Australia's National Local Government Newspaper Online

Urban Stormwater Initiative

Many young Australians participating in this years's World Environment Day celebrations in Adelaide voiced the 'need to do more for our environment'.

On the same day, Senator Robert Hill, the Minister for Environment and Heritage, launched a combined stormwater and wastewater management project for Parafield in Adelaide. This $1.8M Commonwealth initiative will reduce water intake from the Murray and pollution discharges into Gulf St.Vincent's Barker Inlet.

The Parafield project is part of the $8.2 million commitment by the Commonwealth Government for the Urban Stormwater Initiative (USI), under Living Cities. The initiative encourages stormwater to be used as a 'natural resource asset', for regional development.

The USI supports integrated catchment management and capital works that capture, treat and recycle urban stormwater.

Strong industry source control, water sensitive urban design and community education are key components of projects funded under this program. Among the early projects announced by Senator Robert Hill are:

• Stormwater recycling in the Kogarah Town Square where treated effluent will be used in car washes, toilets and water features.
• Stormwater treatment through a constructed wetland system incorporating low cost devices at Lake Macquarie, NSW.

The $1.5m Cleaning Our Waterways Industry Partnership Program (COWIPP) is part of the Urban Waterways component of Living Cities. These programs will tackle industrial waterway pollution in major coastal cities, focusing strongly on management actions like source control, cleaner production and reuse.

COWIPP also pursues 'eco-efficiency' - improving industry profitability while enhancing environmental performance. Demonstration projects under COWIPP will be developed in cooperation with industry associations, State agencies, Local Government, individual firms and groups of firms in industrial clusters. They provide concrete examples of sustainable development while pioneering new technologies and approaches for managing wastewater and stormwater.

All programs (CSP, USI and COWIPP) showcase nationally significant demonstration projects..

For further information on CSP, USI or COWIPP contact Garry Reynolds at Environment Australia, on (02) 6274 1684 or email garry.reynolds@ea.gov.au

Click on the FOCUS logo to return to the October 2000 Green Edition