John Whitehead, Tokai
Your lead article (“City grilled on water,” Bulletin May 18) refers. I attended the meeting and was surprised at the lack of meaningful content provided by the City.
Most bracing was the absence of any real information on what are fairly routine points: the status of projects to source alternative sources of supply (desalination/groundwater); the anticipated yield from said projects versus the anticipated demand/usage; and what the roll-out plans of providing essential water in a worst-case scenario are? How would the old, infirm, and indigent receive water supplies?
Moving beyond the above alternative supply questions, I would have expected answers or comments on: what rainfall weather forecasters are predicting in both short and medium terms; what possible negative effects could the commercial-level extracting from the aquifer result in?
The City is planning further increases in water tariffs without providing any evidence that this will curb usage and not merely be a response to declining revenue.
I don’t know whether the sparse detail provided does reflect the City’s lack of planning on this situation (which the premier has now classified an emergency) but a lack of facts, honesty, openness and urgency is doing nothing to allay the common and genuine concerns of citizens.
