Melbourne Water

Melbourne Water
Agency overview
Formed	1992
Jurisdiction	Government of Victoria
Headquarters	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Agency executives	Nerina Di Lorenzo, Managing Director; John Thwaites, Chairman of the Board;
Website	www.melbournewater.com.au

Melbourne Water is an Australian statutory authority owned by the Victorian State Government, which controls and manages much of the water bodies and supplies in metropolitan Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. Its jurisdiction includes all the reservoirs, lakes, wetlands, canals and urban creeks, and the sewerage and drainage systems that services the city.

Melbourne Water was formed by the merger of Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works and a number of smaller urban water authorities in 1992. Melbourne Water primarily operates under the Water Industry Act 1994 and the Water Act 1989.^[1]

Overview

Melbourne Water is wholly owned by the Victorian State Government. It manages Melbourne's water supply catchments, sewage, rivers and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region. Governance of Melbourne Water is by an independent Board of Directors in conjunction with the Minister for Water.

Melbourne Water supplies water to the metropolitan retail water businesses (namely, Great Western Water, South East Water and Yarra Valley Water^[2]), other water authorities, local councils and the land development industry.^[3] The Victorian Water Industry Association (VicWater) is the peak industry association for water companies in Victoria.

In 1994, Melbourne Parks and Waterways was separated from Melbourne Water, and became part of Parks Victoria in 1996.

Victorian Desalination Plant

The Victorian Desalination Plant is a A$3.1 billion desalination plant that was built in the Wonthaggi region of the Bass Coast.^[4] The plant can provide an additional 150 gigalitres of water each year.^[5]^[6] The base fee payable to the owner of the plant, even if no water is ordered, is $608 million a year,^[7] or $1.8 million per day, for 27 years. being between $18 and $19 billion in total.^[8] On 1 April each year, the Minister for Water places an order for the following financial year, up to 150 gigalitres a year, at an additional cost to Melbourne Water and consumers.^[8]

Northern Sewerage Project

Northern Sewerage Project is a major infrastructure project to increase the capacity of the sewerage system in Melbourne's growing northern suburbs. It will also help protect the Merri and Moonee Ponds Creeks by virtually eliminating sewage overflows that can occur after heavy rain.

Water restrictions

Melbourne Water has a system of restrictions to manage water supplies into the future. It reports on storage levels on Thursday each week^[9] while an interactive graph compares actual use. Further reviews of restrictions were needed to counter an ongoing drought, poor rainfall, record low storage levels and rising water use compared with past years.

Infrastructure

The water supply system operated and managed by Melbourne Water comprises:

catchments covering more than 140,000 hectares.
ten major storage reservoirs with a capacity of 1,810,500 megalitres.
64 service reservoirs that provide short-term storage.
about 1300 kilometres of distribution mains and aqueducts.
18 water pumping stations, used to pump water from low-lying areas to higher areas.
five water filtration plants.
49 water treatment (disinfection) plants.

Water storages

Melbourne Water manages the ten Melbourne reservoirs. The total storage capacity is 1,810,500 megalitres.^[10]

Melbourne reservoirs
Reservoir	Capacity (ML)	Year completed	Location
Thomson	1,068,000	1983	37°50′34″S 146°23′56″E / 37.84278°S 146.39889°E / -37.84278; 146.39889 (Thomson Reservoir)
Sugarloaf	96,000	1981	37°40′30″S 145°18′18″E / 37.6749°S 145.3051°E / -37.6749; 145.3051 (Sugarloaf Reservoir)
Cardinia	287,000	1973	37°57′49″S 145°24′37″E / 37.9637°S 145.4102°E / -37.9637; 145.4102 (Cardinia Reservoir)
Greenvale	27,000	1971	37°37′53″S 144°54′17″E / 37.63139°S 144.90472°E / -37.63139; 144.90472 (Greenvale Reservoir)
Tarago	37,500	1969	38°1′S 145°56′E / 38.017°S 145.933°E / -38.017; 145.933 (Tarago Reservoir)
Upper Yarra	200,000	1957	37°41′S 145°55′E / 37.683°S 145.917°E / -37.683; 145.917 (Upper Yarra Reservoir)
Silvan	40,000	1932	37°50′S 145°25′E / 37.833°S 145.417°E / -37.833; 145.417 (Silvan Reservoir)
O'Shannassy	3,000	1928	37°40′30″S 145°48′20″E / 37.67500°S 145.80556°E / -37.67500; 145.80556 (O'Shannassy Reservoir)
Maroondah	22,000	1927	37°38′05″S 145°33′47″E / 37.63472°S 145.56306°E / -37.63472; 145.56306 (Maroondah Reservoir)
Yan Yean	30,000	1857	37°33′S 145°08′E / 37.550°S 145.133°E / -37.550; 145.133 (Yan Yean Reservoir)

Water supply catchments

Around 80% of Melbourne's water is sourced from uninhabited forests in the Yarra Ranges and Central Highlands. In excess of 1,570 square kilometres is reserved for water catchment. These forests primarily consist of Mountain Ash. Catchment areas have been closed to the public for over 100 years .^[11]^[12]^[13]

Major catchments^[13]
Catchment	Area (ha)	Inflow (%)	Comment
Thomson	48700	35.3	mainly State Forest and a small section within Baw Baw National Park
Upper Yarra	33670	18.7	within the Yarra Ranges National Park
O'Shannassy	11870	11.4	within the Yarra Ranges National Park
Maroondah	16540	10.8	within the Yarra Ranges National Park
Sugarloaf	0	10.7	water is pumped from the Yarra River and fully treated
Yarra Tributaries	13480	3.8	Armstrong, Cement, McMahons and Starvation Creeks (State Forest)
Wallaby	9100	1.9	within the Kinglake National Park
Total		92.6

In addition to the reservoirs in the table above, water is harvested via a number of diversion weirs:

Point	Coordinates (links to map & photo sources)	Notes
Silver Creek Weir	37°21′22″S 145°12′35″E / 37.356171°S 145.209854°E / -37.356171; 145.209854 (Silver Creek Weir)	To Toorourrong Reservoir
Wallaby Creek Weir	37°24′16″S 145°14′48″E / 37.404495°S 145.246650°E / -37.404495; 145.246650 (Wallaby Creek Weir)	To Toorourrong Reservoir
Toorourrong Reservoir	37°28′32″S 145°09′08″E / 37.475430°S 145.152296°E / -37.475430; 145.152296 (Toorourrong Reservoir)
Donnelly Weir	37°37′41″S 145°32′10″E / 37.628°S 145.536°E / -37.628; 145.536 (Donnelly Weir)	To Maroondah Aqueduct
Sawpit Creek Weir	37°38′02″S 145°32′31″E / 37.634°S 145.542°E / -37.634; 145.542 (Sawpit Creek Weir)	To Maroondah Aqueduct
Grace Burn Creek Weir	37°39′18″S 145°34′26″E / 37.655°S 145.574°E / -37.655; 145.574 (Grace Burn Creek Weir)	To Maroondah Reservoir
Badger Creek Weir	37°41′10″S 145°34′55″E / 37.686°S 145.582°E / -37.686; 145.582 (Badger Creek Weir)	To Silvan Reservoir
Armstrong Creek Weir	37°38′13″S 145°51′36″E / 37.637°S 145.860°E / -37.637; 145.860 (Armstrong Creek Weir)	To Silvan Reservoir^[14]
Armstrong Creek East Branch Weir	37°38′17″S 145°51′50″E / 37.638°S 145.864°E / -37.638; 145.864 (Armstrong Creek East Branch Weir)	To Silvan Reservoir^[14]
Cement Creek Weir	37°43′S 145°45′E / 37.71°S 145.75°E / -37.71; 145.75 (Cement Creek Weir)	To Silvan Reservoir^[14]
McMahons Creek Weir	37°43′S 145°53′E / 37.72°S 145.88°E / -37.72; 145.88 (McMahons Creek Weir)	To Silvan Reservoir^[14]
Starvation Creek Weir	37°46′S 145°51′E / 37.76°S 145.85°E / -37.76; 145.85 (Starvation Creek Weir)	To Silvan Reservoir^[14]

Clearfell logging is permitted in the Yarra Tributaries and Thomson catchment areas. Some studies claims this reduces Melbourne's water supply arguing that young regrowth forest uses more water than existing forest^[14]^[15]^[16] Some environmental groups claim that up to 30 thousand megalitres of water could be saved per annum by phasing out logging. This represents 6% of Melbourne's annual usage.^[17]