A Senate committee inquiry into stormwater management in Australia recommends that the three tiers of government develop and implement a national policy framework for stormwater management, called the National Stormwater Initiative.
The Committee was established on the initiative of Independent South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, following representations from leading stormwater industry members, including Stormwater Australia President Andrew Allan.
Senator Xenophon called on the Federal Government to establish the initiative and explore with state governments new funding models to put stormwater on a secure national footing.
“A national stormwater policy agenda is a no-brainer in responding to the challenges of water security, flood control and climate change,” Xenophon says.
“Historically, state and federal governments had largely neglected stormwater management, seeing it as the ‘poor cousin’ of water supply and sanitation which generated huge revenues from households. Local governments were often forced to fund projects as best they could.”
The Committee received 64 submissions, including a number from IPWEA’s Australasian office and NSW Division, and held public hearings in Melbourne and Adelaide.
Traditionally, stormwater has been carried away from urban areas as quickly as possible in an extensive drainage network. However, the inquiry report remarks that “in a country that has a history of acute water shortages, the under-utilisation of stormwater is, on the face of it, surprising”.
The Committee notes that stormwater can cause significant environmental damage by transporting pollutants to receiving waters and eroding waterways as it does so. Climate change and increased urban densities in our major cities threaten to worsen those problems.
However, the Committee sees several benefits from improved stormwater management. These include harvesting more stormwater to help preserve other water supplies; more non-potable use of stormwater so that less water has to be treated; making cities more resistant to flooding and maybe less need to increase the capacity of existing (often ageing) stormwater infrastructure.
The Committee notes several apparent weaknesses with the current approach, under which stormwater management is the responsibility of individual state and local governments. Local councils have primary responsibility for stormwater but they have limited ability to make decisions that are outside their immediate area of responsibility, and can be affected by actions, or inaction, in neighbouring local government areas.
The Committee heard evidence that the state governments’ narrow objectives for the metropolitan water utilities does not allow them to get more involved in best practice stormwater management.
The report states that the Federal Government should provide leadership, by promoting the advantages of improved stormwater management, noting the success of past Commonwealth-funded stormwater projects and research, Commonwealth part-funding of most major urban infrastructure projects and that major flooding disasters often require Commonwealth assistance. It suggests that better stormwater management to minimise these long-term costs may be in the Australian Government’s own financial interests.
The Committee concludes that the Australian Government can make a significant contribution by providing national leadership in stormwater policy through the proposed National Stormwater Initiative.
The Australian Government should:
1. Establish a national policy framework for stormwater management based on whole-of-water-cycle principles
2. Facilitate coordination between the states and the sharing of lessons learnt from stormwater policies and projects
3. Promote a consistent, national approach to stormwater so that private firms with leading-edge technologies can apply them around Australia and overseas
4. Outline the structure for funding, co-funding, conditions for funding, incentives, policy setting and data collection
5. Encourage all governments to consider new funding models and financial incentives to facilitate improved stormwater management in an economically efficient way.
As a first step, to inform the development of the policy and regulatory framework under the National Stormwater Initiative, the Committee recommends immediate audits to establish the scope of stormwater opportunities (water security, plus environmental and economic benefits) and collate stormwater knowledge into a central repository to aid future decision-making.
Despite its current and ongoing budgetary challenges, it is hoped that the Committee’s recommendations will receive sympathetic consideration from the Australian Government. Participation in the Committee by members of all the main parties, the sound bases for the recommendations made and their modest cost gives cause for cautious optimism.
By IPWEA Director Sustainability Stephen Lees