. All the little kids knew the mantra: “If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.”
As the climate continues to befuddle and concern our community, the water story becomes more important. The solutions should be smart, environmentally sustainable and value for money, not an excuse to line the pockets of bloated executives.
Mark Robertson is president of Watershed Victoria, a Bass Coast community group that campaigned against the original desalination plant.