Melbourne Water

Melbourne Water is an Australian statutory authority owned by the Victorian government, which controls and manages much of the water bodies and supplies in metropolitan Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. Its jurisdiction includes all the reservoirs, lakes, wetlands, canals and urban creeks, and the sewerage and drainage systems that services the city.

Melbourne Water was formed by the merger of Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works and a number of smaller urban water authorities in 1992. Melbourne Water primarily operates under the Water Industry Act 1994 and the Water Act 1989.

Overview Melbourne Water is wholly owned by the Victorian government. It manages Melbourne's water supply catchments, sewage, rivers and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region. Governance of Melbourne Water is by an independent board of directors in conjunction with the Minister for Water.

Melbourne Water supplies water to the metropolitan retail water businesses; namely, Greater Western Water, South East Water and Yarra Valley Water, other water authorities, local councils and the land development industry. The Victorian Water Industry Association (VicWater) is the peak industry association for water companies in Victoria.

In 1994, Melbourne Parks and Waterways was separated from Melbourne Water, and became part of Parks Victoria in 1996.

Victorian Desalination Plant The Victorian Desalination Plant is an 3.1 billion desalination plant that was built in the Wonthaggi region of the Bass Coast. The plant can provide an additional of water each year. The base fee payable to the owner of the plant, even if no water is ordered, is $608 million a year, or $1.8 million per day, for 27 years, being between $18- and $19 billion in total. On 1 April each year, the Minister for Water places an order for the following financial year, up to a year, at an additional cost to Melbourne Water and consumers.

Northern Sewerage Project Northern Sewerage Project is a major infrastructure project to increase the capacity of the sewerage system in Melbourne's growing northern suburbs. It will also help protect the Merri and Moonee Ponds Creeks by virtually eliminating sewage overflows that can occur after heavy rain.

Water restrictions

Melbourne Water has a system of restrictions to manage water supplies into the future. It reports on storage levels on Thursday each week while an interactive graph compares actual use. Further reviews of restrictions were needed to counter an ongoing drought, poor rainfall, record low storage levels and rising water use compared with past years.

Infrastructure The water supply system operated and managed by Melbourne Water comprises:

catchments covering more than ten major storage reservoirs with a capacity of 64 service reservoirs that provide short-term storage. about of distribution mains and aqueducts 18 water pumping stations, used to pump water from low-lying areas to higher areas five water filtration plants 49 water treatment (disinfection) plants

Water storages

Melbourne Water manages the ten Melbourne reservoirs. The total storage capacity is .

+ Melbourne reservoirs Reservoir Capacity Year completed Location ML acre ft Cardinia 1973 Greenvale 1971 Maroondah 1927 O'Shannassy 1928 Silvan 1932 Sugarloaf 1981 Tarago 1969 Thomson 1983 Upper Yarra 1957 Yan Yean 1857

Water supply catchments Around 80% of Melbourne's water is sourced from uninhabited forests in the Yarra Ranges and Central Highlands. In excess of is reserved for water catchment. These forests primarily consist of mountain ash. Catchment areas have been closed to the public for over 100 years .

+ Major catchments Catchment Area Inflow (%) Comments ha acre Maroondah 10.8within the Yarra Ranges National Park O'Shannassy 11.4within the Yarra Ranges National Park Sugarloaf 10.7water is pumped from the Yarra River and fully treated Thomson 35.3 mainly State Forest and a small section within Baw Baw National Park Upper Yarra 18.7within the Yarra Ranges National Park Wallaby 1.9within the Kinglake National Park Yarra tributaries 3.8Armstrong, Cement, McMahons and Starvation Creeks (State Forest) Total 92.6

In addition to the reservoirs in the table above, water is harvested via a number of diversion weirs:

Clearfell logging is permitted in the Yarra Tributaries and Thomson catchment areas. Some studies claims this reduces Melbourne's water supply arguing that young regrowth forest uses more water than existing forests.Part 1a Part 1b Some environmental groups claim that up to of water could be saved per annum by phasing out logging. This represents 6% of Melbourne's annual usage.

Melbourne Water

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