Gold Coast desalination project

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Please improve this article if you can. (October 2007)

The Gold Coast desalination project is a proposed desalination plant to supply water to the Gold Coast and South East Queensland to be built at Tugun.

After investigations by the Gold Coast Desalination Alliance the Gold Coast City Council chose Tugun as the most suitable site for the desalination plant. The cost is expected to be in excess of $1 billion. The GCD Alliance consists of Veolia Water, John Holland Group, Sinclair Knight Merz and Gold Coast Water.

Initial plans were for a $260 million plant producing 55 megalitres a day. The State Government then contributed $869 million to increase the output to 125 megalitres a day to share with the rest of southeast Queensland. An additional increase in output to 167 megalitres a day has been approved and this will maximise the pipe capacity.

The Gold Coast desalination plant will be powered entirely from fossil fuels and at a time when the coal fired power stations have significantly reduced capacity due to the drought. At a rate of over 4 kWh per cubic meter to produce this will be the most expensive source of water in Australia.

1 The Tugun site
2 Community concerns
3 External links
4 References

[edit] The Tugun site

28.1571° S 153.497° E^[1]
Tugun was selected as the preferred site for the proposed plant because:

It has the least environmental impact when compared to the other short listed sites
It has the lowest comparative net present value cost
It is the only site to which sufficient power can be provided to enable the facility to be operational within the required timeframe
It is aligned with community values and expectations – community consultation conducted late last year highlighted that environmental impacts and cost were the most important issues when considering the location of the proposed plant
It is compatible with surrounding land use
It is within close proximity to the ocean and hence requires the shortest intake and outtake pipelines of the three site options
The inlet and outlet pipes cross a minor fault line