Perth's drinking water supplies from dams will run out by the end of next summer even with decent rainfall, according to predictions by the Centre for Water Research.By then, Perth and the South-West would become solely reliant on water supplied from the already stressed Gnangara Mound aquifer and the Kwinana desalination plant, director Jorg Imberger said.
Even using an optimistic calculation that 35 gigalitres (35 billion litres) of rainwater would flow into the city's dams - far greater than the 13 gigalitres last year - the dams would run dry.
"(Even) given recycled water, less water use, pumping the surface aquifer at Gnangara Mound a little bit more and hoping for rain, we'll basically have no water left at the end of summer 2012," Professor Imberger said.
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Update 30 May: No need to be squeamish
There has been predictable squeamishness about the news that the Water Corporation has been asked to fast-track its Groundwater Replenishment Trial, ramping it up far beyond the current rate of 5 million litres treated and injected into the ground each day.
Since it launched last November, the trial has pumped 544.5 million litres of treated water into the Gnangara Mound, which provides 90 per cent of Perth's groundwater, via an injection well at the corporation's Beenyup water treatment site.
Ask a Londoner about water recycling and they'll tell you it's a simple fact of life, even though they will probably complain about the rain in their next breath.
The fact is that Perth and the South West are in trouble, despite the impressive response to the Water Corporation's challenge to Perth households to save 60 litres per day over the past few months.
Currently, Perth dumps 300 million litres of wastewater a day into the Indian Ocean - much of it after extensive treatment. Instead of throwing that water away, groundwater replenishment would see large amounts of that water rescued, treated to a higher standard and then used to preserve our aquifers.
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