Why does Western Australia need another desalination plant?
There are no simple solutions or quick fixes when it comes to planning Western Australia’s water supplies. The Water Corporation puts a great deal of effort into planning for our future needs and our challenge is to provide safe, reliable water services to West Australians in an ever drying climate. The state has been hit hard with reduced inflows to dams and since 2001 we are at 25 per cent of the inflow we had in 1974. There are a whole range of initiatives we are undertaking by way of our ‘security through diversity’ policy like waste water recycling, catchment thinning and management, introducing efficiency measures, increasing groundwater production and bringing on new sources like the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant in Kwinana. By 2031, Perth is expected to need an extra 150 gigalitres (thousand million litres) of water (equivalent to four Serpentine Dams). The Southern Seawater Desalination Plant will go a long way towards meeting the ever-growing demand for water by initially
