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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-23 Daily Xml
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Adjournment Debate

WATER TECHNOLOGY

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (16:59): As members would be aware, I have a keen interest in water and water technologies. In my endeavours to source solutions and opportunities for South Australia, I came into contact with Terry Spragg, an American proponent of 'waterbag' technology and his Australian associate, Robert Tulip. I gave a speech in parliament on 5 March 2008 giving an overview of what may be possible utilising this technology and indicated how we could help to reduce our dependence on the River Murray and improve our environment.

As a result of our contact, Mr Spragg has offered South Australia the exclusive right to be the first Australian state authorised to demonstrate his waterbag technology. More significantly, he has offered us the first right of refusal to use his waterbag technology to ship water from Tasmania to South Australia before his technology is used to transport water to any other Australian state.

Recently, a significant amount of media has been discussing the possibility of bringing water from Tasmania to the mainland. On 18 July 2008 an article was printed in Adelaidenow entitled, 'Bid to pipe in Tasmanian water', followed by 'Debate flows over rivers of gold' on 19 July 2008 in Tasmania's newspaper, the Mercury.

These articles state that a MOU has been submitted by a Melbourne consortium to Hydro Tasmania, with the Tasmanian government proposing to buy water from Tasmania in order to resell it at an undisclosed rate. The consortium has offered to build and finance a pipeline from Burnie to Victoria and charge Tasmania an annual delivery fee in return for a 30-year contract.

I believe that Tasmania can better protect its interests by using waterbag technology rather than supporting an undersea fixed pipeline. Waterbag technology requires far less capital cost investment than an undersea pipeline, and the flexibility of the system allows waterbags to be taken out of service and moved to other locations within Australia or throughout the world if the water is not required.

South Australia at this time has a unique opportunity to control Spragg bag technology in Australia. Accordingly, South Australia could be in the position of offering Tasmania the flexibility of controlling shipments of water to wherever it is needed, whenever it is needed, including to other locations in Tasmania itself.

The waterbag solution has several advantages. First, the waterbags do not have to remain in one fixed position to deliver water only between two points. Secondly, it does not have to be operating at 100 per cent capacity in one location in order to pay off its fixed capital cost debt.

From one Tasmanian loading location waterbags could be used to deliver water to a variety of Australian locations simply by disconnecting the required number of waterbags at various locations along its delivery route. The bags themselves are the reservoirs, thereby preventing considerable infrastructure cost. An undersea pipeline cannot offer this physical and financial flexibility.

If South Australia could control the most economical method of transporting Tasmanian water to the mainland by working to implement waterbag technology with the Tasmanian government and Hydro Tasmania, South Australia could have some control over its water supplies.

I believe that South Australia would regret it for the rest of its history if Victoria and/or the Victorian pipeline consortium mentioned in these news stories become the first to negotiate initial rights for Tasmanian water.

South Australia will have only a subordinate right to the Melbourne consortium and Victoria's Tasmanian water interests. South Australia must begin to act for itself, and negotiate with Tasmania and Hydro Tasmania for the first rights to transport Tasmanian water to South Australia.

Spragg bag water technology is simply an economical and environmentally benign flexible fabric modular pipeline that has been developed for moving large quantities (up to one gigalitre at a time) of water through the oceans in large waterbags connected in trains, using a patented zipper connection system that floats the fresh water on the seawater pulled along by a barge to its destination.

One of the major advantages offered by the flexibility of the Spragg bag system is the ability to suit the number of bags to the amount of water required at the time that can be expanded in increments. Waterbag capital costs do not have to be incurred all at once, as is required in the development of an undersea pipeline system or a desalination plant.

Once a waterbag delivery system of five or 10 gigalitres has proven its reliability, it will be a matter of simply adding more waterbags to the train and more trains to the system in order to incrementally increase the volume of water to be delivered to where it is needed.

The Spragg bag water delivery system can be implemented to deliver 350 gigalitres per year for a capital cost of less than $1 billion—a saving of over $1 billion compared with the Melbourne consortium's $2 billion capital cost estimate and a saving of over $7 billion to $11 billion compared with the Victorian government's estimate.

South Australia has been offered what I believe is a zero risk opportunity to test waterbag technology by implementing a waterbag demonstration voyage from Tasmania to South Australia. The first Australian state to successfully demonstrate waterbag technology will control this method of transportation.

Advantages of Spragg bag water delivery are:

The Spragg bag has patented loading and off-loading systems that can unload a 4.5 million gallon waterbag in a matter of minutes.

The waterbag system could begin to deliver water by 2009, depending on the volume of water required. Volumes of water to be delivered can be increased or decreased as demand and weather dictates.

The undersea pipeline would not be able to begin to deliver water until 2010 (at the earliest).

Another advantageous way in which waterbag technology could be used to immediately help to reduce the state's dependency on the River Murray is to harness and transport the 70 gigalitres of treated effluent and 160 gigalitres of stormwater (which currently is discharged or flows into Gulf St Vincent every year) to areas where it could be used for horticulture, agriculture or beautification purposes.

Alternatively, it could be towed out to deeper, more turbulent water for dispersion. This method would be more flexible and economical that building kilometres of fixed piping systems and would help to prevent the continuing degradation of the environment off the coast of Adelaide.

The biggest challenge in maximising the use of urban stormwater is the availability of space to capture, treat and store large volumes of water. The Spragg bag system could be used to collect and transport stormwater to regional areas where it could be stored in the bags to be treated, if necessary, before being utilised.

The discharge of stormwater and recycled water over the years has resulted in an increasing loss of seagrass in the gulf. The discharge clouds the water and the nutrient contamination levels have contributed to the massive damage that has occurred. Stormwater and/or recycled water could be transported in the waterbags and pumped across sand dunes to the Coorong and Lower Lakes to help offset dropping water levels and rising salinity.

Mr Spragg is not requesting any payment from South Australia for the first right to use his technology in Australia and to control the use of a fabric water pipeline from Tasmania. He is asking for support for a demonstration of his technology and has presented South Australia with a sponsorship marketing plan that should result in zero financial risk to South Australia in order to implement his waterbag demonstration voyage plan from Tasmania to South Australia.

South Australia is in a dire water supply situation, and it is predicted by some experts that it will get even worse. I therefore ask that the government support a trial of the Spragg bag technology as possibly part of the solution to our water crisis and as a necessary step before we can begin to rehabilitate the marine environment off Adelaide.

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