19 August 2005

Stuart Bryan, Design Engineer, Albury Water was the recipient of the Water Directorate's Conference Attendance Award in 2005. Stuart attended the AWA OzWater 05 in Brisbane and was co-sponsored by the Water Directorate and AWA.

A requirement of this Award is to prepare a short report on the benefits and insights that you receive from attending a national water industry conference.

Below is a copy of the report prepared by Stuart for the Executive Committee.  Many thanks to Stuart for preparing this excellent report and congratulations to him once again.

Nominations for the Conference Attendance Award will be called for later this year with the winner attending Enviro 06 in May to be held in Melbourne.

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OZWATER 05 CONFERENCE ATTENDEE AWARD REPORT

by Stuart Bryan, Albury Water

I am most grateful for the generosity of the Water Directorate and the Australian Water Association in granting me the opportunity to attend Ozwater 05. Being immersed in such an environment, with the freedom to access a diverse range of presentations, exhibition stalls and discussions amongst conference attendees expanded and clarified my understanding of Australia's water industry. In the brief account that follows I have tried to synthesise the tangible things I learnt from the week, which I hope have made me more useful to Albury Water.

The recent drought has jolted Australian society's awareness of the preciousness of water, our systemic/cultural misuse of it and the implications for our natural environment. Ozwater 05 was therefore under the symbolic spotlight and its theme, "Watershed: The turning point for water", conveyed an appropriate sense of urgency. This was reinforced by keynote speaker Eric Rosenblum's argument against the adequacy of traditional economic-based decision models (which have devalued our future environment) and his call for the precautionary principle because, "this generation may be the first to understand the consequences of our actions and the last to be able to do something about it." These sentiments were complimented by the tone of the conference papers that followed. Indeed, the final point of one of the last presenters was simply "Triple bottom line," because (I loosely quote), "I haven't mentioned it yet but I just thought I should." From the University of South Australia, Henning Bjornlund's study of the Murray River was valuable in reminding us of the socio-economic effects when the environmental pendulum swings too far the other way. He went on to propose a policy framework aimed at protecting environmental flows while facilitating the efficient trade of water (and subsequent drought security as on-farm storage is tradable) through the separation of access/water source entitlements from water use rights.

The presentations by our state capital city water authorities were poignant in their similarity and painted a common experience of the drought. Aside from where each one actually lay along the public relations-action continuum in terms of responses to water scarcity, the information was the same: low reservoir storage levels stressed by rising populations, integrated water cycle management strategies, demand management strategies, and an eye out for innovative solutions. Early in Ozwater 05, keynote speaker Ralph Otterpohl had challenged our paradigms with a showcase of decentralised German wastewater treatment schemes and a faith that "we can do more than we think we can". He stressed the social construction of technology which requires engineers to bring the end-users into the development process to maximise take-up. Iain Laws provided a demonstrable case of this not happening, however, as Australian paradigms still prevent the closure of tertiary treated effluent-potable water loops (within the same system). The champions of the resurgent phenomena of urban rainwater tanks highlighted the role this technology can play in harvesting would-be stormwater and reducing, in the impassioned words of Shaun Cox of Gold Coast Water, the "dog shit in our oceans and water ways". The mandatory topic of climate change was addressed by Bruce Rhodes of Melbourne Water who concluded that there are big uncertainties as to how it may manifest but we must plan with location-specific risks in mind. I also noticed a popular argument for the status quo amongst conference attendees was that drought is simply a cyclical event. Tom Loetscher of the University of Queensland offered the idea of his embryonic Naiaf Project to share information across our water industry. If embraced and developed, it has great potential to aid in the transfer of technical innovations to water industry standards and guide the selection of the most appropriate technology for a given application.

The principle of Loetscher's Naiaf Project would seem to stem from his work on the SANEX tool for choosing the most appropriate sanitation methods in developing communities. I originally became interested in the water industry because water supply and sanitation are the most critical aspect of public health, yet even in Australia, they are not universal givens. I spoke with Chris Wooton, CEO of the recently established non-government organisation, WaterAid Australia at their exhibition stall. I believe the way in which WaterAid have broadly established themselves within the water industry is a first for an NGO and translates into great potential for fundraising, raising public awareness and sourcing expertise. Chris presented WaterAid's refreshingly level-headed view of development that incorporated the social construction of technology principals emphasised by Rolf Otterpohl, and was used to shape the fundamental design of their East Timor programme. If our water industry and society were to fully support WaterAid, Australia may more fully appreciate both the fragility and fortune of our celebrated quality of life by becoming open to the reality of communities without functioning public health infrastructure.

In closing, there were many lessons at Ozwater 05 for a young engineer like myself to learn. Being surrounded by such a concentration of water expertise, wisdom and technology was a very humbling yet inspiring experience and for this reason alone, I hope the Water Directorate and the Australian Water Association continues to support the Conference Attendance Award initiative.

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