For some reason today I was thinking about the desalination plant which is going to be built for Sydney.
The cost of the project is costing Tax Payers $2 Billion Dollars, and I thought to myself there has to be a better way two give Sydney the water that it needs.
The first thing that came to mind is the current rebate system we have in place. If you purchase a 7000+ litre water tank you will get $500 and you get the water tank plumbed to your toilets and washing machine you receive an extra $1000, so a total of up to$1,500.
I thought if the government covered the total cost to have a Water Tank installed into every house in Sydney then we would have our own water supply we would only need water from Warragamba dam when and if our tanks dried out, and with everybody using their own water this gives Warragamba Dam plenty of time to refill so there is an ample supply of water when Sydney needs it.
But what about the cost??
There are currently 1.6 Million homes in Sydney and 17% of those homes (272,000) already have water tanks installed, so that leaves us with 1,328,000 homes without water tanks. With the current rebates $1500 it would cost the government just under 1.9 billion Dollars to install a tank into every home. Now let’s bump that rebate to $3000 which would cover the cost to purchase a 10,000 litre tank and plumbing, now we are looking at an expense of 3.9 billion dollars, that’s a difference of 1.9 Billion dollars.
So for $100,000,000 less (to construct the desalinization plant) every home could have its own endless supply of water and if we were going through dry times there would be plenty of back up water in the Dam to cover us until the rains were back.
Now let’s take into the count that the plant is going cost 73 Million dollars per year to run, this won’t be needed any more, so let’s put that 73million dollars in to schools and hospitals every year.
Also the government is spending another 7.6 million dollars to research how to halve the energy cost because desalinisation pants require a lot of power to run, so that’s a nice one off saving.
Not only is the plant going to cost us 2 Billion Dollars to construct it may also be a large increase in our water bills, this snippet is about Melbourne:
How much will bills go up? Household water bills will rise by up to 64 per cent by the middle of 2013, depending on what part of Melbourne you live in. The desalination plant is one of several factors in the price rise. Water retailers can apply to change the price during the four-year pricing term, but are expected to do so only if unforeseen circumstances arise.
Doing a little more digging and the Plant is being build by the John Holland Group. Everywhere I have read that the plant is cost 2 billion dollars to construct, i have also read that John Holland won the tender to design and construct, yet their 07-08 financial review says it’s a 1.1 billion dollar project so what is the other .9 Billion for??
There were also a number of significant milestones on the civil side of our business.
The commencement of construction work on the $1.1 billion Sydney Desalination Plant
at Kurnell has highlighted the strength of our skills in civil contracting and our ability to
lead complex joint venture projects.
Is there other cost involved that John Holland is not carrying out and someone else will be or is the government using the money something else???
Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source,
What is the point of this article??
1. To prove that our Government is run by dumb politicians who have no clue what they are doing, they just throw money at a problem without looking at all the options.
Or
2. To prove that our Government is run by corrupt politicians and we the people are dumb enough to let them get away with it. Think about it, you have a 10,000 liter water tank + filter supplying water through out your home, you would very rarely get a water bill, if you had a back up water tank even better.
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