How Rockhampton Regional Council could fix Mount Morgan water supply

Rockhampton Regional Council will this week discuss potential plans and how much it will cost to fix the long term water supply issues for Mount Morgan, but the government has said it won’t reimburse council for trucking water to Mount Morgan. Here’s why.

Water truck arriving at the Mount Morgan Water Treatment Plant. Picture: Contributed

After decades of talk, the cost of a pipeline from Gracemere to Mount Morgan has finally been determined - to the tune of almost $40 million.

A new report has been released by Rockhampton Regional Council which breaks down the costs and other potential options to fix Mount Morgan’s water supply issues in the long term.

The report was compiled by AECOM, a national engineering firm with an office in Rockhampton, that was awarded a tender of $691,900 by council in October to deliver the business case looking at their options for the long term solution.

On Tuesday (March 7) Rockhampton Regional Council councillors and officers will discuss and vote on progressing the business case for the Mount Morgan to Gracemere pipeline.

Council started trucking water to the Mount Morgan community in March last year after the No.7 Dam dropped to 9.9 per cent, leaving the community with only six to nine months of drinking water.

Since then 20 trucks of water a day has been carted to community, equating to 160 litres per person, per day.

So far carting water to the community has cost council about $4 million in total, with about $13,000 spent a day carting the water.

According to the council agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, the council officer’s preferred and recommended option for the long term solution is the construction of the Gracemere to Mount Morgan pipeline.

As a whole, this pipeline would cost $39,479,714 with about $22m estimated to be spent on construction alone.

“Since A03 (the Gracemere pipeline) is a potable supply, this option is a replacement supply, that is, providing volume necessary to supply the full supply the full demand for Mount Morgan under ongoing operation,” the report says.

“In this situation it is assumed that drought management policies would still apply to the network in line with those of their supply source (ie. Gracemere, Rockhampton).

“This enables No.7 Dam levels to be sustained at higher levels since it is not being used for water supply processes.”

The report also details another potential option being a raw water pipeline to the Stanwell Dam, which would cost more than $38 million, or a raw water pipeline to a SunWater system, which would cost more than $42 million.

“Option AO4A (Stanwell Dam) and AO4B (Sunwater) are considered to be supplementary supply options, where the existing supply source (No. 7 Dam) is retained within the supply scheme, and new sources provide a supplementary supply to the scheme during times when the dam is low and greater than level three restrictions are imposed,” the report says.

The report also suggests two “base case” options, one of which is to continue carting 1.2ML of water per day to enable water restrictions that are no greater than level three.

The other base case option is to simply “do nothing”.

When visiting Rockhampton in recent weeks, Treasurer Cameron Dick said the State Government had no intentions of reimbursing council for the millions spent trucking water to Mount Morgan.

Mr Dick said one of the principal responsibilities of local government was water supply.

“We did an independent review, independent of the government, so the Queensland Treasury Corporation looked at the financial position of the Rockhampton Regional Council and they made it clear they (council) had the capacity to fund this as part of their core responsibilities as local government,” he said.

The Treasurer’s announcement was further backed up by Water Minister and Gladstone MP Glenn Butcher.

In June last year, council announced it would spend $1 million on a business case for a long-term solution to the water supply issues.

The business case will analyse five possibilities for improving water infrastructure to the Central Queensland town, including the following:

• Building a new dam on Nine Mile Creek
• Increasing the capacity of Mount Morgan’s No. 7 Dam
• Increasing the capacity of the Fletcher Creek Weir
• Building a treated water pipeline from Gracemere to Mount Morgan
• Building a raw water pipeline from the Stanwell Water Supply Dam to Mount Morgan

“When it comes to long term water security, I’ve made it quite clear to the mayor that I will be more than willing to have a look at a long-term solution for this community,” Mr Butcher said.

“They’re doing a detailed business case now, and I applaud the Rockhampton Regional Council for doing that, and investing $1 million to do that report on what is a long-term solution for Mount Morgan.”

Council copped a $6.774 million funding cut per year following a reclassification by the Local Government Grants Commission, which is funded by the Federal Government but managed by the State Government.

Last month council announced the SmartHub was on the chopping block as it looked for ways to cut costs after it received the reduction in government funding.

Originally published as How Rockhampton Regional Council could fix Mount Morgan water supply