Deja Vu: Tanks For Square

The Age

Thursday February 15, 2007

CLAY LUCAS, CITY REPORTER

RAINWATER tanks will be fitted to Federation Square to flush toilets - a plan matching one the State Government dumped in 2002.

Had the tanks been installed then, they would by now have saved 18 million litres of water, the State Opposition says.

The rainwater tanks were dropped from the square's plans in 2002 to save $350,000 - compared with Federation Square's eventual price tag of $450 million, almost four times a Kennett government estimate of $120 million.

Tanks with a capacity of 300,000 litres will be installed this year and collect water from the roof of Champions, the Australian Racing Museum, on the square's southern side. It will be used to flush toilets throughout the square.

They will cost $200,000 to install, but will likely lead to a fall in Federation Square's sky-high water bill. Federation Square, which includes the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, is among Melbourne's top 200 water users. Its utilities bill was $1.1 million last financial year.

"The original design for Federation Square included water tanks to recycle water for toilet flushing and watering gardens," Opposition water spokeswoman Louise Asher said. "The Labor Government dumped the water savings plan to cut costs.

"Six years after having made this ridiculous decision to scrap the rainwater tanks, Labor now decides that the taxpayer should fund water tanks."

When the Government decided to scrap the tanks, Melbourne's reservoirs were 70 per cent full. Today they are about 35 per cent full.

Government spokesman Tim Mitchell accused Ms Asher, a Kennett government minister, of hypocrisy. Had that government managed the project better, cost-cutting would not have been necessary, he said, saying the project was over budget when the Bracks Government took it over.

Despite a public relations and promotions budget of $525,625 in 2005-06, square management last night issued a one-line statement through a PR consultant saying it had no comment.

© 2007 The Age

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