Water Journal December 1981

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Official Journal of the

( f4•1-ii;M•M~l\¼ii=l;W~l•J W$iiHi=i;Mi-i•XeJY£iit•1~1 Reg;ste,ed by Auwaua Post - pubUcahon no. VBP 1394

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Vol. 8, No. 4, December 1981-$2.00

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EDITORIAL

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Chairman, C. D. Parker F. R. Bishop Mary Drikas E. A. Swinton P. McKenzie Dr. Wayne Drew C. Tucak J.E. Dymke J. H. Greer R. McGrath R. Camm D. Hammerton J. Paul R. Payne K. Hartley Editor: Publisher: G. R. Goffin A.W.W.A. BRANCH CORRESPONDENTS CANBERRA A.C.T. J. E. Dymke 4 Story St., Curtin 2605 Office 062-81-9385

NEW SOUTH WALES P. McKenzie, Prine. Eng. Water Supply, P.W.D., State Office Block, Phillip St., Sydney 2000.

02>270-4561 VICTORIA E. A. (Bob) Swinton, C.S.I.R.O., P.O. Box 310, South Melbourne 3205.

03-699-6711 QUEENSLAND K. Hartley, Gutteridge Haskin and Davey, G.P.O. Box 668, Brisbane 4001.

07-22-1795 SOUTH AUSTRALIA Mrs. M. Drikas, State Water Laboratories E. & W. S. Private Mail Bag Salisbury 5108.

08-258-1066 WESTERN AUSTRALIA C. M. Tucak , 18 Ventor Ave., W. Perth 6005 09-321 -2421 TASMANIA R. Camm, Cl- Met. Water Board, Macquarie St., Hobart.

002-30-2330 NORTHERN TERRITORY J. Paul, Water Div. Dept. of Transport & Works, P.O. Box 2520, Darwin 5794.

089 89 6077 EDITORIAL & SUBSCRIPTION CORRESPONDENCE G. R. Goffin, 7 Mossman Dr., Eaglemont 3084, 03-459-4346 ADVERTISING Mrs. L. Geal, Appita, 191 Royal Pde., Parkville 3052.

03-347-2377

WATER

Official Journal of the AUSTRALlAN WATER AND -WASTE WATER ASSOCIATION

Vol. 8, No. 4 December 1981

CONTENTS Viewpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

Association News, Views and Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6

I.A.W.P.R. News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1O

Biology, Taxonomy and Water Quality Monitoring in Australian streams - Ian C. Campbell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

Issues in Urban Water Supply An Economic Perspective - D.R. Gallagher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . .

14

Reclamation of Saline Land in the Murray Basin , - A. R. Coad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

COVER STORY Dead trees and a lifeless terrain , the tragedy of salinity. Rising water tables and salinity have lain waste tens of thousands of hectares of once valuable farming land along the banks of the River Murray.

The Murray sustains the biggest area of irrigated farmland on the continent, making a vast contribution to our national economy.

It is therefore imperative that satisfactory measures are taken to remedy the problem . " Greatly increased commitment to land care by the whole community is badly needed. Peaceful democratic political action is the most desirable method of promoting the spearhead scheme".

The paper in this issue, 'Reclamation of Saline Land in the Murray Basin', by Alan Coad postulates one such scheme.

Front cove r by co urtesy James Hardi e & Coy. Pt y. Limited

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WATER

!AUSTRALIAN WATER AND! iWASTEWA TER ASSOCIATION!

FEDERAL PRESIDENT D. J. Lane, State Water Laboratories, E. & W.S. Department, Private Mail Bag, Salisbury, 5108

FEDERAL SECRETARY F. J. Carter, Box A232 P.O. Sydney South , 2001.

FEDERAL TREASURER J . H. Greer, Cl- M.M .B.W.

625 Lt. Collins St., Melbourne, 3000.

BRANCH SECRETARIES

Canberra, A.C.T. d. E. Dymke, 4 Story St.,, Curtin, 2605.

Office 062 (81 9385)

New South Wales R. Edwards, Sinclair Knight & Partners , 2 Chandos St., St. Leonards, 2065. (439-2866)

Victoria J. Park, S.R.W.S.C. Operator Training Centre, P.O. Box 409, Werribee, 3030. (741-5844)

Queensland K. Strickland, C.I.G. Ltd. , P.O. Box 40, Rocklea 4106. 07 (277 3455)

South Australia A. Glatz, State Water Laboratories, E. & W.S. Private Mail Bag, Salisbury, 5108. (258-1066)

Western Australia R. Loo, 455 Beach Rd ., Carine. (09-447-6550)

Tasmania P. E. Spratt, Cl- Fowler, England &

Newton, 132 Davey St., Hobart, 7000. (23-7591)

Northern Territory J . Kenworthy, G.H . & D. P.O . Box 351, Darwin 5794. (089-81 -5922)

WATER

VIEWPOINT VICTORIAN PUBLIC BODIES REVIEW COMMITTEE RIGHT METHOD -

WRONG TARGET?

In March 1980 an all-party Committee was established by the Victorian Government to review the objectives, structure, efficiency and effectiveness of any public body, with power to recommend modification or cessation of the body's activities. The first reference was the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission and constituted water, sewerage, river and drainage bodies excepting the Board of Works.

The concept and development of this Committee reflects much credit on all 'involved, nevertheless I have the uneasy feeling that the Committee now tend s to reach conclusions based more on pre-conceptions than on facts placed before them during the Inquiry . In areas of technical complexity the Committee has seemed to discount evidence led by the technical people directly involved.

I question the adequacy of a single Government Inquiry to restructure the water industry unless the indu stry itself is closely involved in the actual decision -making process . It will be unfortunate for the State if this omission results in the di smembering of one of the most technically competent and committed Government water bodies in Australia, the SRWSC. How could such a situation have arisen? Will restructuring away from real local commitment towards politically "accountable" larger regional groups have real impact on the number of Quasi Autonomous Non-Government Organ isat ions in Victoria or on State finances?

Take numbers: The Committee's Fifth Report identifies the bulk of the 9000 "QANGOS" as seemingly innocuous organisations such as Kindergartens (273), Senior Citizens' Clubs (551), Municipali ties and their Committees (1011), School Counci ls (222 1) and, top of the pops, Land Reserves Committees of Management (4000) . This list also, more significantly, includes the Statutory Authorities - SECY, MMBW, CRB, Gas & Fuel Corporation etc. - consolidation or elimination of 369 voluntary Country Water Trusts and Authorities seems hardly likely to make much of a dent in numbers of such composition or abundance .

Well, what about the $5000 million current expenditure featured by our newspapers? Surely, this time these country monsters must be really chewing up the green stuff? Sorry ... wrong again. In fact expenditure on country town water supply and sewerage represents less than 2 per cent of the annual spending by the State's pub lic bodies. I'm left with the impression that the consu ltants for the Fifth Report were more upset by lack of spending by these country organisations than by their undue dominance of the " public purse".

In fact, after Government department spending, the major portion of this oft-quoted $5000 million is expenditure by the "big three", the Gas & Fuel Corporati~n, SECY and MMBW, who cover most expenses from revenue anyway. Hospitals and tertiary institutions also are in for big slices of the cake.

So why then so much endeavour concentrated on such a comparatively insignificant sector, and why has the Inquiry been able to cut such a wide swathe through the activities of such a faithful servant as State Rivers with so little public reaction? Can you imagine such a quiet dissolution of the Education system without public reaction by teacher organisations?

I have a feeling that one answer to this must lie in the traditional attitudes of the professional Engineer. The role of Engineers and Engineer-led organisations is a bit like that of the "silent service" - we provide the best possible commitment and advice to our employers (of which over half are Government or semi -government), but having done our best to persuade these employers to proper judgements of all factors, the final or political decisions are left with them. The profession has rarely tried to correct the decision-makers publicly, or worked for its own ends by public protest or "leaked" documents .

Many of the innovations now proposed by the Review Committee have been previously suggested by State Rivers over the years, but within the organisation structure, and with acceptance of Ministers' and Governments' decisions as a proper democratic conclusion.'

Perhaps this traditional role is no longer viable in today' s "open" society. Could it be that the very effectiveness of this new system of public review will hammer the final nails into the coffin of the truly apoli tical professional stan~?

I like to think that there 's room for both positions. But in order to ensure that future structural and financial reviews reach a proper technical conclusion, Parliament must be prepared to involve its "silent service" in the actual decision-making process that reaches irrevocable conclusions on the future of a technical industry and structure.

ALAN LONGSTAFF Past President - Victorian A WW A

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ASSOC/A TJON NEWS VIEWS AND COMMENTS PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Council Officers

At the meeting of Federal Council held in Sydney on 5th November 1981-, I was reelected as President of the Association for a further 12 months. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve A WWA for a further term.

Frank Bishop was also re-elected as Vice President.

Council reappointed John Carter as Secretary, Rex Dengate as Assistant Secretary and Jim Greer as Treasurer for a further year.

The Federal Council meeting was preceded by a meeting of the Federal Executive.

Revision of Rules

The Standing Committee on Administration and Policy (Tasmanian Branch) had previously reviewed the Association Rules and a draft revised version was circu lated to State Branches earlier this year. After consideration of the comments of Branches and amending the Draft as appropriate, Council has adopted an amended Draft which will be used in a Plebiscite to all members. It is expected that this will be conducted early in 1982.

Henry Mcfie and Don Walters are to be congratulated on their persistence with this important task.

reflection of the relevant activity ii) that state and it is essential that the strong link presently achieved at that level be maintained . In some states, Sustaining Members provide financial support above the minimum subscription indicating their high interest in local Association activities.

Association Patron

In the September issue I advised that the Governor-General had been invited to be our Patron. Sir Zelman has advised that he is already Patron of the Water Research Foundation and has declined our invitation.

Summer School 1984

Council has adopted a proposal by the A.C.T . Branch that a summer school be held in Canberra in February 1984.

Best wishes for a ~uccessful 1982, DOUG LANE Federal President

LIFE MEMBERSHIP AWARDS Three Members were honoured with Life Membership of the Association by decision of the Federal Council on November 5th.

EDWIN J. WALDER -

Water and Wastewater Research

The Standing Committee on Science and Technology has completed a position paper on the status of water and wastewater research in Australia. This has been accepted

by Council and will be available to members as an insert in the Journal.

In preparing this paper the Association is seeking to complement the work of other organisations concerned with water research, for example the Australian Water Resources Council. As the Australian Water Resources Council is currently undertaking a review of water research in Australi.a , this Association ¡ has written and offered to assist.

He has provided marked and valued assistance and encouragement to the Federal and Branch activities. He was a moving force in the organisation and success of the IA WPR Conference in Sydney in 1976 and is a Chairman of the Finance Commitee of the international organi ation of that body and an Australian Delegate on the Governing Board .

His involvement with A WW A and IA WPR has been direct through presentation of papers and attendance at various conferences and in the generation of support and enthusiasm in the Board's extensive technical staff.

N.S.W.

Ted Walder has had a distinguished career of public service and has contributed greatly to the water industry.

RICHARD R. ASH -

N.S.W.

Dick Ash retired in 1978 from the post of Principal Engineer Water Supply "'.ith the Public Works Department after a lifetime of service in the water and sewerage field.

He spent significant periods with the Water Resources Commission with a particular interest in dam engineering and with the P .W .D. his responsibi lities ranged over all facets of water and sewerage work throughout the country areas of N .S. W. With the A WW A he has given dedicated committee service and was Vice-President of the Branch at his retirement. He is currently a member of the 1983 Convention Committee following up his valued contribution to '76 IAWPR Convention .

Dick's serlice contributions to the industry include the Water Research Foundation, he chaired the N.S.W. Committee for a period , representation on the Water Resources Council and committee activity with the I.E. Australia.

ALAN SIMMONDS -

QUEENSLAND •

Sustaining Membership

Recently the question has been raised of sustaining membership being considered as a Federal affiliation in view of the support given by branches of the same company to separate State Branches of .this Association.

This suggestion was strongly opposed by Federal Council.

This Association consists of a Federation of Branches. In many cases the support of Sustaining Members in individual states is a 6

( After outstanding service in the N.S.W. Treasury he became Vice-President of the Metropolitan Water Sewerage & Drainage Board, Sydney in 1963 and was President from 1965 until his retirement in 1965.

Alan Simmonds (right) receives award.

WATER

ASSOC/A TION Alan was a foundation Member of the · Association, served as Branch Secretary/ Treasurer in 1962-63 and is a past Federal Councillor.

Commencing with the Brisbane City Council as a Chemical Engineer in 1929, from 1939 to 1945 was Engineer-in-Charge of the Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plant. He was then appointed to the Department of Local Government as an Executive Engineer in the Town Water Supply and Sewerage Section.

In I 964 he entered private practice and has been Principal of his own consultancy since that year. In 1976, John Bristow joined him in partnership.

Alan has made numerous overseas tours, attended and been active at many technical conventions and meetings in Australi a and he has published prolifically. His contribution to the water supply and sewerage fie ld in the State is of major order and he is well known and respected in the Association through his lifelong interest and activity in the industry.

•

NEWS

•

VIEWS

over 30 years in the Australian wine industry .

Certain ly members who sample the discussion topic at other occasions will be eager to note some of the finer points which will un doubtedly be aptly desc ribed by Dr Rankine.

BRANCH ACTIVITIES

At the Branch Annua l General Meeting on , 8th October, Bob C lisby was elected Presi dent and Dr John Rolls, Vice President. Tony Glatz continues as Secretary and Mary Drikas as Treasurer and Branch Correspondent. The committee consists of Doug Lane , Kevin Trevarton, Paul Harvey, Peter Norman, Ross Stevens and Arthur Greenhough.

Mr Jan Maynard, a teacher with th e Education Department addressed the meeting on 'The River Murray - It's not a Single Use Resource'. He began by out lining some of the historical and present day uses of the Murray within South Australi a - by the aborig in es for food and water, by white man for stock water supplies, for transport, irrigation and town water supplies. The changing relative importance of these uses has affected management of the ri ver and particularly the heavy emphasis placed by South Austra lia on navigation rights during the early 1900s.

A number of conflicts between uses and between use rs were identified and Mr Maynard expressed concern that whi le there is an annual excess of entit lement flow over demand there are periods during a ye"-r when extractions and losses exceed entitlement flow.

He concluded by sugges ting that an 'umbrella' bod y should be establi shed to oversee all aspects of the management of the whole river sys tem - not by strippin g the states of their constitutional powers but by contro lling tied grants for river management work.

The yea r will end on an entertaining note for the Christmas meeting on 20th November, with Dr Bryce Rankine di sc uss ing 'T he World of Win e'. Dr Rankine is Principal Lecturer and Course Leader in the Faculty of Oenolo gy, Ro sewo rth y Agricultural Co llege and is well qualified to speak on the subject of wine having spent WATER

COMMENT

issue was going to press.

In conclusion, from t he West, a Very Merry and Relaxed Christmas to a ll other Branches and the Federal Counci l and wishes for increasing friendship and interaction within the Association.

STATE NEWS

Adela ide's water storage reached a new record level of 207 253 ML on !st October.

All nine metropolitan reservoirs were fu ll and three were spilling. For several days in early September all the instream rese rvoirs South Para , Little Para, Millbrook, Kangaroo Creek, Mt Bold and Myponga were spilling simultaneously. (Intakes to the offstream storages - Happy Va lley, Hope Valley and Barossa - are co ntrolled and so these do not spill).

The city's reservoirs were last all full at the same time in 1974, prior to the construction of the Little Para Reservoir which completely filled for the first time this year.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

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BRANCH ACTIVITIES

September saw the Branch visit Alcoa at Wagerup - an enjoyable day , we ll organised and an in structive tour with one of the Company's sen ior engineers. Attendance was poor and you r co rrespon dent offers some comment s later.

The succeeding vis it on October 28t h to the Kwinana Nickel Refinery was also poorly patronised.

A very topical talk was given by Dr C. J. Hardy at the J.E. Aust. on October 26th. Dr Hard y is the Chief Scientist, Nuclear Fuel Cycle of the Atomic Energy Commission and a world a uthority in the waste disposal field.

Follow ing hard on the heel s of Dr Hard y's talk , members had an opportunity of joining the I.E. Aust. on October 29th for an address to the Civil and H ydrology Bra nch by Mr Peter Ackers, the well _known British Hydraulics Consultant.

Waler has no advice as to later Branch meetin gs in 1981 nor of programming for the coming year.

In the west, a Branch periodical has been quiet ly produced over the past few years. Entitled Wasted Worlers, the publication has grown in st rength and its new editor has provi ded so me outspoken comment on public iss ues and Bra nch matters including the payment of dues and attendances at meetings and function s.

The Alcoa visit attracted an embarrassingly micro attendance of 12, and 10 only arrived for the subsequent in spect ion of Kwinana Refinery. As humorou s or poi gnant as this may be, it is most di sheartening to th e Branch Committee . It is appreciated that occasionally visits do clash with other interests, it is hard to believe that 90 per cent of members repeatedly meet thi s problem.

Perhaps the efforts of Was1ed Warier are not all in vain for response for the Christmas Part y on November 25th at the 'Romantic Room with a Vi ew' was most postive , as this

A.C.T. BRANCH ACTIVITIES

There is a lull in activity in the Branch in Canberra where only one meeting has been held since the September iss ue of Waler.

At this meeting, on October 29th, Messers Fokkema and Daniell of the Department of Hou sing and Constructi on, A.C.T. region, spoke on ' Water and Tailings Management - Uranium Mining Projects in The Northern Territory'.

Mr Fokkema's con tributi on covered tailings management and structures involved in the handling of tailings and the rehabilitation of such. Mr Daniell dealt with the aspect of project water management.

During the course of the talks, both speakers q uoted and referred to current schemes operating at the Ranger and Narbartek uranium mines.

The last meeting for the year will be on December 1st, as we go to press . This shou ld be a most interesting sess ion as the speaker, Mr W. A. Price of the Hydraulics Resea rch Station, Wallingford , U .K ., will be talking on 'Work of the Hydraulics Research Station , Wallingford ' and 'Fa ilure of the Simes Breakwater, Portuga l'.

The Branch is joining forces with the Institution of Engineers for thi s meeting.

TASMANIA -,

T he Branch Annual General Meeting on September 30th was preceded by a tour of the Australian Antarctic Division Headquarters Base and Laboratories at Kingsto n. Thi s enjoyable visit terminated with a film 'Casey in Antarct ica' and the whole party of members and gues ts then adjourned for dinner at the Kings ton Hotel.

For the tour and the activities fo ll owing it , the Branch combined forces with members of the Australian Corrosion Assoc iation altogether a most successful exercise.

At the A.G.M., Henry McFie was elected President for the ensuing year and two new members joined the Committee, G. No lan of Hobart City Council and B. Pelham of Humes Ltd. The newcomers will replace two active members of long standing, lost by resignation - R. England and W. Nicholson.

The Committee was pleased to welcome a new Sustaining Member, James Hardie and Co. Limited .

NEW SOUTH WALES BRANCH ACTIVITIES The Annual Dinner Dance held at Chatswood on the 18th September was at-

7

I'

ASSOC/A TION tended by 90 members and partners. Mr Justice Kirby, the Scheduled Speaker was unable to attend and Professor Robert Hayes, Commissioner of the Law Reform Commission, kindly stood in for him and gave a very stimulating talk on 'Legal Aspects of the Engineering Profession'.

"Water Management at Eraring Powerstation" was the subject of papers presented by Dr Tio, Geoff Martin and Peter Walker at this year's joint technical meeting of the Civil Branch (I.E. Australia) and the A.W .W.A. N.S.W. Branch on October 27th.

An interested audience of 75 heard the three speakers, all with the Electricity Commission of N.S.W., describe the investigation, construction and operational features of the major effluent streams of the giant power station.

Dr Tio described studies into the effects of warm cooling water discharges into Lake Macquarie and the additional training walls incorporated into designs to ensure more rapid heat dispersion and dissipation in the lak e. Geoff Martin detailed the design and construction features of the massive circulating cooling water system with its 23 km of channels, tunnels and outfalls costing some $48 million, and Peter Walker described some of the very specific problems associated with the collection, treatment and disposal of furnace ash, grits and fly ash to ash ponds and the delicate water balances required to ensure nil discharges to the ecologically sensitive estuaries of Lake Macquarie.

At the dinner for speakers following the technical session, it was agreed that there was greater scope for closer co-operation and "Joint Venturing" of I.E. Australi a Civils, and A.W.W .A ., in the future.

The end of the year Christmas Party will be held at the Mandarin C lub on December 3rd, as we go to press.

Future Programme -

1982

February 3rd. Inspection of a pilot coal to oi l conversion plant at C.S.l.R.O . Delhi Road, North Ryde - 5.30 p.m. start .

February 23rd. Technical meeting - Bill Hazel and John Brown of the M.W.S. & D.B. will present details of their recent fact finding mission overseas on sewerage treatment and disposal. Sydney Water Board Conference Room - 5.30 p.m. start.

March 12-14th. Regional conference at Nowra. The theme is 'Coastal Development - Opportunities and Problems'. Papers on the local Regional Water and Sewerage Schemes at present under construction, the M.W.S. & D.B's Shoalhaven Scheme and a variety of topical technical issues are being planned.

NEWCASTLE SUB-BRANCH

Kevin Young, Hon Secretary replacing Ashley Pepper, advises the following details: At the A.G .M. on September 9th, Officers and Committee elected were: Chairman, J. G. Roberts; Sen V. Chairman, L. Black; Jun 8

•

NEWS

•

VIEWS

V. Chairman, J. Roberts; Hon Secretary, K. Young; Hon Treasurer, D. Lacey. Committee - J. Flemming, A. Pepper, B. Clulow, R. Michel, D. Anderson.

On October 19th, Dr D. Garman spoke on 'Water Quality of the Hunter River'.

Planned activities include: • Inspection of C .l.G. 'Oxygen-in-mains' treatment of sewage at Shoal Bay on November 30th - as we go to press.

• Excursion to Green Leaf Fertiliser Plant Kooragang Island on February 28th, 1982.

GENERAL

Mr Ted Walder, President of the Sydney M.W.S.&D. Board for the past 16 years, retired on October 14th after a distinguished career of public service and is succeeded by Mr Eric Warrell the former Vice-President.

Ted Walder has been an active participant in A.W.W .A . matters for a lengthy period and has given the Association staunch and valued support. He has also been most active in l.A.W.P .R. in Australia and overseas.

The new President, Eric Warrell is a Civil Engineer with most extensive experience in the engineering and administrative fields. He has twice been Vice-President of the Board and has had considerab le interest in A.W.W .A . activities.

Well-wishes to both Ted Walder ·and Eric Warrell.

The Branch has issued its 1980-81 Annual Report - a well produced and informative booklet which will well repay the interest of other Branches.

Mike Tseng, our Branch Correspondent has been transferred to Kuala Lumpur as Technical Manager for Angkasa - G.H.D. and Peter Mackenzie has taken up the burden of Correspondent for Water.

QUEENSLAND The Annual Symposium, on October 21st had as its theme 'Water, Wastewater and Mining' and attracted 52 participants.

Papers presented included: • 'Water Resources of the Mineral Rich Areas of Queensland' by Bernie Cred lin of the Queensland Water Resources Commission. Bernie indicated that new mining projects, particularly coal mining, are requiring water to be transported long distances. WRC policy ensures that water resource developments are multi -purpose.

• 'Acid Mine Drainage at Collinsville', by David Charles of Collinsville Coal Co Pty Ltd . David showed how management of acid mine drainage from new open cut areas to be opened up will benefit from experiences with the existing mine.

• 'Water Quality Consequences of Mining and Mineral Processing' , by Paul Greenfield of the University of Queens land Chemical Engineering Department. An overview of pullution problems arising from mining in Queensland indicated that the most severe was acid mine drainage, and this problem was expected to increase over the next decade.

•

COMMENT

• 'Water and Wastewater Problems of Mining Townships' was covered by three Brisbane City Council speakers - Bill Solly on water treatment, Roy Williams on dissolved air flotation and Ralph Wolley on sand filtration.

• In presenting 'Conservation of Water in Mining,' David Emslie of Utah Development Company explained conservation measures being implemented at central Queensland coal mines to bring water usage down to Water Resources Commission allocations.

The major areas _of water use are the washplant, storage I sses and dust suppression on haul roads.

• 'Water Reclamation from Tailings in Coal Preparation Plants' was outlined by Alan Pettigrew Consultants Pty Ltd. Alan discussed the intriguing (to non-mining people) concept of mechanical dewatering of solid wastes to reclaim the water rather than to facilitate disposal of the solids.

• 'Water Management at Open Cut Coal Mine Operations' was written by Neville Jones of Kinhill Pty Ltd, and presented by Harvey Manford of Theodore Coal. Harvey emphasised the importance of an overall water management programme as part of operational policy.

Discussion was lively, making this one of the most successful symposia run by Queensland Branch. Copies of the proceedings are still available to those interested.

On November 11th, a successful social evening was held to end the year's activities.

Following dinner, members and their wives and sweethearts were treated to 'The Largest Drink', not a specialty of the hotel, but a film on water quality and' management in Manchester.

At this meeting life membership was bestowed on A lan Simmonds, as reported elsewhere in this issue.

Membersh ip of Queensland Branch is growing steadi ly at about 5 per cent per year and is heading towards the 500 mark.

In this issue we farewell our long-standing and hard-working Queensland correspondent Peter Hughes, who has finally succumbed to the rigours of Queensland life, and welcome his successor Ken Hartley.

VICTORIA BRANCH ACTIVITIES

The Branch has been much concerned with the reports of the Public Bodies Review Committee and the subject of finance of water and sewerage work and members have contributed some input.

At the A.G .M., on September 22nd, retiring President Alan Longstaff spoke on 'A New Era for the Water Industry?' with emphasis on the question mark. He stressed the lack of Government support, impact of politics and the progressive slashing of subsidies. Effective lobbying by A. W. W .A. would mean a marked change from the traditional role of the service organisation also, a majority of our members are Government WATER

employees directly or indirectly . Yet, other professo'nal bodies manage to exert influence and the A .W.W.A. has to learn.

At least A .W .W .A. can organise public discussion . Preceding the 44th Engineers and Operators Conference in Mildura in September, John Mann, Director of Water Resources, enlightened some 90 Engineers on new funding proposals for co untry water and wastewater proposals and the subj ect was covered more thoroughly at a Special Meeting called on short notice on November 10th . This attracted some 80 members, indicative of the interest.

At this seminar, Alan Longs taff gave an overview, Lachlan Campbell, City Engineer, Horsham, gave graphic detail of the adverse effects of the new proposals on country towns and Horsham in particular. Mr W. L. Halse of the Institute of Water Administration outlined their viewpoint and Alan Howard, Engineer in Chief, Ballarat, suggested alternative approaches to finance and called for a Federal rev iew of the present high interest rates.

Discussion from the floor was most releva.nt and the meeting should assist a positive input by A.W.W.A . to a Working Party to be formed by th e Victorian Government · to determine guidelines for setting up administration of the new financing system.

The 'Spring' Breakout Weekend Conference on October 24th was held at the Thompson River Dam in a situation resembling an A.N.A.R .E. Station - howling winds, snow and sleet outside and windows fogged up inside. We re.alised we were just below the Baw Baw plateau where the snow still held .

Bill Dulfer talked on the history of the project aided by maps, bluep rints, and slides of incipient landslides and control measures of huge stabilisi ng fill s. The talk was a precursor to a most impress ive tour of the works.

In other papers, Brian Hatfield spo ke on corrosion of mains and pipes . Trevor Richards di scussed protective coatings for structures and pipes a nd concluded with examples of pitfalls in the art and craft of two-pot coatings. Alan Strom gave some experiences in direct filtration, a )ow capital cost technique and Gordon Coulson outlined the water and wastewater situation in the Latrobe Valley with its heavy industrial demand s.

The year 's fin al meetin g on November - 24th, was a visit to Lil yda le Sewerage Works where pilot scale studies of nutrient removal are comparing the Bardenpho process with alternating oxygenation and anoxic zones, the lime precipitation system and grass filtration beds. The works discharge to the Yarra a few kilometres upst ream of the Sugarloaf Reservoir , hence th e interest.

Branch Committee for this year is: Pres ident , · R . Tovey; V. Pres I. M. Lowther; Hon Sec J. S. Park ; Hon Tres K. H. Wood; Committee: A. Longstaff, F. Bishop, W. Drew , W. Dulfer, Prof. F. Lawson, Dr P. Nadebaum, 0. Scroggie, J. Parker , R. Payne, J . Rogerson, A. Strom , E. A. Swinton, A. Howard, R. Patterson.

Thanks to retiring Committee members Bob Turner, John North, Mike Cornell, Bob Vickers and John Bales and welcome to new members John Scroggie, Alan Howard and Russell Patterson.

WATER

NEWS

the organisation. Jane Brinchly has joined a TV studio. They have been replaced by a new secretary and a science g~duate and the new Secretary/Treasurer, Mr Milburn, reported that the new staff was shaping well to handle the changing tasks.

*

Publication and distribution of Water Research and Water Science and Technology are now satisfactory and plenty of paper being received .

* CHAIRMAN'S REPORT The annual meeting of the Australian National Committee of l.A .W.P .R. was held in Sydney, November 6th, 1981. It was preceded by a meeting of the Executive. The Chairman , by invitation, attended the Federal Council meeting of A.W.W.A. on the previous day whilst matters of concern to l. A.W .P.R . were being discussed .

The A.G.M. approved increase in the number of Directors to seven. Dr Garman of the New South Wales Water Resources Commission was added to the Executive .

For the meeting, the Chairman summarised the important matters dealt with at the recent meeting of the Executive of the Governing Board in London and the meeting of the Editorial Committee in Munich as follows :

EXECUTIVE MEETING OF GOVERNING BOARD Conferences

Preparations for Capetown proceed well with generous support from the Government, Capetown City Council and private sponsors and success seems assured. Papers submitted total 173. Planning for the 1984 Conference in Amsterdam is well advanced and agree" ment is being reached with AQUATECH for its exhibition to be held at the same time.

Proposals for the I 986, I 988 and I 990 Conferences are being sought for consideration by the Governing Board when it meets at Capetown.

Approval was given to co-sponsoring with A.W .W.A . a Specialised Conference on Water Pollution from Mining at Darwin in 1983. Revised criteria and guidelines for specialised and regional conferences are being prepared. A list of such conferences was approved, in full or in principle, and details will be given in the next newsletter.

Approval was given to the Brazil national com mittees . Moves for national committees in Egypt, Greece and Portugal are proceeding.

* Finance and General A small surplus was expected for 1981 but , without increased income, there will be a deficit in I 982. Dues will be increased by 25 per cent and indexing dues will be considered.

The Governing Board will consider a report on dues for National Committees.

For various reasons, there has been a complete change of staff in London . Those who met Marilyn Bourne will be pleased to learn that she is anticipating a family and has left

•

The Secretary / Treasurer is to report on what is involved in l.A.W.P.R' s association with other international bodies in order that a future policy may be determined .

EDITORIAL CO.)IMITTEE The Editorial Committee dealt mainly with the mechanics of its task of refereeing papers, publishing journals, etc. Items included : • English summaries of papers in other languages are to be improved and extended .

• Production of other language summaries of English papers was deferred because of cost and administrative problems.

• More papers are to be sought on raw water quality, marine pollution, ecological and epidemiological studies and in applied science and engineering. This will direct more resources to applied research .

• Written discussion and correspondence on published papers to be sought for inclusion in journals .

• The Newsletter is to remain at four copies per annum but the format will be changed and more information provided on l.A.W.P .R. activities.

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE Finances

These are in a healthy state and a new investment plan will1 be adopted to take advantage of higher interest rates for the bulk of the capital, holding a small amount for short term commitments. Following the decision of the Governing Board Executive, subscriptions for Sustaining and Associate Members will be increased by approximately 25 per cent and Individuals by $5.

Future Program

Immediate activity will be the cosponsorship with A.W.W.A. of the Specialist Conference at Darwin . Consideration will also be given to sponso ring visits from overseas lecturers. It was agreed to advise the Governing Board that the National Committee would be offering to hold the Biennial Conference again in Australia at a suitable time from 1990 onwards. The National Committee also expects to be involved in a Biennial Conference and some other Conferences in the Pacific Area currently being investigated.

Journal 'Water'

It was agreed to continue financial support for the Journal and increase the contribution in proportion to costs.

9

Capetown Conference

It is expected that a substantial group from Australia will attend. Messrs. Judell and Henry were nominated to the panel for Chairmen and Reporters. Consideration is being given to financial assistance to an Australian author to present his paper.

All three Australian members of the Governing Board will be attending. The Executive will be formulating proposals for a special meeting at Capetown to discuss future programs and policy. Suggestions are invited from readers of Water.

Refereeing of Local Papers

The Governing Board will be asked to clarify procedures for submission and refereeing of papers by Australian authors and amend the notes in the Journal Water Research accordingly.

L. HENRY Chairman, National Commitee .

AWWA 10TH FEDERAL CONVENTION APRIL 10-15 '83

CALL FOR PAPERS PROGRAMME CHANGES NOW PERMIT RECEIPT OF PAPER SYNOPSES UP TO END FEB. 1982 (See leaflet with this issue)

Proposals for papers have already been received from the Water Research Centre (U.K.); Maarten Schalekamp (IWSA), and Am . Water Works Assoc .

BILATERAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AGREEMENTS 1982-83

Commonwealth Government support is available for general collaborative research between Australia, U.S.A., India and Fed. Republic of Germany.

Applications closing April 1, 1982.

Details from academic and research libraries and P.O. Box 65, Belconnen, A.C.T. 2616

CALENDAR 1982 Jan. 19-22, Basie, Switzerland European Exhibition and Conference for the Construction of Maintenance of Pipelines - Europipe 1982.

Jan. 19-22, Serdang, Malaysia Regional Seminar on Water technology towards rural development (UNESCO).

Feb. I-July 31, Budapest, Hungary Int. Postgraduate course on hydrology (UNESCO).

Feb. I-July 31, Prague, Czechoslovakia Course on hydrological data for water pressure planning (UNESCO).

Feb. 4-5, Madras, India 8th Water & W.W. Engineering for Developing Countries.

Feb. 15-17, London, U.K. Annual Meeting on Plastic & Rubber in Water and Effluents.

Feb. 22-26, Hobart, Tasmania Annual Eng . Conference (I.E. Aust.).

Mar. 14-20, Denver, U.S.A. Jt. Spring Nat. Conf. American Congress on Surveying and Mapping.

Mar. 19-23, La Corunna, Spain Int. Workshop on Water Quality Models (UNESCO).

Mar. 22-26, Houston, U.S.A. Int. Conference, Corrosion I 982.

Mar. 29-April 2, Capetown, S. Africa 11th Conference, IA WPR.

June 15-17, Stirling, U.K. Fluid Power in the Eighties. Int. Fluid Power Conference.

June 15-18, Honolulu, Hawaii Int. Conference on rainwater cisterns June 28-30, Scottsdale, Ar., U.S.A. 11th Int. Symposium on Effects of Radiation on -Structural Materials.

July 7-9, Adelaide, Aust.

Conference on engineering Education (I.E. Aust.).

July 13-15, London , U.K. Environment Eng. Today, Annual Int. Symposium.

July 19-30, Exeter, U.K. IAHS Symposium on Advances in Hydrometry.

Aug. 16-18, Copenhagen, Denmark Int. Conference on Coal Fired Power Plants and the Aquatic Environment.

Aug. 21-23, Armidale, N.S.W. Conference on Agricultural Engineering (I.E. Aust.)

Aug. 22-28, Moscow, U.S.S.R. 10th World Conf. on Non-Destructive Testing Aug. 23-27, Melbourne, Aust.

ARRB Eleventh Coference Aug. 24-26, Auckland, New Zealand 1982 N.Z . Water Conference .

April 5-9, Rabat, Morocco 2nd Congress (IWSA)

Aug. 24-26, Bandung, Indonesia 3rd Congress of Asian & Pac. Div. Int. Ass. Hyd. Res.•

April 19, Sydney, Aust.

Symposium, Management of Estuaries, Water Res. Foundation .

Aug. 31-Sept. 3, Canberra, Aust.

Conference on Groundwater in Fractured Rock .

April 20-21, Bournemouth, U.K. Metting on Data Processing in the Water Industry.

Sept. 5-11, Prague, Czechoslovakia 16th Congress, Int. Ass of Hydrogeologists.

April 20-30, Monte Carlo, Monaco Int. Hydrographic Conference May 10-14, Hobart, Tasmania Australian Society for Microbiology Annual Meeting .

May 10-14, Sydney, Australia 52nd ANZAAS Conference .

May 18-21, New Orleans, U.S.A. Annual Conference on Productivity Engineering. Am. Inst. Ind. Eng's.

May 25-27, Boston, Mass, U.S.A. Electro 1982. Inst. of Elec. & Electronic Eng. June 7-11, Brighton, U.K. Tunnelling Symposium

10

June IO-Aug. 10, Moscow, USSR Int. Higher Hydrology Course (UNESCO)

Sept. 6-10, Zurich 14th Congress Int. Water Supply Ass. Sept. 8-10, York, U.K. 5th Int. Conference on Plastic Pipes.

Sept. 13-17, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 3rd Int . Filtration Congress .

Sept. 21-23, Berne, Switzerland WMD Int. Symposium on hydrological research basins and their use in water resources planning.

Oct. 11-22, Bali, Indonesia World National Parks Conf.

Oct. 26-Nov. 1, Perth, W. Aust.

Nat. Conference, Inst. of Parks and Recreation.

WATER

Biology, Taxonomy and Water Quality Monitoring in Australian Streams lan C. Campbell INTRODUCTION

To be effective a water quality management programme requires three things: goals, an implementation procedure (usually involving ambient and/ or effluent quality standards), and a monitoring programme to create a feedback loop . It is critical that the monitoring programme be appropriate as a means of evaluating whether or not the goals of the overall programme are being achieved . In other words, the monitoring programme needs to be matched to the water quality management goals.

Water quality management goals are usually set, where they are set at all, in terms of beneficial uses of the water. The goal states that withing a particular water body, the water is to be maintained at such quality that it is suitable for some particular use or set of uses. A fairly complete list of broad usage categories is presented in Table l .

The Victorian EPA uses just such an approach in its State Environment Protection Policy programme. Each policy sets out a series of beneficial uses for a segment of the environment such as a section of stream. For example, the policy on Dandenong Creek (EPA, 1972) includes as beneficial uses: agricultural water supply, recreation - including fishing and bathing, maintenance of bank vegetation, habitat for fish and aquatic life, aesthetic enjoyment and domestic water supply. Noted that all of the above involve the use of the water by living things, as indeed do almost all of the uses listed in Table 1.

TABLE 1: MAJOR HUMAN USES OF AUSTRALIAN INLAND WATERS (from Campbell, in press)

Water Supply 1.1 domestic supply 1.2 agriculture 1.2.1. stock watering 1.2.2. irrigation 1.3 industry 2 Recreational use 2.1 swimming and water contact sports 2.2 boating 2.3 recreational fishing 2.4 aesthetic appreciation 2.5 wild fowl habitat 2.6 nature studies

3 Scientific and educational use 3.1 scientific research 3.2 teaching resource 4 Food source 4.1 commercial fi shing

5 Waste disposal system 5. 1 discharge of effluents 6 Drainage system 7 Energy source 7 .1 hydroelectricity

It is clear from the above that only biological monitoring is capable of directly evaluating whether or not water quality goals are being attained. Most monitoring programmes which are carried out within Australia, however, are basically physico-chemical programmes with little if any attention given to the aquatic biota. There are a number of reasons why water quality monitoring programmes are usually based on physico-chemical parameters and I have discussed these in more detail elsewhere (Campbell, in press) . Some of these are traditional but there is also a widespread misapprehension that biological monitoring programmes are more expensive than chemical programmes. There are also some difficulties with biological monitoring programmes, particularly within Australia, which need to be overcome before they can realise their full potential. I will discuss one of these in detail below, and I have outlined some others elsewhere (Campbell, in press).

It is worth re-emphasising some of the difficulties inherent in physico-chemical monitoring. It is only rarely that physico-chemical data give an accurate picture of the status of the biota of a stream.

Biologists have frequently viewed the lack of correlation between biological and chemical data as evidence of a weakness in biological monitoring techniques . They have been in error in this respect partly because they failed to realize that it is the protection of the biological

Ian Campbell is a Biology Lecturer in the Water Studies Centre at Caulfield Institute of Technology.

WATER

community which is usually the aim of water quality management programmes and therefore where chemical and biological data do not correlate it is the chemical data which is deficient, an.d partly because they assumed that chemical data gives a good indication of water quality which, frequently, it does not.

Many chemical indicators of water quality are extremely variable both spatially and temporally as I have pointed out previously (Campbell, in press). Dissolved oxygen concentrations are a notorious example. Sutherland (1981) for instance showed the diurnal dissolved oxygen at one site in a small stream polluted by effluent from a sewage works varied over a range exceeding 10 mg/ L. It is clear from these results that a single dissolved oxygen sample taken from this site on the stream will give a good indication of the time of day but only a very poor indication of the water quality.

In order to compare water quality at different sites along the stream it would be necessary to measure changes in dissolved oxygen over a twenty-four hour period at each site, and preferably during the same twenty-four hour period since factors such as the amount of sunlight and the discharge of the stream will also exert a marked effect on dissolved oxygen concentrations.

Little wonder that chemical water quality data based on spot samples often show poor correlations between various chemical parameters . It is surely extraordinarily optimistic to expect them to correlate well with biological data. If biological water quality management goals are to be set only biological monitoring can effectively evaluate the water quality management programme.

BIOLOGICAL MONITORING -

THE 'CANARY' APPROACH

Two common modes of ambient biological monitoring have been proposed . These may be designated the in situ physiological mode and the ecological mode . In situ physiological monitoring is essentially a 'canary down the mine' technique. A group of animals are caged within the stream and checked periodically to see that they are still alive and apparently healthy. In some cases (e.g. see Jones and Walker, 1979) analyses may also be carried out on whole animals or tissues from them to check for the accumulation of persistent toxic materials such as trace metals. In fact this lllay be its main value, for, although it is a simple concept it suffers from some considerable practical difficulties.

In utilizing the technique in streams in particular there are two problems . The first is the ever present problem of vandalism. This is a problem where any equipment must be left in the field and there is no satisfactory means by which cages of animals may be protected from interference particularly in the smaller streams in populated areas.

The second practical difficulty arises from the variable flow in streams which may result in cages being inaccessible to the investigator during high flow periods or the organisms being left stranded during the low flow periods.

The final difficulty is whether any biological monitoring technique utilizing only a single species can adequately indicate the impacts of effluents or other stressors on whole communities comprising several hundred species. Most biologists would now agree that single species monitoring alone is not adequate.

BIOLOGICAL MONITORING APPROACH

THE COMMUNITY

The alternative to the utilization of single species as an indicator of the health of biological communities is the direct monitoring of the whole community or parts of it. The usual approach has been to utilize some convenient component of the aquatic biota such as the fish, benthic macroinvertebrates or periphyton. Where fish have been utilized it has often been because of their economic or recreational importance and their familiarity to the public . Their major disadvantage is their high mobility relative to other components of the biota. The presence of fish in a section of stream at any time is no assurance that water quality is adequate for their long term survival, they may simply

11

be passing through. Many fish, including a number of Australian species are known or suspected of migrating considerable distances during their lives. As a result most aquatic biological community monitoring has concentrated on the more sessile community components - especially periphyton and macroinvertebrates.

All of the monitoring techniques available require samples of the community to be taken in some way and subsequently analysed . The nature of the analysis depends to an extent on the way the data is to be treated subsequently but it is necessary in all biological monitoring to distinguish varieties of organisms present and usually also to determine their ambu lan ces.

The earliest scientific method of evaluating water quality by biological means was Kolkwitz and Marsson's (1908) Saprobien System. The system consisted of a check list of species believed to be associated with different degrees of sewage pollution in European streams. By comparing species found in a given stream with the list it was intended that other workers could determine the degree of pollution of other streams. The system has been widely criticized for various reasons such as its geographical limitat ions because of the geograph ical distributions of the organ isms in the check li st which, for example, prevents its utilization in Australia. However, the Saprobien System has been great ly elaborated most notably by Liebmann (I 958-60) and Sladecek (I 973) and is now evident ly widely used in Europe. Kolkwitz and Marsson's work also served to stimu late others leading to the development and advocacy of a wide variety of other biological water quality monitoring techniques.

Most of the techniques may be fitted more or less comfortably into one of two broad categories: indicator techniques or community techniques. Indicator techniques developed directly from the saprobien approach in that the presence or absence of certain specified taxa of organisms allowed the evaluation of water quality. Such methods include the Chandler Biotic Index (Chandler, I 970) and the methods proposed by Beck 1954.

An alternative approach was the community approach advocated

by Patrick (1950) and others which relied on some measure of community structure usually relating to the number of species present and the number of individual organisms per species. The most commonly used, but by no means the only community methods are species diversity indices, some such indices are reviewed by Pielou (I 975).

THE ROLE OF TAXONOMY

In order to utilize either of these types of techniques it is necessary to separate organisms at the species level. In most cases it is not possible to use genera or higher taxonomic categories as indicator groups because not all species within a genus share the same water quality tolerance. Resh and Unzicker (1975) for example, examined 89 genera of aquatic macroinvertebrates for which the pollution tolerances for more than one species within the genus was known and showed that 61 of the genera had species with markedly different pollution to lerances.

Similarly it is of dubious valu e calculating species diversity indices when a part of the sample is separated at the species level but other parts are only at the generic or fam ilial levels. Diversities calcu lated for sites which have a relatively larger component of their biota comprised of taxonomically difficult groups are likely to have their diversity indices artificially depressed. However, within Australia the ¡ parlous state of taxonomic knowledge of stream invertebrates makes specific separation within many of the most common groups impossible.

THE HISTORY OF AQUATIC INVERTEBRATE TAXONOMY

The 18th and 19th centuries were the golden age for biological taxonomy. Beginning with Linneus, the 'father' of modern systematic biology, the classification and description of the li ving world was a major preoccupation of the biologists and natural historians of the period. Naturalists were carried on most voyages of exploration of the period charged with the duty of collecting new variet ies of li ving things for the European museums and herbaria. Charles Darwin and Sir Joseph Banks were two such naturalists whose names will be familiar to many. Many other 'gentlemen' of the period with an interest in natural history entered the church and became parish vicars, an occupation which allowed them six days a week to pursue their natural history interests which often consisted largely of the collection, naming and description of new species of insects. A. E. Eaton is a classic example of the many who found an ecclesiastical career and insect collection to be complementary occupations.

12

It was during this period that most of the basic taxonomy of the E uropean and North American freshwater fauna was carried out. By 1900 major monographs had appeared on most of the common freshwater invertebrates of Europe . Eaton's monograph on the mayflies for example , was published between 1883 and 1888 and McLachlan's monograph on the caddis flies between 1874 and 1884.

Taxonomic work on the North American fauna was a little behind that of Europe, but even so the North American fauna had been largely monographed by the end of the 1930s. In fact, the first substantial compilation of keys for the identification of the North American freshwater biota, Ward and Whipple's 'Fresh Water Biology' was first published in 1918.

In contrast, taxonomic studies on the freshwater biota, and particularly the biota of streams were languishing in Australia. The little taxonomic work wh ich was carried out before 1900 (and one might add much of it since!) was q1rried out largely by European taxonomists utilizing material sent over to them by amateurs or collected on relatively brief expeditions. This has had a nurnJ;ier of unfortunate consequences. Firstly, the work was often based on small amounts of material - frequent ly only one or a few specimens. This creates difficulties when variable species are described. In addition, published collecting locali ties are often incorrect or so vague as to be nearly useless - for example, Eaton describes the type locality for the mayfly Coloburiscoides haleuticus as 'Australi a; probably near Melbourne'.

Additionally, few European workers had sufficient material to describe more than one or two species at a time which meant that the early literature is scattered and perhaps more critically the type specimens which are the keystone of taxonomic research are dispersed amongst a number of European museums and university collections.

Probably, the main reason of the lack of very much endemic aquatic taxonomic research in Australia during this period was simply the small population size . In 1861 Australia's population was only about I.I million growing to about 5 million by 1914 (Appleyard, I 970). As a consequence the number of individuals interested in taxonomy was also small and those there were tended, perhaps understandably, to be drawn to the more obvious components of the fauna such as the mammal and bird life and amongst the invertebrates chiefly to the butterflies.

In this period between the two wars a couple of individuals carried out substantial work on the Australian freshwater fauna . Tillyard's work stands out in this regard, but in the post-war boom in Australian science and technology taxonomy has remained a poor relation depending on the efforts of a few individuals and receiving little financial support.

STATUS OF AUSTRALIAN STREAM I_J'ISECT TAXONOMY

In many of the aquatic insects taxonomic studies are complicated by life history considerations . The stone flies, mayflies and caddisflies are all typica l in this respect and I shall use a mayfly, Mirawara aapta to illustrate the difficulty. This insect has four distinct li fe stages .

Adult females lay eggs by dipping the tips of their abdomens into the water as they fly across the surface of pools of stony streams. The eggs sink to the bottom and hatch after a period of a few weeks into an aquatic nymph (Figure I). Mirawara nymphs are carnivores feeding mainly on the nymphs of other mayfly species , on hatching they are on ly a few millimetres long but in the two years of their nymphal life they grow to a length of 3 cm or so before rising to the surface of the water at dusk on a summer night and emerging as a flying sub-adu lt stage (Figure 2) . The sub-adult, known to fishermen as a dun because of its opaque dull coloured wings spends the next day or two resting on the vegetation bordering the stream before moulting again to give rise to the adult (Figure 3) or spinner to the fisherman. The adult in this group lives a maximum of three days before mating and dying thus the origin of the scientific name of the order Ephemeroptera.

Traditionally, insect taxonomy utilizes characters of the adu lt insect to distinguish species. Many early taxonomic works and even some recent ones ignore immature stages completely. From the point of view of the limnologist however, the immature stages are critical whilst the adult insects may be relatively unimportant. In the example given above, the nymph has a life of two years compared to a total adult and sub-adult li fe of less than a week . The nymph is a predator often present in large numbers (Campbell, 1980) whic h must certainly have a sign ificant effect on the structure of the invertebrate communities in the streams in which it occurs, whilst the adult and sub-adult stages do not feed at all.

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j "'

(1)

(2)

(3)

Figure 1. The aquatic nymph of the mayfl y Mirawara aapta.

Figure 2. The sub-adult stage of the mayfly Mirawara aapta .

Figure 3 . The adult or spinner stage of the mayfly Mirawara aapta .

In reviewing the taxonomic status of stream invertebrate faunas then it is important to consider not only the taxono mic statu s路 of th e adult stages but a lso the taxonomic stat us of immature stages, where these are also important to aquatic ecologists . William s (1976) reviewed the taxonomic status of principa l groups of Australian freshwater invertebrates but failed to di stingui sh between the adu lt and immature stages. Table 2 is based partly on Williams' tab le .but separately co nsiders adult and immature stages and is restricted to the grou ps on invertebrates common in streams. As ca n be seen from th e table, very fe路w of the common stream animals are well studied taxo nomically and in particu lar the four most a bundant in sect orders in south-eastern路 Australia: the Diptera, the P lecoptera, the Trichoptera and the E pliemeroptera are all poorly studied along with the Oligochaet worms - yet these - are the very groups most likely to provide the best indications of stress in stream communities.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM H ERE?

Clearly, there is a great need for further taxonomic work on stream invertebrates. Prese r\tly, taxonomic work is carried out within museums and terti ary inst itutions but the selection of grou ps for stud y in such places is rather haphazard . It depends on the personal tastes of the investigator, the location of the institution, the material availab le and so on. Within the water quality management indust ry however, there are a very defin ite set o f priority groups needing st udy, however if the present situation persists, it may be many years before the taxonomi c impediment is reduced.

The situation may be changed in two ways, which may be com plementary . First, the water qua lit y management indu stry must be preparect to fund taxonomic research . If we accept the ' user pays ' principle in pollution control, we should also expect it to sp ill over into research. Taxonomic research could be funded by co ntract or by encouraging exist ing staff to underta ke research . Not on ly gove rn ment authorities of various types but also organisati o ns such as the A WRC have a responsi bility to fund taxonomi c studies. Seco ndly, the industry should encourage organisations a lready funding such research to fund projects of value to the water industry . The Australian Biological Resources Survey , for example, is funding onl y one study of the taxonomy of a freshwater group and th at is of the Ostracoda, a gro up of little applied ecological interest.

There are further needs , however, which may be harder to satisfy. A priorit y system for national funding of taxonomic resea rch is desperately needed in Australia . Within the U.K, the Nat ional Environment Resea rch Council has carried out such a study (NERC, 1976) to identify a ll those groups of pla nts and anim als whose taxonomi c status is provid ing an impediment to environmenta l researc h.

T heir study encompassed terrestrial , marine and fre shwater organisms and in this time of decreasing budgets it is surely criti cal to identify priorities for funding. A similar st ud y, perhaps carried o ut by the ABRS would be in va lu able in Australia, fa r preferable to the present ad hoc fundin g system .

Fina lly, the organization of taxonomic expertise needs to be examined. Good taxo nomi sts are never abundant and ex ist ing taxonom ists are scattered. This means th at an ind ividua l not ex perienced in the identification of stream invertebrates mu st send his or her material to a number of different expert s throughout the co unt ry to have identifications confirm ed . There is no single instit uti on with suffi cient expertise to a id the inexperienced even with the co mmon gro ups. Also, most bio logical studies on streams are by graduate students or on short term grants. Students and contract sta ff gain taxonomic experience th en go looking for jobs , when fo und, th ey are usuall y in unrelated areas. Even institution s which have ca rried out a number of studies, find themselves perpetually training staff rather WATER

than developing a rich supply of taxonomic experience.

There is no simple solution to these problems. One obvious step would be the establishment of a national institution charged with car. rying out research into freshwater systems. A cheaper solution would be a national advisory committee along the lines of that estab lis hed for marine sc ience (AMSTAC) to direct fund s to institut ions and individuals. However , it would be essential that a part of that funding was on a gua ran teed regu lar basis to avoid the high staff turnover so lethal to good taxo nomic wo rk .

Taxonomic work is not expensive. A taxonomist requires good microscopes and photographic equipment but th is is not expensive by modern research standards . Access to a good scanning electron microscope is also an advantage but thi s is not usua ll y a difficulty in the capi ta l cities at least. But regrettably, taxonomic research is not tactical research . It does not direct ly solve short term problems, but without an adequate taxonomic base scientific water quality management will never be achieved in Australia.

TABLE 2: THE EXTENT OF SYSTEMATIC INVESTIGATlONS OF LARGER COMMON INVERT EBRATES FROM AUSTRALIAN STREAMS (in port modified from Williams, 1976)

INSECTA I

INTENSITY OF INVES T/GA T/ONS Adults Nymphs or Larvae II lll I II lll

Coleoptera

+

Diptera Blep haroceridae C hi ronomidae Culicidae T ipulidae other diptera ns

+

+ +

+ +

+ +

+ + +

+

E phemeropt era H emiptera M egaloptera Plecoptera Trichoptera

+

+ + +

+ +

+ +

C rustacae

+ + +

O ligoc haeta

+

Acarinae

+

ina pplicable

+

I: Little taxonomic in fo rm ation .

II: Not well_ worked taxonomicall y or in some cases on ly well worked forcertain regions for exa mple the Pleco ptera of Victoria a re well worked altho ugh those fr o m regions furth er no rth are poorl y known. ' III : Rela ti vely we ll worked taxo no micall y.

I

REFER ENCES APPLEYA_R D , R .T (1970) , 'Th e Population '. In Dav ies, A. F. a nd Ence!. S., Au stra han Society, C hes hire, Melbourne .

BECK, W. M. (1954), 'A Simp lified Ecological C lassificat io n of Organisms', Quan . J. Florida, Acad. Sci., 17 , 2 11 -227. 路 CAMPBELL, I. C. (1 980), 'Diurnal Variatio ns in the Act ivi ty of Mirawara purpurea Riek (Ephe meroptera, Siph lonu rid ae) in the Aberfeldy Ri ver Victoria , Australia'. In . Flannagan, J . F. a nd Marshall , K. E. Ad van~es in Ep hemero pte ra Bio_logy, P len um Press , New York.

CA MPB E LL, I. C . (in press) , ' Biological Water Qualit y M o nitoring - an A ustralian view po int '. In Hart , B. T. (ed), W a ter Qualit y Monitoring a nd Diffuse Run off. Proceedings of a Workshop held at Cau lfie ld Institute of Technology, February, 1981.

C HA N DLER, J. R . ( 1970), ' A Biologica l Approach to Water Qualit y Management '. Wat. Pollut. Control, 4, 4 15-22.

EATON, A. E . ( 1883-8), 'A Review Monograph of Recent Ephemeridae or Mayfl ies'. Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Ser. 2, Zool. No . 3.

E. P . A . ( 1972). The Streams of the Da ndenon g Va lley. Draft E n vironment Pro tecti o n Policy No . W -28A . E nviro nment Protecti o n Authority, Melbo urn e.

JONES ,_ W . G. & WALKER, K. F. (1979), ' Bio logical Monitoring Aq uat ic En viron ments'. Water, 6, 2, 17- 19.

KOLKW ITZ, R . & M A RSSON, M. (1908) , Okologie der pflanzlichen Saprobien . Ber. dtsch Bot. Ges. 26 , 505- 19.

LIE BMA NN, H . (1958-60) , Handbu ch der Frisch wasser - und Ab wasserbio logie. Fisc her , Jena .

continued on page 17

13

ISSUES IN URBAN WATER SUPPLY: AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE D. R. Gallagher A traditional approach to urban water supply in Australia, as elsewhere, has been to accept the level and pattern of water use as reflecting given 'requirements' or 'needs' which must be met, and to design the system's capacity to ensure that these 'requirements' are satisfied with a high level of reliability. It is only recently in Australia that frighteningly high costs of augmentation in some urban areas have begun to make water supply authorities question whether 'requirements' should be met uncritically . Already the notion of 'requirements' is beginning to be replaced by the economists ' notion of 'demand', where demand is the quantity demanded at a set of different prices. For all commodities, to some extent, the higher the price, the lower is the quantity sold. Water is no exception. Already some water authorities are using their price structure as a way of modifying the quantities demanded, or, as it could be put, to reduce 'requirements'.

This paper seeks to identify and discuss briefly, from an economic viewpoint, a number of issues encountered in the integration of demand for and supply of urban water resources.

INTEGRATED PLANNING

Two principal elements can be identified in planning and management tasks confronting an urban water supply enterprise. One concern is the best level of system capacity needed to supply water to an urban capacity and is usually held by water supply authorities to be the paramount problem. The second, ensuring the efficient use of available supply capacity is frequently accepted as exogenous to the decision process for the design and operation of the supply system . However, the two elements are inter-related. Water allocation policy influences the level and pattern of water use and thus in turn is a factor to be taken into account in the determination of supply capacity.

Howe (1968), United Nations (1976) and Milliman (1978) are among those who stress the importance of an integrated approach to water resources planning.

From an economic viewpoint an integrated planning approach involves three policy areas. These areas are: (i) Allocation Policy , which contains guidelines directed towards an efficient use of existing facilities. (ii) Investment Policy, which specifies guidelines to regulate an efficient expansion of supply capacity. (iii) Financial Policy, which sets forth guidelines for an equitable collection of revenues.

Table I lists several issues, within each of these policy areas, which are pertinent to urban water supply planning and management . The placement of issues within policy areas is by no means clear-cut. For instance, price performs several functions, one of which is to ration supplies, while another is to generate revenue . Revenue generation is identified as an aspect of financial policy, while rationing is placed within allocation policy. Although the policy areas are inter-related, the identification of the three distinct areas is a useful means for focusing discussion on individual parts of an integrated whole.

ALLOCATION POLICY Rationing Mode A core aspect of allocation policy is the means used to share or ration available water supplies between competing uses and users. In a majority of cases economists propose the adoption of the price mode for the rationing task. This approach means that a water supply enterprise offers its output for sale at a stated price and seeks to meet the demand forthcoming at that price. Consumers decide on their rates of use in accord with their willingness to pay for additional water.

David R. Gallagher is Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.

14

TABLE I. ISSUES IN URBAN WATER SUPPLY MANAGEMENT

Issue

Policy Area

I. Allocation Policy

I. I 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

2. Investment Policy

2.1 Investment Rule 2.2 Supply Uncertainty

3. Financial Policy

3.1 Distribution

Rationing Mode Price Structure Price Uniformity Marginal Cost Concept Demand Uncertainty

Residential consumers' willingness to pay is determined in part by the level of affluence, while the quantity demanded will be influenced by the price structure adopted by the water supply enterprise. For a di scussion of the factors influencing urban demands see Gallagher (1980b).

In contrast with this approach water supply enterprises normally implement water restrictions, that is quantity controls, whenever they seek to obtain a reduced level of use. Quantity rationing is fundamentally different from price rationing. Quantity rationing implies that the commodity is under-priced, leading to an excess demand situation.

The extent to which the demands of individual consumers are actually met depends on the quantity rationing rule used to eliminate the excess demand. At the same time the structure of the quantity rationing rule, e.g . a first-come first-served rule or a priority use rule, influences, from a resource use efficiency standpoint, the optimum supply capacity.

On the question of the selection of a rationing mode, economic analysis points to a conclusion that a price mode is not always the more efficient procedure . The choice between the two modes rest s on the relative curvature of the control cost fun ction and benefit function.

A significant point water supply authofities should draw from this discussion is that there exists for their operations a mix of price and quality controls which best suits their system . A central question in this choice is the level of supply reliability.

Price Structure

The almost universal structure in water charging policies in Australia is the payment of a flat charge which is independent of the level of water use. Usually this charge varies with property valuation, e.g. in the Sydney Water Board area. In some other areas, e.g. in Toowoomba, Queensland, the charge is related to consumer classes , with residential consumers paying a different charge to industrial users . Further this charge is calculated with the explicit purpose of returning to the water enterprise a revenue stream equal to its accounting costs. In most metered areas this charge entitles the user to a water allowance, and if consumption is in excess of this allowance a price per unit is paid for the excess.

There are several points worth noting about the water rates structure. In non-metered areas, and in metered areas for users whose consumption is less than their allowance, the marginal price of water is zero while average price falls as consumption increases. Thus a water rates policy encourages consumption rather than conservation of water and is not inducive to efficient use of existing supplies.

Obviously the use of price to ration supplies requires some means of monitoring water use by individual consumers. The value of universal metering is a contentious issue, particularly in the United Kingdom.

(National Water Council, 1976, and Warford, 1968.) It seems unlikely that metering of individual users, per se, will have any great effect on the level of consumption. In the cases discussed in the literature the inWATER

troduction of metering is usually assumed to be accompanied by a change in the price structure from a flat rate to a per unit price (Hanke 1970). A failure to distinguish the fact that studies of effects of introducing meters are studies of a change in price structure has led to some confusion in the Australian literature (Heeps 1977 and Weeks and McMahon 1973). The benefits from introducing a price structure designed to perform the rationing function come from postponements of capacity augmentations due to the lower level of demand. This suggests that there is a degree of substitution possible between improved price control procedures and supply augmentation.

The effectiveness of using price to ration available supplies is dependent on the responsiveness of consumers to the new structure. Several studies have reported attempts to establish the price elasticity of urban water demands . The studies suggest that urban water demand is responsive to price, with the degree of response dependent on the type of water use. For example, in-house use has been found to be less price responsive (i.e. more inelastic) than garden use in the residential sector. However, there are several aspects of these studies which require further examination. For instance, in the literature the distinction between a change in the structure of a price policy and a change in the level of price with the structure unaltered is not always clearly established. Gallagher (1980b) discusses this further.

Multi-part or block price structures introduce a hiatus between marginal and average prices, which is not present in a single price structure. This hiatus has profound implications for demand estimation and demand response to price changes. See Gallagher (I 980a) for a detailed discussion.

Furthermore, the setting of the unit price and the lump-sum charge in a two part structure are not independent activities. The larger the lump-sum charge required to be paid to enter the market the more likely it is that it will reduce the number of consumers in the market.

Thu s a net social gain could possibly be forthcoming from a reduction in the size of the lump-sum charge while maintaining the revenue flow by increasing the unit price.

Price Uniformity

Should water supply enterprises set prices which are uniform over time, between locations and between different use r groups?

Characteristic of the demand for urban water are the periodic fluctua tions which occur during a day and during a year. There is a great deal of argument in favour of prices being used to encourage a more uniform usage of available facilities between seasons. Higher prices during peak demand periods reduce capacity needs and will increase off-peak demands if demand periods are not independent. But not everyone agrees with the notion of seek ing to attain a more uniform load. In the water case some argue that peak summer demands provide good benefits through enjoyment of an aesthetic urban environment resulting from the garden water use. Alternatively, peak-load pricing may result in a more diversified garden environment within an urban area.

Another consideration is the fact that water is a storable commodity. A general effect of storage is to reduce the price differential between peak and off-peak periods.

A further problem in the determination of prices with periodic demand fluctuations is the definition of peak and off-peak periods. This is a practical problem in the sense that the administration of a continuously fluctuating price is not feasible. As a consequence price changes in a given year are frequently limited to two, peak and offpeak, and there is no unambiguou s line dividing the two periods.

A further aspect of the price uniformity question is the location of users with respect to the supply source . The den sit y of use rs and their height above the load centre are factors determining costs of expansion and operation of the supply system.

Another aspect concerns the nature of 'water' as a commodity in different uses. For example, in the residential sector water is a final good , whereas in the industrial sector it is usua lly an input in the production process and thus has the status of an intermediate good.

Should the same price be charged in the two sectors? Some water authorities have charging policies which differentiate between use r classes.

Marginal Cost Concept

The appropriate rules for pricing the output and se rvices of public enterprises continue to be the subject of a deal of controversy. The

WATER

rationale for a marginal cost base for public enterprise pricing rule is well-known, but there are severa l complications involved in the. practical application of the principle. One very importifnt complication is the definition of marginal cost itself. This situation arises from the fact that the capital inputs employed by public enterprises are usually lumpy. Thjs lumpiness leads to ambiguity in the definition of marginal cost with a good deal depending on the way the problem of capital indivisibility is handled.

In the urban water supply industry, addition to headworks, and perhaps to a lesser extent to transmission, treatment and distribution works, are infrequent and generally on a large scale . Lumpiness of investment implies discontinuities in cost functions and creates difficulties for water enterprises in making decisions relating to prices and how they should fluctuate over the planning period, to output rates and to the degree of utilisation of the available facilities during the planning period, as well as to the revenue flows and whether these flows will meet the enterprise's financial obligations.

The costs of water supply can be identified as having three dimen "' sions: (a) Capacity costs which vary with the capacity of the supply system; (b) Customer costs which vary with the number of separate services connected to the system; (c) Operating costs which vary with the volume of water delivered.

Arguments put before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Rating , Valuation and Local Government Finance in N.S.W. (1967) based proposals for a single-price price structure on short -run costs.

This proposal from a resource efficiency viewpoint is correct provided the storages ar.e full and the transmission, treatment and distribution works are of an adequate size to supply the demand. This one-part price structure obviously will not sat isfy the water enterprise's statutory revenue obligations. This price rule is related to short-run marginal cost, and while it may have the advantage of maintaining a high level of capital utili sation, and while the revenue flow may be adequate to meet the costs of supply on the longer term, it will not normally provide a pattern of receipts over the planning period which the enterprise requires to meet its statutory obligations. ¡ This short-run marginal cost concept is but one base on which to build a price st ruct ure. Other bases include long-run marginal cost and incremental sys tem cos t. These concepts arise from alternative ways of dealing with the problem of indivisibility or lumpiness . These concepts result in different revenue flow s, different capacity utilisa tion rates, and a different degree of price fluctuations during the planning period (Saunders et al., 1977) . As well the invest ment signal s for expansion of supply ca pacity given by the alternative marginal cost concepts may result in different scale and timing deci sions .

-f

Demand Uncertainty Some writers tend to view demand uncertainty as an extension of the riskless peak-load pricing problem. But the two problems are quite different. The peak- load pricing problem is concerned with a known periodic pattern of demand and optimum pricing calls for a known periodic schedule of prices. When demand fluctuation s are not periodic the stochast ic influences call for a stochast ic schedule of pri ces. But frequent price fluctuations are not generally a feasible policy option for publi c. enterprises. In an uncertain environment invariant prices can only achieve the rationing function when either an adequate safety margin is inco rporated in plant of fixed capacity or plants of flexibl e capacity are overloaded in the short-run.

An alternative approach is to introduce some form of non-price (quantity) rationing when demand at the set price exceeds capacity supply. The issue is what combination of price and quantity controls should water supply enterprises select?

INVESTMENT POLICY Investment Rule

There appear to be two important issues pertaining to the augmentation of urban water supp ly systems: (i) When should the system's capacity be expanded? and (ii) What scale of expansion should be undertaken? ¡ The 'requirements' approach answers the timing question by selecting the period in which the forecast rate of water use exceeds the existing capacity. Scale decisions are such that the systems rated capacity

15

following a ugmentation equals th e fo recast rate of water use at th e end of a n investment cycle. (An in vestment cycle is the number o f time int ervals of dema nd gro wth th at th e installed capacity is des igned to supply.) There exists a tendency for scale a nd timing decisions to remain as separate a reas of an alysis even though th e close tie between th ese decisions is clearly expressed at a conceptual level (Erlenkotter, 1976) .

The concept of supply ca pacity of a water system is a difficult one.

On the one hand a supply system has a capacity to store water, i. e. it has a stock capacity concept which is the foc us of constructi on activities. Operation of the system seems mainly concerned with fl ow capacity. Storage capacity is not identical to, nor simply related to flow capacity of a system. A lin k between storage capaci ty and fl ow capacity is given by the operation policy or release rule co ncept.

Frequently storage reservo irs are rated in terms of a 'safe yield ' or 'relia ble regulated flow '. 'Safe yield ' is a minimum meas ure and has at least two elements, the level of yield and its relia bility. Release rules link regulated yield , its reli ability, and storage capacity.

A feature of operat ing policies is th at rules are expressed in a qu antity control mode. O ne procedure is to express releases as a fun ction of storage contents. If the release stipulated by the operating rule is less than th e ' requirement ' or target release, because storage contents are low, th e supply enterprise has to put into operation ¡a rat ioning procedure to eliminate the excess demand. In such a case consum ers' planned consumption will exceed act ual co nsumption and they will perceive a supply fa ilure. From an eco nomic viewpoint this is a case of underpricing of output.

An alternative approach is to express the operat ing rule in a price mode. At the start of eac h interval th e supply enterprise sets a price, which varies with the storage contents, and releases are made to meet the demand forth coming at the set price. In this case price performs the rationing fun cti on and there is no need for non-price rationing procedures . However, prices will tend to flu ctuate over time as storage contents vary a nd consum ers may accuse the supply enterprise of 'charging what the market will bear'. Water supply enterprises wi shing to maintain a stable price during the planning period or at least to have infrequent price changes can set a hi gher initial price or have a larger storage capacity .

A fund amental reaso n for on-stream storage capacity is to supplement , from storage contents, streamflow when it is low. Price policy should refl ect the state o f supply, streamflow plus storage contents. A low price raises the probability of storage contents being reduced in subsequent periods . Th at is, a low price raises the probabilit y o f storage content being needed to augment th e fl ow supply. The available storage capacit y determines the relative importa nce of drawin g on storage contents. The larger the available capacit y the less the impact of drawing on co ntents as aggregate supply is greater, and the possibility of ex haustion is lower. When cont ents are at capacity level, the optimum price varies with the available storage capacity. The greater the storage capacity, the larger the stocks and the lower is the optimum price as th e aggregate suppl y is larger. At the same time price increases as th e contents are lowered . Thus fo r each storage capacity there is an optimal price rule related to the storage content s. The level of price depends in part on the weight attached to resource stoc ks and the probability o f resource exhau stion , i. e. system reliability (Mann ing and Gallagher , 1980) .

Follo wing on optimal operating policy storage contents will tend to move to the long-run equilibrium level. If storage contents are less than the equilibrium level an optim al price rule calls fo r a higher price with a consequent lowering of demand . The result is a tendency to move back toward the equilib rium contents level. However, the stochastic nature of streamflows makes the long- run equilibrium level of storage contents a quantit y th at is ap proached but infrequently realised . Transient analysis rath er than steady-state solut ions seems more appropriate for system operation (Doran I 975).

This discuss ion highlights lin ks between release rules, storage capacity and reliability. Investm ent decisions depend on decisions taken with respect to rationing procedures.

Focusing on the question of.t he scale of capacity augmentation, in broad terms, optimal storage extens ion in any time interval yields marginal benefit s equal to marginal construction costs. Additi onal storage capacity , which becomes operative in interva l I , supplies potential for additional storage contents to be available at the beginning of interval I + 1 . A point to note is th at additional storage capacity does not result in additiona l stocks being at capacity level instan-

16

taneously as th ere will be a lead time before contents build up to the new capacity level. Thus expected marginal benefit s fl owin g from additi onal storage capacity in in terval I is the di-liference between expected benefi ts resulting fro m the expected level of contents with expanded capacity and with unaltered capacity. The expected marginal benefit expression is determined by ¡ the probability distribution of storage contents in the relevant tim e interval. The probability distribution of storag~ co ntents is related to the streamflow distribution , the release rule and the existing sto rage capacity as indicated above . The marginal construction costs are marginal costs in the conventiona l sense of the rate of change of cos ts with res pect to quantity of storage capacity.

For the second question , when should capacity be augmented? The same broad rule applies, viz. the optimal time interval fo r expanding capacity is that in which marginal benefits from addi tional capacity equals marginal cost o f the expansion . A significa nt po int is th at marginal cost relevant to the timing questi on is the extra cost due to system augmentation occurring at time interval earlier , and not tha t associated with changes in the quantity o f storage capacity. The two concepts are obviously inter-related . For each state o f the system in interva l I the expected marginal benefi ts fro m expansion in I + 1, ass uming an optimal price poli cy is fo llowed , is the difference between the expected benefits fr om th e augmented system in interval I + 1 and expected benefit s in I+ 1 when augmentation is delayed.

Supply U ncertainty

The ex istence of an individual co nsumer who is una ble to purchase ~ l he is willing to pay fo r at a given price identi fies a situation of supply uncertainty. Many co ntributors to th e di scussion of allocation and investment decisions under conditions o f excess demand assume that the demand fo r an enterp rise's product is unaltered because of th e uncertainty that planned consumption will be sat isfied. H owever, it seems reasonable to expect that consumers will tend to increase planned consumpti on as the vari ance of commodi ty supply increases and relia bility decreases (Turn ovsky 1969 , 1972) . The consumer plans to consume more of the comm odi ty in order to increase his margins o f safety (i .e. reliabilit y) and there by maint ain expected co nsumption .

The concept of reli ability needs furth er di scussion. Reliability o f supply is th e in frequency (I - fre quency) of the impos iti on of restri cti ons on water use, th e in fre quency o f not having the regul ated yield of the storage system available for use. The concept rests on th e presumption that the water supply enterprise emplpys a qu antity contro l model of rat io ning.

The desire to maint ain high supply reliabili ty, together with the frequently used 'critica l period ' techniques fo r assess ing storage capacity, leads to a specifica tion of supply capacity as an attaina ble level of output that can be susta ined without sh!mfall under ex treme input conditi ons. Given a reservo ir of specified storage capacit y, capacity output fro m the reservo ir has to be viewed in the co ntext o f a trade-o ff between the yield and its re li abilit y. Ca pacity output could be specified as that combin ation of yield and reli abilit y at which th e margi na l rate of techn ical subs tit J ti on betwee n the yield a nd reli abi lit y is equal to the relative valu es of the output s. Thi s spec ifica tion implies the reservoi r has a fl exible supply capac it y rather than the fi xed supply capaci ty implied in the 'sa fe yield ' specification.

FINANCIAL POLICY Distributi on

Revenue generati on is a paramo unt fun ction of price policy fro m the view point of public enterpri ses. The curre nt water rates poli cy emphasises the revenue generati on function of the price mechani sm, with little attention to the demand control fun cti on. The rates paid are set so that the aggregate rates of all users equal the accountin g costs of supply. The first co ncern of fin ancial policy is whether the enterprises should be fin ancially self-sufficient. One main thrust of the argument put befo re th e Royal Commission of Inquiry int o Rating, Valuati on and Local Government Fin ance in N.S.W. (1967) was that a per unit price policy would not ena ble water enterprises to meet their statutory obligati on of meet ing expenses because of th e high proportion of fi xed costs. It is well known to economi sts that it is possible to fo rmulate a single-part price structure to meet the constraint th at the revenue flow be adequa te to meet a specifie d budget. As a genera l rule price should deviate fro m margin al cost with th e dev iati on being greater the mo re WATER

inelastic the demand for water and the more pressing the buaget constraint.

A second concern in financial policy is how the cost burden , to be met by water consumers as a whole, should be distributed among user classes and users within each class. In the Sydney area, for example, the distribution of the burden of the costs of the system is based on property values and thus, it is claimed , is in accord with ability to pay .

On the other hand , in Toowoomba water rates vary with the user category. Should differential shares of the cost burden be borne by the residential and industrial sectors?

One means of taking equity into account is by use of a parameter such as the " distributional characteristic" of a good, as developed by Feldstein (I 972) . This distributional characteristic enables distribution weights to be attached to goods, factors of production and alternative revenue sources. The optimal price for public enterprise outputs and services may be highly sensitive to the distributional weights attached to the commodity and to alternative revenue sources and to the fin ancial constraint imposed on the enterprise (Feldstein 1972, and Munk 1977).

COMMENT

The structure embodied in a price policy is an important consideration. This structure usually results from a compromise with respect to the functions which price performs. For example, consider an adaptation of an existing water rates st ructure with unit price playing a more active role. A .two-part price structure is one alternative . The first part of such a structure, a fixed charge, without a water allowance, provides the water enterprise with a flow of funds to meet customer a nd capacity costs . The payment of th is fixed charge entitles customers to enter the water market in which they can purchase water at a specified unit price . The second part of the tariff is the unit price of water. This price should reflect marginal cost . Such a price structure could satisfy the statutory revenue obligations faced by water enterprises and perform the rationing fun ction effectively.

There are several details of this proposal which should be elaborated. First, the fixed charge can be of the nature of a poll tax or of a proportional income tax. This choice, together with the normative parameter embodying di stributional characteristics, influences unit price. If the fixed charge is a poll tax then , for normal goods, the optimal unit pri ce should be above marginal cost.

GALLAGHER, D. R. (1980a) . ' Price and investment policies for urban water supply enterprises', unpublished Ph .D . dissertation, University of New South Wales , Kensington.

GALLAGH ER, D.R ., BOLAND , J . J . LePLASTRIER, B. J . and HOWELL , D. T. (1981). 'Methods for Forecasting Urban Water Demands', Australian Water Resources Council, Technical Paper No. 59.

HANKE , H. (1970). ' Demand for water under dynamic conditions', Water Resources Research 6, 1253-6.1.

HEEPS, D. P. (1977). 'Efficiency in Industrial, Municipal and Domestic Water Use', Australian Water Resources Council Technical Paper No . 20.

HIRSHLEIFE R, J ., DeHAVEN, J.C. and MILLIMAN , J . W. (1960). 'Water Supply - economics, technology and policy' (University of Chicago Press, Chicago) .

HOWE , C. W. (1968). Mu.nicipal water demands, in W . R. D. Sewell and B. T. Bower et al., 'Forecasting the Demands for Water' , P olicy and Planning Branch, Department o f Energy, Mines and Resources , Ottawa, Canada.

MANNING, R. and GA LLAGHER , D. R. (1980). ' Optimal water pricing and storage: the effect of discounting', Paper presented at Ninth Conference of Economists, Brisbane .

MILLIMAN, J. W. (1978) . P lanning for metropolitan water resource development , in D. Holtz and S. Sebastian (ed .), 'Municipal Water System ' (Indiana Uni versit y Press, Bloomington).

MUNK , K. J. (1977). 'Optimal public sector pricing taking the distributional aspect into consideration ', Quart. J. Econ. Vol. 91, 639-650 .

NATIONAL WATER COUNCIL (1976). 'Playing for Water' (London) .

SAUNDERS, R. J., WARFORD, J . J. and MANN, P . C . (1977). 'Alternative concepts of marginal cost for public utility pricing: problems of application in the water supply sector', World Bank Staff Working Paper No . 259.

TURNOVSKY, S. J. (1969) . 'The demand for water: some empirical evidence on consumers' response to a commodity uncertain in supply', Water Resources Research Vol. 5, 350-361.

TURNOVSKY, S. J. (1972). 'Microeconomic behaviour when supplies are uncertain and optim um government investment in supply systems yielding uncertai n outputs', in R. Dorfman , H . D. Jaco by and H . A. Thomas, Jr. (ed.) , 'Models fo r Managing Regional Water Quality', Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., Ch. 5 and 6.

UNITED NATIONS (1976). 'The Demands for Water: Procedures and Methodologies for Projecting Water Demands in the Context of Regional and National Planning', Department of Economics and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York.

WARFORD , J . J . (1966) . 'Water Req uirements: the investment decision in the water supply industry', Manchester School Vol. 34, 87- 11 2.

WEEKS, C. R. and McMAHON , T. A. (1973). A comparison of urban water use in Australia and the United States, J. American Water Works Association, Vol. 65, 232-237.

CONCLUSIO N

This paper has sought to draw attention to several inter-related iss ues in expansion and operation of urban water suppl y sys tems .

There is an urgent need to develop a framework based on an integration of demand for and supply of urban water resources . In the sphere of demand management at tention should focus on the extent to which price should replace quantity controls in rationing water supplies, while maintaining its tradition al role of generating revenu e. As well the role of price to signal system expansions should be examined. Of particu lar concern is reliable information of the degree of responsiveness of water demands to price level changes and to price struct ure alterations.

In the sphere of supply management are qu esti ons related to the lumpin ess of in vest ment in system capacity and associated problems in defi ni tio n of marginal cos t, as well as co-ordinatin g scale and timing deci sions.

REFERENCES DORAN , D. G . (1975). Reservoir Storage Behaviour, Design and Management using Transient Analysis, Institution of Engineers, Hyd rology Symposium , Armidale.

ELSE-MITCHELL, THE HON . MR. JUSTICE, R., HAVI LAND, S. and LUKE, R. S. (1967). ' Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Rating, Valuation and Local Government Finance' (Government Printer, Syd ney).

ERLENKOTTER , D. (1976). Co-ordinat ing scale and sequencing decisions for water resources projects , in R. M. Thrall et al., 'Economic Modelling for Water Policy Evaluation ' (North Holland , Amsterdam) .

FELDSTEIN, M. S. ( 1972). Equity and efficiency in public sector pricing: the opt imal two-part tariff, Quart. J. Econ. Vol. 86, 175 -1 87.

GALLAGHER, D. R. (1980b) . 'Urban water demand: causes and effect s', paper presented to Symposium , Water Suppl y Demands in Towns and Cities - Est imation and Management, Water Researc h Foundation of Australia and Australian Water and Wastewater Association , Sydney.

WATER

IAN C. CAMPBELL Continued from page 13 McLACHLAN, R. (1874-84), A Monographic Revision and Synopsis of the Trichoptera of the European fauna., London.

NERC (1976), The Role of Taxonomy in Ecological Research, National Environment Research Council Publications Ser. B., 14, NERC, London.

PATRICK , K. (1950) , 'A Biological Measure of Stream Conditions' . Sew. and lndust . Wastes, 22, 926-38 .

PlELOU , E. C. (1975), Ecological Diversity, Wiley, New York.

RES H , V. H . & UNZ ICKER, J . D. (1975), ' Water Quality Monitoring and Aquatic Organisms: the importance of species identification' . J. Wat:-Polln .

Contr. Fed. 47 , 9-19.

SLA DECEK, V. (1973), 'System of Water Quality from the Biological Point of View'. Ergeb. Limnol. 7.

SUTHERLAND, P. D. (1981) , ' Significance of sewage lagoon algae in receiving waters'. In. Technical Papers from 9th Federal Convention of Australian Water a nd Wastewater Association, A WWA, Perth.

WARD, H . B. & WHIPPLE, G. C. (191 8), Freshwater Biology, Wiley, New York.

WILLIAMS, W. D. (1976), 'Some Problems for Australian Limnologists', Search, 7, 187- 190.

17

RECLAMATION OF SALINE LAND IN THE MURRAY BASIN A. R. Coad ABSTRACT

European style agriculture has upset the delicately balanced groundwater system of parts of the Murray Basin . Widespread tree felling and irrigation without underd rainage have resulted in salination of a significant area of the dry and irrigable land. The beneficial effect of underdrainage and of lo weri ng the water tab le ha s been demonstrated at the Kerang Agricultural Research Farm in Victoria where some of the most sali ne land in the district has been reclaimed.

In this paper , the Author proposes a larger scheme of water table lowering to reclaim 5000 ha of land and to recover and remove from the Murray Valley salt in solid form, to provide practical demonstration and serve as a foc us for national action on saline land reclamation.

As time went on the Irrigation Trusts experienced money troubles as there was no legal process by which farmers could be compelled to pay their water dues. So very wisely, the State stepped in and in I 905 formed the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission.

This body d id a tru ly amazing job in the conservation of water and its distribution to the farm boundary. Massive works were carried out with the simplest equipment, the surveys achieved are a continuing wonder . Unfortunately these early planners and irrigation engineers did not learn the lessons of the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian empires, the former insta lled drains a nd prospered while th e latter built no drains and ceased to exist.

solution to the problem. By 1966 substantial progress had been made with the research and reporting phases, while work on implementation is current (SR&WSC I 975) . In 1966 the River Murray Commission briefed Consulting Engineers Gutteridge, Haskins and Davey with Hunting Technical Services to investigate Murray Valley salinity (reported 1970). The resultant report is an excellent bibliograp hy, but does not provide much cheer to the farmer in the K-C-M triangle.

Maunsell and Partners (1979) also reported on Murray Valley salinity and drainage, again at the behest of the River Murray Commission. C larke, E. E. (1981) has given an excellent acco unt of th e wider range of pro-

INTRODUCTION

The salination of irrigated farm land in the Murray Basin is not unique on a world scale .

However, Australia, a wea lthy country, practising scientific agricu lture, has been slow to develop and implement a co-ordinated land and water approach for safeguard ing th e Murray Valley.

T he Murray Basin, its people, an imals, plants and total infrastructure comprises a vast national asset and has great potential for tourism and diverse rural industries. Our cultu re is not nomadic, this is not the time to ruin la nd and move on, it is the time to act, the time to tack le the problem is here and now.

This paper emphasises that saline land reclamation based on correct physicochem ical principles does not require large capital expenditure and is econom ica l to ope rate.

HISTORICAL

C loser sett lement of the great pastura l stations of northern Victo ria started in 1875.

The pioneer fami li es were tough in body and spirit, they cleared the land with axe a nd fire leaving only the larger trees. Irrigat ion Trusts were soon set up to divert the run of the rivers and creeks in spr ing a nd early summer , wh ile water was still available. Both these em inently sensible act ions upset the delicate materials balance of inpu t to and output from the groundwater reservoir. The water table, believed to have been initiall y about 20 metres below sur face in the general area, but relatively sha llow in the Kerang-Coh una area, began to rise, very slowly at first and unperceived .

A lan Coad is a chemical and irrigation engineer with over 20 years experience of the salinity problems of northern Victoria .

18

--

SCALE

KILOMETRES

01231.5678

Figure 1. Spear head Scheme, tubewell locat ion plan. blems in the Murray Basin . With regard to works constructed from 1930 to I 980 in northern Victoria, some surface drain s were built by un empl oyed labour in the 1930s usin g hand tools; in the '60s and '70s additional surface drains were const ructed using modern machinery; in the 1960s also the State of Victoria, with financial aid from the Commonwealth , built diversion works on the lower Barr Creek to divert peak salinity flows to Lak e Tutc hewop red ucing the salt inp ut to the Ri ver M urray by 15 000 to 20 000 tonnes/ year; river improvement works were a lso successfull y comp leted on the P yra mid and Bullock C reeks.

In Victoria, at first on ly irrigat ion channels were bui lt , the land surface was un graded and subject to cracki ng. Conversations in the 1960s with some of the older settlers a nd retired water bai li ffs gave a grap hi c picture of the inadequate aspects of some of the early irrigat ion practices and of the resu lting state of land . Much of the la nd and channel beds was subject to cracking and . irrigat ion water ran direct ly into the sub-soil causi ng the wa ter table to rise . Amongst the first areas affected was that part of north centra l Victoria bounded by the towns of Keran g and Cohuna a nd the ra ilway sta tion at Macorna (see Figure I). This area is refer red to subseq uent ly as the K-C-M triangle.

After the end of the Second Wor ld War investigations by var iou s Authorities in N.S.W., Victoria and S.A. co ntinued. In I 96 1 the a uthor was employed to research, report on and help implement an engineering

ORIGINS OF SALINITY

When European men, women and children moved into what is now nort hern Victoria, ti;ey were in fact on the surface of an a llu via l plain 180 metres thick which had been built WATER

up over some 60 million years . For part of that time a sea covered most of the Mallee, the far north western area of the state. During the last 5 000 years the surface soils have most probably been laid down under conditions of low rainfall, conditions permitting most of the rain to soak into the soil as it fell with only a small proportion forming run-off to the rivers. Some of the smaller creeks draining from the north-facing foothills did not reach the main river in a normal year, but fanned out into a delta and disappeared.

By 1875, had the new settlers been able to take and analyse core samples they would have found a varying distribution of soluble salt throughout the top 20 metres of soil. In their well digging they found groundwater at various depths below surface with a widely ranging salt content.

The Kerang Cohuna Macorna triangle has most probably been a pondage area back through time as different cycles of wet and dry conditions followed one another. The water balance in this triangle is undoubtedly very delicate.

The sources of the salts are: windblown salt dust from the southern ocean, salts released from the breakd<1Wn of rocks and, below the Mallee, residual marine deposits. The composition of the dissolved salts is similar to that of sea water salt with sodium chloride predominating.

TRANSPORT OF SALT TO AND FROM THE ROOT ZONE The mechanism of land salination is firstly the solution of salts in the groundwater, then transport to the surface with the ri sing water table and finally concentration in the root zone due to the evaporation of distilled water. Most plants drink by osmosis, hence as the salt content rises causing an increase in osmotic pressure, one species after another in order of their salt tolerance , is deprived of water and dies. Waterlogging of roots and hence denial of oxygen is also a killer. The remedy is the lowering of the water table and the leaching of salt vertically downward by appl ying water to a prepared soil surface.

Preparation implies correct grading and working of the soil.

Surface drainage and correct water management are most important but are fully effective only when engineering control of the saline water table has been achieved by pumping from an aquifer or prior river system or by installing piped underdrainage. In both cases power is used in raising water from tubewells or from collecting sumps and in moving it along disposal pipelines. After the water table has been drawn down to a safe working level, the volume of water to be pumped is largely dependent on the volume of deep percolation after the root zone is saturated. Deep percolation is a function of (i) area of ground flooded, (ii) depth of flooding, (iii) the average permeability of the soil profile below the flooded zone and (iv) the duration of flooding . Flooding is taken to mean all ponding of surface water in rivers, channels, drains, on paddocks, in road side cuts and in lakes and dams. Clearly the average permeability of the soi'! profile under lakes and dams, which hold water for most of the year, is extremely low and these features add little to the deeper groundwater.

WATER

Good water management is therefore the key to pumping power economy.

LAND USE AND FUTURE DANGERS In the K-C-M triangle, the severely saline area, thousands of hectares of potentially good land lie waste; the owners have been forced by circumstances to accept the need to provide for sacrificial areas where saline water is evaporated. This survival technique permits irrigation of the higher ground where grass and millet can grow and necessitates writing off the sacrificial areas as useless.

Many farmers have grown up with this situation and accept it.

From this centre the detrimental effects of salinity are spreading into the adjacent good land. Macumber (1978) has mapped the deep leads, a system of ancestral rivers laid down in an area of heavier rainfall (6 to 10 million years ago) more or less below the present courses of the Goulburn, Campaspe and Loddon Rivers . These aquifers are fed from inlet areas in the coastal ranges and the clearing of timber has increased the average annual intake.

The natural water velocity in these aquifers is slow - a few metres per year - hence when the balance is upset by increasing intake, the pressure within the aquifer rises. It has been observed that a pressure wave can move hundreds of times faster than the actual water flow, so input causes the pressure in the deep lead to increase rapidly; pressurised water then finds outlets nearer to the surface and adds to the pressure in the shallow strata.

The damping or time attenuation effect of the 60 to 80 m of overburden is considerable so the deterioration is gradual but very real and it will not correct itself.

PROPOSAL The author proposes a scheme to lower the water table below an area of some 5 000 ha of land now showing severe soil salinity and high saline water table (Figure I) to drop the groundwater level and remove salt from the aquifer.

The groundwater lowering would be effected by pumping from a number of tubewells to Lake Tutchewop for primary concentration from where the concentrate would be carried by pipeline to Lake Tyrrell for final evaporation and salt recovery in the dry state.

The volume of groundwater removal required to achieve the objectives is considerably less than sometimes assumed because of the low porosity of the alluvial clay loam soils and the gentle gradient of the whole system. The figure is in the range of 0 . 1 to .0.5 ML/ha per year, depending on the deep percolation conditions.

For the proposal outlined, the author has assumed a pumped volume of 0.9 ML/ ha per year to quickly reduce the stored volume upstream and downstream in the Ances,ral Murray aquifer and to rapidly yield visible results upon the existing surface conditions - to demonstrate the effectiveness and build confidence in the approach - the primary objectives of this proposal.

SPEARHEAD SCHEME FOR AQUIFER PUMPING The suggested area for dewatering approximates 25 by 2 km (Figure I), has been built up over a levee system of an ancestral course of the Murray known locally as the Mead Ridge. Potentially, this is highly productive land, which at present is only just surviving as a farming area. The land is underlain by a water table dome clearly shown on maps of the true water table levels.

This ancestral course of the Murray is a large multiple aquifer arising from the tendency for a large river flowing through flat country to change its course fairly frequently within its alluvial zone. When such a river is running high within its levee system it can, during a flood, depaft completely from its old course, which is eventually infilled and an aquifer remains.

It is proposed to instal five multi-point stations, each station consisting of about 10 tubewells penetrating coarse aquifer sediments whose presence and position have already been proved by drilling. The tubewells would be connected by a suction header pipe to a centrifugal pump. A degassing unit is a routine component. The technology of this type of station is fully understood as hundreds are operating successfully in the Murray Basin.

Based on previous experience the following material flow rates have been chosen. The void ratio or priority of the clay loam overburden has been taken as 5 per cent. The pumping systems would be designed to produce a combined output of 18 ML/day and would be run continuously for 250 days each year to produce an annual output of 4 500 ML. This would result in a theoretical drawdown of 1.8 metres below the 5 000 ha reclamation area. The actual drawdown is influenced by the various inp~ts to and outputs from the water balance of the area in addition to the pump output. Water addition as irrigation and/ or rainfall is essential to leach salt from the soil proffle.

It is estimated that 157 500 tonnes per annum of total salts will be removed in the early years of the project. This figure will reduce with time and continual pumping. Of this quantity, less than 5 per cent will be precipitated as gypsum in the primary concentrating basin.

The vital point is the need to achieve engineering .control of the water table as a means of holding the present gains and of assuring the future. This is a very economical insurance policy - estimated costs will be of the order of $5 million first cost and $ I million maintenance cost capitalisation.

The author has given evidence before the Victorian Parliamentary Public Works Committee on four occasions, twice in 1976 and once in I 978 and 1979, and presented the scheme described on three occasions with three variations in the means of disposal of the pumped brine, the final approach being that described in this paper .

Maunsell and Partners (1979) in investigating various proposals assessed the author's schemes merely on the basis of an assumed short term reduction of Barn Creek salinity - an assessment unacceptable being based on a single effect not possible to quantify at this juncture.

19

DISPOSAL OF SALINE EFFLUENT It is proposed to pipe the saline pump effluent to Lake Tutchewop for primary .concentration by evaporation. The pipeline will increase in diameter along its lengt h from 225 to 525 mm as pumped flows are added. Lake Tutchewop is at present used for the reception and evaporation of dilute saline water (about 3 000 mg/ L) diverted from Barr Creek during periods when the creek salinity is above a selected concentration. Clearly Lake Tutchewop can only receive both flows for a limited period . However there is a strong probability that the salinity of Barr Creek will be reduced as described below and that run of the creek diversion will then not be required.

Barr Creek is acknowledged to be a major source of salt addition to the Murray River , and contributing 190 000 tonnes per annum.

The spearhead scheme proposed in this paper is designed to reduce two inputs to the Barr Creek. Firstly, by lowering the water table along a strip of land parallel to the creek the groundwater gradient will be reversed and with it the direction of groundwater movement, reducing the inflow of groundwater through the creek bed. Secondly, during the process of leaching excess soluble salts out of the plant root zone, the amount of salt available for dissolution by surface runoff will decrease rapidly, hence reducing the salinity of surface drainage to the creek.

These effects were basic to the appraisal of the Buronga Scheme in N.S.W. which has been adopted by the Water Resources Committee in that State.

Primary concentration by evaporation in Lake Tutchewop will result in precipitation of some of the gypsum and reduction in the volume of brine from 4 500 ML/year to 750 ML/year, the final concentration being in the range of 20 to 22 per cent salt by mass. This gives marked economies in the size of a pipeline and in pumping costs for the transport of the concentrate from Lake Tutchewop to Lake Tyrell where final evaporation to dryness will take place. A 300 mm diameter pipeline will suffice with only two or three low head pumping stations to augment the natural gradient of I in 2 500 (Figure 2).

Lake Tyrell has the potential to become an inland centre for the salt industry . Given the right industrial interest and commercial outlets, the lake could produce yearly some 300 000 tonnes of chemical grade salt.

Transport would be by rail involving a I 000 tonne train every day for 300 days of the year. This is a highly desirable way of removing salt from the Murray Valley, using the existing capital asset - the railway and the low freight rates applicable to this type of haulage and producing a useful end product. The proposal is in marked contrast to the various suggested 'pipeline to the sea' proposals ranging in cost from $78 million to $342 million .

KERANG AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH FARM PILOT SCHEME

At the Kerang Agricultural Research Farm (KARF) an excellent pilot scheme already exists illustrating the beneficial effects of aquifer dewatering which are the basis of this paper.

KARF was started some 20 years ago by a local committee with substantial help from

20

N.S.W.

VICTORIA SCALE

KILOMETRES

w: 0'.020~11)5060 Figure 2. Locality plan.

the Victorian Department of Agriculture.

The worst land in this severely saline area was chosen and a single underdrainage bore was installed tapping a sandbed somewhat shallower than the main aquifer. A 50 mm centrifugal pump was connected to the bore and was run almost continuously for the first three or four years. The SRWSC (Vic.) gave permission for the pump output to be discharged to a surface drain. The farm was correctly laid out for bay irrigation. A substantial improvement was noticeable in the first year and by the fifth year full productivity was achieved. The water table has been drawn down to a safe level and groundwater salinity reduced. Continuous pumping is not now required.

A small scheme, such as the KARF scheme, is less cost effective than a larger project due to the difference in area to boundary ratio; for instance I 00 ha as a square plot has a boundary length of 4 000 m, i.e. a ratio of I : 4; while the proposed reclamation area of 5 000 ha has a boundar y length , even as a long narrow plot of 54 000 m, a ratio of I : 10 .8 . Groundwater inflow is proportional to boundary length (soil porosity and water table gradient being constant). Hence the advantage lies with the larger plot and the proposed spearhead scheme should perform better than the successful pilot scheme at KARF. EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS AND ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY

As described by Coucouvinis (1980), the River Murray Commission's brief is to control all aspects of the waters of the Murray River, but not the use and care of land within the Murray Basin.

It is unfortunate that the terms of reference for the 1970 and 1979 salinity investigations were framed by the River Murray Commission, as this has resulted in the potential effectiveness of all remedial proposals being judged on the diversion of existing saline flows from the river with no real regard to the land and people on the land.

The Maunsell report assessed the effect of the spearhead scheme in terms only of 16 000 tonnes of salt per year which would not be added to the Murray River flow, an assessment having little relation to estimated removal of 157 500 tonnes per year with a large proportion to be railed out of the valley in solid form.

A total valley approach to the complex problems of the Murray Basin is badly needed. Widening the powers of the River Murray Commission to include co-ordination of the activities of appropriate regional bodies has possibilities for effective operation and should be vigorously pursued.

ECONOMIC BASES

The basic pr1nciple behind the proposal described above is that by lowering the groundwater table and reclaiming land, not only is rural prosperity and productivity enhanced, but the drainage from the land ceases to be highly saline. Drainage water in the form of surface run-off and direct groundwater see page into rivers and creeks are the sources of river salinity . In the present situation in the Murray Valley, the process of lowering the water table has the potential to reduce sal ine input from both sources. In this way the $6 million expenditure for the author's proposal will serve both the land and the river; in addition the salt can be moved out of the valley by rail in solid form and can be productively used.

A recent proposal is to increase the volume of diversion of the run of the Barr Creek. The total water diversion could be of the order of 12 000 to 15 000 ML/year to divert less than 40 000 tonnes of salt ex Barr Creek away from the Murray. This would not underdrain the land but , if pumped to Lake Tyrrell would be a source of commercial salt. The vital economic differences between the author's sc heme and this further diversion proposal arise from the volume of water moved and the tonnage of salt diverted . The spearhead scheme would move about 150 000

WATER

tonnes per year (all owing for the gyps um precipitated) initially in 4 500 ML of water and, after Lake Tutchewop, in 750 ML of water from the area between Kerang and Swan Hill to Lake Tyrrell. The suggested di version scheme , however , wo uld move less than 40 000 tonnes in 12 000 to 15 000 ML per year.

The cost of pumps and pipelines for the long carry to Lake Tyrrell dominates the capital cos t of th e proj ect. The energy costs a re proportional to the volum e to be pumped .

The greatest economy is therefore achieved by moving salt in the sma llest practicable volume of water i.e., in th e most concentrated solution as proposed by the author.

GOOD HOU SEKEEPI NG

The Australian community, urban and rural, pays great attention to some aspects of the environment; recently the media have featured th e preservation of wilderness areas and established forests, the improvement of ri vers a nd stream s, reafforestation of marginal farmlands and the redu ction of atmospheric po lluti on,.At least as importa nt as these is the restoration of saline land to full productivity and the safeguardin g of the whole Murray Vall ey, both irrigated a nd dry cou ntry, against furth er salination .

Nothing is more effect ive than a successful demonstrat ion fo ll owed by informed pub licity to inspire confidence a nd investment in land care . Underdrainage and water tabl e lowering plus extension of the excellent work now under way on co rrect land grading will

achieve the rapid result so bad ly needed. Tree¡ planting on a large scale will contribute to the long term economics of other approaches.

CONCLUSIONS

Greatly increased co mmitment by the whole community to land care is a vital necess ity. The first co-o rdin ated scheme directed to the co ntrol of the water tab le level in northern Victoria should have a low cap ital cost and be rapid and dramatic in its effect on crop growth . The a uthor claims that th is scheme wou ld achieve these objectives and would att ract the required type of publicity and public inte rest. Democratic political action on a wide front is th e most desirable method of prom oting the spearhead scheme.

For approximately $6 million dollars the nation could experience the benefits of saline land reclamation plus ri ver improvement.

Salt deli veries to Lake Ty rell would help to establish a new inland salt industry. The product of this industry - crysta l salt , would be transported out of the Murray Valley by ra il and be used by the chemical indust ry to in crease the nation al product.

COUCOUV JS, D. M. ( 1980). ' Water quality of the Murray .' Water, June 1980.

GUTTERIDGE , HASKIN S &>OA VEY with Hunting Technical Services (1970). Murray Valley Salinity Invest igation .

MACUMBER, P. G., Victorian Department of Minerals and Energy (I 978). Evoluti on of the Murray Rive r during t he tertiar y period.

Evidence from northern Victoria. Also, Hydrologic change in the Loddon Basi n . The innuence of groundwater dyna mics on su rface processes . Proc. Royal Society of Victoria.

MAUNSELL & PARTNERS (1979). Murray Valley Salinity and Drainage. Development of Coordinated Plan of Act ion.

S.R. & W.S .C . (1975). State Rivers & Water Suppl y Commission of Victoria. Salinity cont ro l and drainage, a strategy fo r northern Victorian irrigation and River Murray quality.

CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS? PLEASE LET US KNOW! NOTIFY ADDRESS CHANGES TO

REFERENCES

YOUR BRANCH SECRETARY

BALDWI N, J. G . , BURVILL, G. H . and FREEDMAN , J. R. ( 1939). A soil survey of part of the Kerang Irr igation District. C .S. I.R. Bulletin No. 125.

CLA RK E, E . E. (1981) . Ri ver in Danger. Published by the Bo rder Morning Mail (Vic .) Pty. Ltd., 3 Stan ley Street, Wodonga, Victoria , 3690.

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44 Koornang Road, Scoresby 3179 Telephone 763 8988

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BOBY ANAL YT I CAL LABORATORY SERVICES • Indu s tri a l waste wat er , sew ag e and process wa t e r a na lys i s .

• W as t e di s pos a l in ves tigation s to M . M . B .W . an d E .P .A . retj uirem e nt s.

RIVER SANDS PTY. LTD. High Quality

FILTER MEDIA Manufacturers at REDLAND BAY ROAD CARBROOK, 0. 4130 07-2098344

Sulphuric acid attacks in sewers, the result of a bio-chemical process , will affect the cement gel leading to the possible collapse of the sewer.

But not with Humes Plastiline. Plastiline is a tough PVC . lining actually keyed directly into the wall of the pipe or to the wall of a manhole or any in-situ structure , pe rmanently protecting it from attack by H2S and aggressive wastes.

Tens of thousands of square metres of Plastiline have been used in Australia and Asia since 1963 , and regular and rigorous inspection of these projects has shown it has given complete satisfaction in service, even under the most severe conditions .

For main sewers , trunk sewers and industrial waste pipes from 300 mm upwards, or as plasticised PVC . sheet for in-situ application , find out about Humes Plastiline - ask the man from Humes - or refer to your ACEL li brary.

L--SIMMONDS & BRISTOW PTY. LTD .

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Sirs: Please send full information on Humes Plastiline pipes . D Tick if for school project .

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COMPANY ..

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ADDRESS ..

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NAME ..

WATER & WASTEWATER CON SULTANTS ANAL YTICAL INVESTIGATIONS Water Sewag e & Indu strial Was tewate r cer POLLUTION PRE VENTION Proc es s & Pilot Plant In ve stigati ons Treatment Plant Operati ons & Co ntrol WATER BACTERIOLOG Y Algal Id entifi cati o ns En viro nm ental Su rveys CORRO SION A sses sm ent & Preve nt io n 30 Shottery St. , Yeronga - Phone: (07) 48 7699 If no answer 202 6534

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COMPANY/ AUT HORITY TITLE ........................................................ Phone ..

HUMES

185 William Street, Melbourne 3000 .

Phone 60 0221 HC N

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For advertising in this Journal please contact : Phone (03) 347 2377 Mrs L. A . Geal - Advertising Manager C/- Appita , Clunies Ross House 191 Royal Parade, Parkville, Vic . 3052

WATER

KELLY & LEWIS INTRODUCES THE PURAC "FLOOFILTER" SYSTEM INTO AUSTRALIA

Potable and Industrial Water Treatnient Sewage and Waste WaterTreatnient KL-PU RAC Plants are manufactured by Kelly & Lewis Machinery under licence to Purac A.B. of Sweden.

Purac has acquired a sound reputation in process development, design, construction and commissioning over 500 water, sewage and industrial waste water treatment plants in 25 countries. ®

KL-PURAC Major lreatment Plants

AIR COMPRESSOR

Custom-designed plants are offered for: * Chemical treatment of su rface waters for potab le or industrial use . Specia lity: Flotation and Flotation-filter. ('Floofilter ® '). * Chemical treatment of industrial or municipal waste waters. Speciality: Flotation and vertical settling. * Mu lti-stage (2-s tage biol ogical or bio. logica l-c hem ica l) treatment of industrial or municipa l waste waters.

Speciality : Low energy systems.

KL-PU RAC Mobi le pilot p lant.

Process se lection may be supported by laboratory testing and the operation of a KL-Purac mobile pilot plant on site.

KLSewage lreatment Plants Th e KL range of packaged sewage treatment plants is also ava il ab le in a range of standard sizes, ideally suited for use as permanent plants for out-of-town factory /estate applications or for construction and mining sites.

These take l ess space than conventional p lants, may be in sta ll ed above or below ground, are re-useab le and odour-free .

Neat appearance and the absence of noise allow the plant to be located adjace nt to popu l ated areas or buil d in gs .

Typical Purac "Floofilter" system.

A time-tested technique.

PURAC FLOOFILTER® Reduces plant costs

PURAC FLOTATION Give superior overall economy.

The PURAC FLOOFILTER, in practical operation since the mid 1960's has proved to be a most reliable and competitive process combination and patented wide ly .

The f lotation-filter combines two separation techniq ues in one unit. A normal sand or multimedia filter is constructed in the bottom of a flotation tank with the unit control led and back-washed as a conventional fi l ter. Because of its compact design and overa ll economy, the F LOOF ILTER greatly reduces costs and space requirements.

* High overf low rate. * Lower civil construction costs. * Coagulant cons<.lmption often l ower than with sed i mentati on. *S ludge with a high dry solid s content. * Very high separation effic iency. *E fficient algae removal. * High oxygen content in effl uent . * Low se nsitivity to load variations .

KL-PURAC Packaged lreatment Plants Potable water treatment plants.

Comprehensive Technica l Literature is available on request

These p l ants may in corporate comprehensive treatment processes , w ith disin fection and fluoridation if required. Several standard sizes are available, suitable for very small communities, construct ion and mining sites. Th e l argest size is su itab le for commun ities of arou nd 6000 people .

~·J KELLY & LEWIS MACHINERY ,._,woRMRLD MACHINERY

P.0 . Box 75, Oakl eigh 3166 Victoria, Australia .

48-50 Hargreaves Street, Huntingdale 3166.

Telephone (03) 544 1266 Tel ex AA30378.

KL-Purac packaged potable water treatment p lant.

Brisbane: Sydney: Adelaide : Perth:

(07) (02) (08) (09)

275 9614 438 2066 42 4949 277 8466

KL895

Here's why you should dewater your coal fines and refuse with ·-~ Sharples®centrifuge.

We realize that fines are becoming finer and refuse is becoming more difficult to dewater. Our highperformance Super-D-Canter®centrifuges have been engineered to solve these more difficult coal dewatering problems.

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We've developed sintered • tungsten carbide hard surfacing - a patented Sharples innovation - to provide outstanding resistance to scratching, grinding, and gouging abrasion .

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We've designed our Super• D-Canter centrifuges with large length-to-diameter ratios and high settling forces to increase efficiency and throughput (up to 1000 gpm).

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stantly improving our centrifuges for over 50 years. And we're experts in centrifugal dewatering of all kinds of difficult materials .

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On-site testing. No two • dewatering operations are alike. That's why we test your actual fines and/ or refuse to examine your specific needs.

Experience. We've been designing, building, and con-

Larfe Supct·D Canter• otmtt,lut,~ 1,a..., 1hroci4hpof rate, up to 1000 CPM .

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We've utilized stainless steel construction to guard against corrosion and vibrationinduced imbalance, lower maintenance costs, reduce downtime and parts replacement.

Start looking at cost-effective Sharples centrifuges today. Contact your nearast Sharples engineering/ sales office.

If your present or proposed dewatering equipment doesn't offer all of these cost-effective advantages, see us.

~r.JE~'MLT SHARf.JLES-STOKES f.JTY. LTD. PO Box 2344 Nth Parramatta, NSW, 2151 Tel: (02) 683-3511 Telex: AA20677 Cables: Pennwalt Sydney

Sharples' PM-95,()()() centrifuge handles up to J()()()GPM