The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) spent the latter decades of the 20th century fully integrating the surface and sub-surface drainage systems with the water distribution network in northern Victoria, thereby enabling complete recycling of outfalls, leaks and seepage from its channels. Yet in 2007, in repudiation of this recycling capacity, DSE announced a multibillion dollar modernisation project it claims will “create” 450 GL of “new water” by reducing “inefficiencies” in the channel distribution system. Examination of the northern Victorian irrigation supply system shows it was fully integrated with more than adequate recycling capacity before the project began. In a classic case of double counting, DSE was already... |