Facilitating recycling of stormwater and reclaimed water via aquifers in Australia. Milestone report 4.1 and 4.2 MAR policy and guidelines support workshops report: Follow up report for MAR policy and guidelines support workshops.

[摘要] As part of the "Facilitating Recycling of Stormwater and Reclaimed Water via Aquifers in Australia" project, CSIRO ran two workshops in each of five jurisdictions intended to give exposure to MAR policy issues and consideration to implementing alternative instruments and to facilitate effective use of the MAR Guidelines.The policy workshops targeted natural resources managers and were also attended by representatives of water utilities, with a total attendance of 54 people. The risk assessment case studies were aimed at regulators and proponents of MAR projects, including utilities, local government and consultants. Attendees also included researchers and, in Victoria, representatives of community groups. In Queensland this also extended to energy companies interested in recharge of coal seam gas water for various purposes. The national audience was 158 people.Discussions in the workshops were used to modify and refine a brochure on policy framework and also to inform on the edits to the risk assessment case studies report.Evaluation forms suggested that the workshops met the needs of most attendees. They also showed that there is a long pathway ahead for reform of urban water policies to facilitate robust management. This particularly applies to entitlements to stormwater, sewage and recovery of recharged water and transfers of entitlements. A transitional arrangement is proposed starting from „licence to operate‟ and eventually reaching National Water Initiative compliant entitlements activated on trigger points related to competition for resources. Policies and procedures need to be in place before that time arrives, and the environmental flows and consumptive pools, and harvesting capabilities need to be determined to facilitate a scientific approach.The MAR Guidelines generally met the expectations and needs of attendees, and linkages with other NWQMS guidelines were considered effective. There were 34 responses to the question concerning issues the guidelines fail to address, do not address well or what further information would be most useful. More information on groundwater monitoring strategies, inter-aquifer leakage, recharge weirs, and assessing risks from pathogens, trace organics, nano-particles and greenhouse gases were requested. These warrant attention either in a future revision or through further supporting technical information, possibly in the form of a „how-to establish a MAR project‟ document. There were requests for case studies to be included in the guidelines, and attendees were informed that the risk assessment case studies (Page et al 2010) will be web-mounted in CSIRO with a web link from the EPHC web site adjacent the MAR guidelines and they will be emailed to advise when this has been done. It would appear this should be extended with indirect potable reuse of recycled water and coal seam gas water recycling case studies.Attendees left this 3 hour workshop with a very high degree of confidence they could complete an entry level assessment (having completed a worked example). More time would be required to complete a stage 2 risk assessment with equivalent confidence. Respondents expressed a very strong desire for further workshops on MAR guidelines.MAR Workshops Report viThe need was also evidenced by the large number of attendees (47%) willing to spend three hours attending a workshop on guidelines they had not read. These guidelines are relatively basic, even intuitive, to those who are familiar with them, but, for others who have a need to understand them, the thought of reading them is daunting. Those responsible for NWQMS documents could take into account the varied preferred learning pathways of individuals and provide opportunities for increasing exposure and ease of use of guidelines through periodic workshops. The frequency and locations could address the high rate of turnover of professionals in regulating roles and the increasing number of recycling projects and proponents

[发布日期] 2010-06-01 [发布机构] CSIRO

[学科分类] 地球科学(综合)