The walking for water event for Sydney is currently now in progress. Each day has brought out some local interest, presenter, politician and speakers. No one has come forward to defend the long wall coal mining underneath our water catchment areas. All people that have taken part have mentioned one aspect or another of why the upland swamps and integrated ecosystems are valuable, critical source of life giving water. Sydney derives enormous benefits from having a quality natural water supply.  Their destruction will add to the costs of living in Sydney, and burden its economy.  NSW "the state of business" still needs our water systems.

The value benefits include, low cost of water treatment, filtering and delivery.  The benificieries are all businesses and residents in Sydney. Swamps are nature's "slow leak water reservoirs". Their soil and root systems hold and filter water. They are "squelchy" to walk through. The water that slowly drains from the natural swamp outlets, to form the basis of our river systems, even in long periods of lack of rainfall, is crystal clear and drinkable.  It is the sort of water that plastic water bottle sellers would like to bottle and sell at high cost under names such as "mineral springs".

The cost of providing the same water from a human made single source system is high. The Sydney Desalination plants uses the principle of reverse osmosis. It is energy intensive, and uses half a million dollars a day of operating cost, just to maintain capability when not being required for additional water supply. Electricity to power the process comes directly from the grid, which is still 85% from coal burning. Its claimed wind power carbon offsets are obtained only by first adding to the total of NSW electricity demand, even when not contributing to our water supply. This only adds to our difficulties in helping to reduce our carbon emissions that increase atmosphere greenhouse gases.

The Desal plant is an easy system solution from the point of view of a profit seeking corporation, and an easy solution for those wanting us to forget where our natural water supplies come from. It is also a legitimate single point of failure target for military or terrorist attack. Our dependence on a Desal plant for water is also a security threat issue.

Less energy intensive and better water system optimization uses were discussed at the time the Sydney Desal Plant was first proposed as a solution for relieving Sydney's water supply "base-load stress" at a time of ongoing drought. I found the following document interesting, as our current systems and attitudes to handling water are by no means optimal. It says that their are no perfect water supply options.

http://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/OzWaterpaperIMRP.pdf

Suboptimal outcomes have resulted from the traditional compartmentalisation of the three urban water streams : Water supply ; Wastewater disposal ; and storm water.  Integrated urban water management (IUWM) approaches attempt to achieve multiple system and environmental objectives by re-defining the traditional boundaries of the the urban water streams. IUWM challenges the idea that once-through systems are preferable to multiple uses of water. Human waste and stormwater are not nuisances to be disposed of, but valueable resources.

A desalination plant embodies the traditional paradigm of urban water supplies and contrasts with the emerging IUWM paradigm: it is a large centralised, once-through system, providing potentially large volumes of potable water with limited complexity.

Other water supply options such as demand management, stormwater and wastewater reuse following the central principles of IUWM are likely to achieve higher integrated system efficiencies due to their ability to achieve multiple social, economic and environmental outcomes. Benefits include avoided costs, deferred costs and reduced developer service charges, enviromental enhancement such as ecosystem protection, biodiversity, nutrient recycling and pollution minimisation. Social outcomes include flood control, community participation, affordability and recreation.

Unfortunately the NSW government failed to adopt a IUWM way of thinking, and went for the big bucks single source, once through system. One of the disadvantages of having a large scale Desal plant on standby is that it allows politicians to easily dismiss the unique ecological values of our natural water systems. My suspicion is that coal corporate lobby had a strong influence on the decision process, as having a Desal plant seemed to reduce the planned consequences of destroying wetland ecosystems with the known subsidence from long wall coal mining. 

The fact that we are undermining a renewable resource, in order to take a non-renewable reseource is strong proof our politicians have no ecological sense, and lack even basic commonsense. This is not an investment in our future. We are now mining the last of our economically available coal resources. There was no other available mining site that did less ecological harm. The coal lobby has been pressing the politicians hard, and pushing the promised bribes in its final desparate age of extinction. The age of progress from fossil fuels has ended. Coal mining is a net ecological and economic liability. It is an ongoing global disaster.

Income from coal will not long sustain our economy. Soon we will be unable to afford to mine the coal to supply affordable electricity, we will insufficient renewable energy infrastructure to supply the necessary electricity to run a Desal Plant. Our natural water system supply will be further degraded by current mining operations.  After being destroyed further, it will not sustain our large population during future times of heat and water stress. The NSW government is destroying our future ecological options. So far all claims of sensible ecologic policy from both Liberal and Labor parties are null and void, so long as coal mining continues to unsustain our future.

Coal mining can no longer be tolerated. Any politician that does not condemn this ecological atrocity for what it is, is complicit in our ecological and economic downfall.