Port Lincoln, South Australia: Regional city faces running out of water in two years, but residents can’t agree on how to fix the problem

The water situation is so dire in an Australian city that it could dry up in just two years if something drastic is not done now.

Residents of Port Lincoln and the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia have been drinking water from an underground basin, but overextraction means 28,000 water users are now at risk.

“We are running out of time and we must act,” said South Africa’s Water Minister Nick Champion. ABC 7.30 program. ‘The aquifers are becoming salty.

‘We have exhausted our ability to use Mother Nature as a water resource. “We just have to move forward and find the solution.”

One of the main proposals to address the problem is a desalination plant, but many of the city’s 15,000 residents disagree over where it should be installed.

Eyre Peninsula Seafoods chief executive Mark Andrews believes installing a desalination plant at Billy Lights Point could ruin his multi-million dollar business.

“Why would you want to put a desalination plant in an aquaculture area?” he said.

“We are the largest processor, producer and marketer of mussels in Australia, representing 65 per cent of the industry and employing 76 people across factory, office and marketing boats.”

Andrews said his business depended on mussel farms in the waters near Port Lincoln, which he fears could be destroyed by a huge pipeline that will carry seawater to the desalination plant.

“Let’s call it a vacuum cleaner and that vacuum cleaner sucks the water through the desalination plant and my dispute goes with it,” he said.

“It’s absorbed by the desalination plant intake and therefore it’s not there for me to catch.”

However, the Water Minister said that following feedback from the industry, the pipelines would now be laid in deeper water than originally planned.

Champion said scientists looked at the potential impact on aquaculture and there would be no effect on mussels.

“We could look at this forever if we wanted to, but we don’t have the luxury of time,” he said.

‘We will run out of water on the Eyre Peninsula.

“It will have catastrophic effects for the people of Eyre Peninsula, including the fishing industry.”

Billy Lights Point is the cheapest option to locate a desalination plant with an estimated bill of $13 million.

Another site further away from the aquaculture farms was initially chosen, but was abandoned because construction there would cost at least $500 million.

“It’s just not a practical place to build one,” Champion said.

“It’s 20 kilometers from Port Lincoln, you have to pump the water uphill… It’s a foolish investment in which we would be wasting good money after bad.”

But Andrews said it would be worth spending the extra money, as the region’s fishing industry is worth more than $200 million a year.

“Everyone on the Eyre Peninsula wants water security…spending a little extra money now for the long-term growth and benefit of a region pays dividends,” he said.

Farmer Jamie Siviour, whose drinking water comes from the over-extracted underground basin, said the situation is urgent and must be resolved.

“Without running water we cannot raise sheep,” he said.

“We don’t have a river…this area around here is not conducive to dams.”

While Siviour is sympathetic to the aquaculture industry, he is concerned that further delays in the construction of the desalination plant could make the aquifer’s water undrinkable.

“It would mean we would have to start reducing the number of sheep, even stop having sheep,” he said.

Champion said now is the time to act.

“I think there’s been a lot of wishful thinking all over the place, indulgent thinking, frankly, not just in (the) bureaucratic or political world… but also in the community, and it still continues to this day,” he said. saying.