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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-09 Daily Xml
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Wastewater Discharge

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (16:13): I seek the leave of the council to correct the record. In my last answer, I gave the council some misleading information. In my answer to the Hon. Mr Parnell I told him that the amount of nitrogen that has been reduced and discharged to the gulf from SA Water plants is 75 per cent. That is incorrect and, in fact, it is 80 per cent.

Just to give a brief background, the EPA has monitored SA Water and put in place some pretty heavy requirements to reduce the amount of nitrogen that goes into the gulf. I am advised that it was 2,776 tonnes of nitrogen per annum in 1998 that was discharged into the gulf. Through some concerted actions of SA Water—I mentioned the Virginia action, the Willunga Basin I did not mention, but I think the Hon. Mark Parnell did, the Christies Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant, the Glenelg to Adelaide Parklands pipeline and also Bolivar and NAIS.

Through the combined actions of those and other programs we have seen a reduction from 2,776 tonnes per annum of nitrogen in 1998 to 525 tonnes in 2015-16—a massive drop, according to the Hon. Mr Dawkins, of over 80 per cent. That does show the contribution and the efforts of SA Water, but I do understand that the EPA has required of SA Water to improve on that target to a target of 300 tonnes per annum for nitrogen by 2030. We have a little bit of time, but I am also advised that the EIP (the Environment Improvement Program), outlining how SA Water will approach that target, must be submitted to the EPA by July of this year.

I do want to say that the Adelaide coastal water quality improvement plan was released in July 2013 on the Environmental Protection Authority's website. The honourable member can find it there, I hope. That plan outlines the long-term strategy, consistent with community expectations, to achieve sustained water quality improvement for Adelaide's coastal waters, and create conditions and see a return of seagrass along the Adelaide coastline.

It will take time for the return of seagrass: it has been somewhat abused for the best part of over a century. I am told, anecdotally (I have not yet seen any scientific reports), that the die-off seems to have halted and in some places is making a comeback, and I look forward to seeing that report in the State of the Environment report in near times.

This plan will need to be updated. It is important to understand that it will be very challenging to get to the target—that's what targets are for. Given that SA Water has reduced the nitrogen component from 2,776 tonnes to 525 tonnes, I have every confidence that, if they apply themselves to this updated target of 300 tonnes, they can achieve it, but I have no doubt it will be expensive and that it will require significant investment and technology in changing their behaviour and practice.

The simplest way to do it would be to reuse the water for irrigation programs. I guess that is why we are concentrating on things like the Virginia pipeline. The NAIS program: my long-term hope and expectation is that we will be able to take it out to the Barossa and connect up with the BIL program in the future, but that is a long-term hope and will require further investment from the federal government as well.

I thank the council for its indulgence: I did need to correct that. Even though there is an improvement, there is a way to go, but SA Water has shown that it can achieve massive reductions in nitrogen discharge, and I think we all will encourage them to make sure that they achieve the 300-tonne limit that has been proposed by the EPA.

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