AGL has announced that two megalitres of water will be made available from a desalination plant in Gloucester.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Last month the company announced that it would invest in a desalination plant to remove salt from water released during coal seam gas production.
AGL’s manager of hydrogeology, John Ross, said the desalinated water would have low levels of salt, similar to drinking water.
“Over the last few months it has been extremely dry in Gloucester and the surrounding areas and an additional freshwater resource would come in very handy if similar conditions arise in the future,” Mr Ross said.
“There are a variety of uses that this freshwater could be applied to. Irrigation is an obvious one, but also new business enterprises that could benefit the area like forestry or even aquaculture.”
Groundswell Gloucester said a desalination plant was an improvement on previous proposals.
“The desalination plant’s a vast improvement on the irrigation plan,” Groundswell Gloucester member, Ed Robinson said.
“It should have always been there. There are still a lot of unanswered questions with the process.
“I don’t know that is going to be a long-term solution.”
AGL is holding two community information sessions this week.
“One of the questions the community has asked is: what happens to excess water in times of heavy rainfall?” Mr Ross said. “As part of the draft strategy we propose to store as much desalinated water as possible and only release this freshwater into the Avon River after heavy rainfall events.”
The company said it had publicly released the first baseline water report on the monitoring bore network at the Waukivory Pilot site.
Following consultation with the community and regulators a final report would be compiled and sent to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment for approval.
Submissions close on September 15.