Tod Reservoir

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (17:17): I would like to continue from where I left off just a few moments ago, when I was talking about the so-called upgrade planned by SA Water to the Tod Reservoir and the community meeting that occurred in Tumby Bay to discuss this and other community concerns that about what that might mean for the iconic Tod and ongoing water security on Eyre Peninsula.

A few dot points were raised, the first of which I have already mentioned. People were sceptical about the risk of dam failure, given that the ANCOLD agreement compels us to cater for a one in 600,000-year flood event, which is beyond anybody's capacity to imagine what that might mean. Certainly, it seems rather ludicrous in many ways to even need to consider that.

One of the other issues that was raised was that, given that salinity is a major reason for the dam being taken offline as a supply of drinking water, the community would like more research undertaken on whether salinity can be improved and, in particular, on receiving dam intake flows from the lower salinity Pillawarta Creek catchment and Tod River and diverting the higher salinity water from Toolillie Creek. There are three major creek lines associated with the Tod River catchment. It has always been about managing the saline flows in the intake of better water into the Tod Reservoir.

I remember that a lot of work was undertaken in the catchment by landowners back in the 1990s and early 2000s. It was at a time when Landcare was at its peak. I am still a little bit saddened by the demise of Landcare because it was such a good movement. For whatever reason, it lost favour, and I suspect that governments, particularly federal governments, had another model they wanted to pursue. Ultimately, what happened was that community involvement was lost, unfortunately.

There was a lot of work done in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the catchment—a lot of planting, a lot of revegetating, a lot of fencing off of the creek lines, which was really a good thing to do. It was worthwhile for landowners to undertake that, and really it was for the betterment of the catchment because it excluded stock from the creek lines so that grazing pressure was taken away, the erosion brought about by stock grazing on and within creek lines. It was an opportunity to revegetate the creek lines. Some of the trees that were planted way back then, 15 to 20 years ago, are truly majestic now and it is a pleasure to drive through that catchment.

There was a bit of a hiccup in 2005 when the Wangary fire roared through almost the entire catchment and took off a lot of the vegetative cover, but that has regrown. One thing about native vegetation is that it will shoot after a fire, so it has been a pleasure to watch that come back. Landowners once again took the opportunity to realign their fences and assess their whole farm plans. In all of that, the effort was made to improve the salinity of the creek, or lower the salinity of the catchment.

By removing stock, you also remove that inflow of nitrates which comes from stock running within a catchment. Through modern farming techniques, we have had less soil erosion. We are generally one-pass farmers these days, and that certainly has reduced the amount of time that soils are exposed to the elements, to heavy rainfall. It has also reduced the soil erosion and the run-off. All in all, the opportunity should have been there to improve the water quality, and I think that needs to be further explored and further tested.

Another concern raised was that the cost of the dam upgrade was exorbitant, given its limited proposed use for recreational purposes and limited capacity. We are talking less than 10 per cent of full dam capacity for other economic activity. There has been some talk of it being a water supply should a mining company progress in its proposal. It is debatable whether or not that demand will ever be there because we have seen a lot of mining proposals come and go. There is also quite public discussion about restocking reservoirs, or at least stocking reservoirs throughout the state, with fish for recreational fishing and possibly other uses as well, such as waterskiing or other water sports.

I have to wonder who would actually go fishing in a reservoir on Eyre Peninsula; some might, but we have to remember that just to the east we have the Groups off Tumby Bay and that just to the west we have Farm Beach, north of Coffin Bay, both of which are renowned for their whiting fishing. Further out, some magnificent deep-sea fishing is available to the residents and visitors to Eyre Peninsula. I wonder just how useful restocking this reservoir is going to be. There was also concern in relation to continued reliance on Uley South as the Eyre Peninsula's water supply, and I have addressed that many times in the past.

The extraction rates are within the water allocation plan, but the sense is that we have an ever-increasing reliance on the southern basins or Uley South. I have to say that it came as somewhat of a surprise to me, when I was first elected to this place, to discover that there have been at least two major housing developments on Eyre Peninsula, one at Point Boston and one at Ceduna Waters, where there is no reticulated water supply to the housing development. I am not sure exactly of the reason.

My understanding is that SA Water either were not able or were not prepared to put in a reticulated supply to these households. I think this is a pretty sad indictment on the state of the water resource and the capacity of the water resource on Eyre Peninsula because what we would like to see long term is further growth in population and further growth in industry. If we are already at capacity, we have concerns about whether that increased industry and population can ever be sustained. So, in all of this, the feeling was that the Tod Reservoir should be retained as a contingency water supply, given the potential for improving salinity.

Of course, there are always advances in technology. I know that a few years ago there was discussion about fitting a desalination plant at the Tod Reservoir and putting the water through a desal plant. That was deemed to be cost prohibitive but of course, with all these things, technology is advancing. My thoughts are that it does not have to be SA Water necessarily. There are companies throughout Australia and around the world who specialise in this sort of thing, and I am sure at some point there will be the available technology to filter and return this water to a potable supply if required.

Finally, the Tod River catchment could potentially be impacted by mining in the Koppio Hills. This is a vexed issue because I know in recent times there has been a significant amount of exploration through the Koppio Hills which was allowed for by the state government. Tenements were let but there was much concern locally about what impact the drilling might have on water tables throughout the Koppio Hills.

Of course, wherever you drill in a high rainfall area, you are going to strike groundwater at some point. Through the hills some of the groundwater is good quality water, some is not, some is quite saline. There was genuine concern. I do not know that those concerns have been adequately addressed as yet by the department of mines and energy.

Be that as it may, the drilling occurred, and there have been a number of mine proposals in relation to Koppio Hills, the first one regarding iron ore and more recently a graphite proposal. Certainly the iron ore proposal seems to have disappeared into the ether. The graphite proposal has a much smaller footprint, not much more than a localised quarry which is my understanding of it, but it is all going to have an impact, and of course there will be a demand for water.

I guess that is the crux of the issue: there will be an ongoing demand for good quality water on Eyre Peninsula, and we need the opportunity to provide that for an increased population and increased industrial activity.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Regrettably, if there is another chapter we are going have to wait.

Mr TRELOAR: Another day.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Another day.

Mr TRELOAR: Well, there is another chapter.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Okay. Well, we are on stand-by.

At 17:27 the house adjourned until Thursday 4 August 2016 at 10:30.