Save water or face enforced restrictions: Seqwater

Households are being urged to dramatically cut water usage or face enforced restrictions as dam levels continue to fall

Baroon Pocket Dam at 45 per cent last year and full now.

TOTAL water supply across the Seqwater grid has dropped to 55.9 per cent, just above the 50 per cent level that triggered enforced water restrictions.

A Seqwater spokesman said consumption hadn’t come down during the past month with daily usage averaging 204 litres per person, well up on the 186 litres for the same period last year.

Households were being urged to cut consumption back to 150 litres per person a day.

“If people could save water now it would forestall the introduction of enforced restrictions,” the spokesman said.

Baroon Pocket Dam has dropped below 80 per cent to 79 per cent with Borumba (66.5 per cent), Cooloolabin (70.3 per cent), Ewen Maddock (72.4 per cent), Lake Macdonald (75.4 per cent) and Wappa (91.8 per cent).

The spokesman said southeast Queensland would need to experience another failed wet season for the combined dam levels to reach 50 per cent.

However, heavy usage contributed to levels dropping 2.5 per cent in December.

Seqwater chief executive officer Neil Brennan said the start of a new year was a timely reminder to renew efforts to save water in and around the home.

“We have certainly seen a very dry December resulting in record high temperatures together with water use above 200 litres per person per day,’’ he said.

“We are calling on all southeast Queenslanders to reduce their water use to 150 litres per person per day and help preserve our dam levels for as long as we can.”

Consumption during the past decade has averaged 170 litres per person per day, compared to 300 litres per person before the Millennium Drought.

Water efficiency in the home and garden during that drought had seen usage plummet to 120 litres a day.

“We need southeast Queenslanders to be water wise again,” Mr Brennan said.

Seqwater and the region’s water service providers launched the first stage of the SEQ drought response plan in November 2019 with a region-wide water saving campaign.

Seqwater also increased production at the Gold Coast Desalination Plant.

Mr Brennan said the SEQ water saving campaign would continue across a range of channels during January to prompt simple changes indoors and outdoors to make every drop count.