|
Senator Penny Wong
Minister for Climate Change & Water
Hon Karlene Maywald
Minister for the River Murray
Minister for Water Security Communities at Point Sturt and Hindmarsh Island on the Lower Lakes now have secure drinking water as part of a project funded by the Commonwealth Government's Water for the Future and State Government's Murray Futures programs. Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, and South Australian Minister for the River Murray, Karlene Maywald, said yesterday the pipeline project has already begun delivering both drinking and livestock water to the Lower Lakes communities. Senator Wong says the early completion of the project has been a huge relief for the Point Sturt and Hindmarsh Island communities. "For many local farmers, the completion of the pipeline has meant drinking quality water is now flowing through both their home and stock taps for the first time in many months," Senator Wong says. "The completion of this project builds on the work we have undertaken in the past 18 months to connect more Lower Lakes communities to a secure source of both drinking and stock water, where the supply from the Lakes is no longer viable source. Another project is now delivering water to irrigators in the Langhorne Creek and Currency Creek areas. "I am pleased to see that the Lower Lakes communities and their farmers have now been assured increased water security. This will provide a much-needed economic boost to rural landholders." The Point Sturt – Hindmarsh Island project was announced in October 2009 after $7.34 million of contingency funding was made available from the $120 million Lower Lakes Integrated Pipelines program to provide both drinking and stock water to the region. "These two communities, which in recent months had been carting water for drinking and stock, were given an early Christmas gift as they turned on their taps to high quality drinking water on Christmas Eve," Minister Maywald says. "The fact that the pipeline project was completed ahead of schedule is further testament to the efforts of SA Water, with the construction team laying anywhere up to 1.5 kilometres of pipe a day." Construction of the new water supply network to service the communities of Point Sturt and Hindmarsh Island began in late November. Some 24 kilometres of pipeline were laid and further infrastructure works completed in about one month. The first pipeline is an 11-kilometre extension branching from the Milang-Clayton pipeline to Point Sturt on Lake Alexandrina. The second pipeline is a 12.6 kilometre extension from an existing main servicing the Hindmarsh Island marina precinct in the southwest to the eastern side of the Island.
|
