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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-02 Daily Xml
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Bordertown Water Supply

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water. Can the minister provide an update on SA Water's supply for the town of Bordertown? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: SA Water has previously advised the local community that its water supply was at capacity and any new industrial and residential development could not be supplied at this time.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:37): Thank you very much for the question. The member has had a meeting with a couple of ministers and some of the officials, as well as the people from Bordertown, and of course I have also had a meeting on site when we were down there for community cabinet at the end of last week. For the benefit of the house, the water that is supplied to Bordertown comes from an aquifer, which is largely a brackish aquifer. There is a freshwater lens that sits over the top that comes via the Tatiara Creek. When it's in overflow, it goes into Poocher Swamp, and Poocher Swamp drains into that aquifer through some gaps in the limestone that manages to recharge it.

Since about the nineties, that amount has been reducing. I think from over 20 kilometres of the lens it's now down to around nine kilometres, so there is clearly a trend where there's insufficient water coming in and/or too much coming out being used. There has been some concern from Bordertown about not only whether they can grow in the way that they are intending to, and therefore take even more water from the freshwater lens, or indeed whether the freshwater lens itself is under threat from a lack of inflow and perhaps overextraction.

SA Water has put into the RD24, the regulatory proposal for the next regulatory period, a serious groundwater monitoring process which is going to be built into planning what the trajectory of that water supply is, and therefore what options are required. Several options have been canvassed: a desalination plant so that the brackish water can be used is one; an additional pipeline is also possible from the Murray; and there is also an alternative treatment for the water that has been proposed. All of that will be considered alongside this additional groundwater monitoring. During that regulatory period, we will be in a much better position to determine the future. We have conveyed that to Bordertown. They remain, obviously, concerned about wanting to be able to grow, and I believe this will be an ongoing discussion.

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