Yesterday we released our pricing proposal for the next three years.
Fundamentally we are proposing to
1. change our inflow assumptions to be more conservative to reflect the drier climate
2. revise our restriction level forecast in to the future to reflect the drier inflows
3. bring forward prices rises that we proposed next year.
This means that a house that uses about 170kL (which is pretty close to the average) will have an increase of about $90.
For more information try this link.
Look forward to hearing your comments.
Gavin
I dont want to pay anymore for water. But if I have to it should be the part of the bill that I can control. ie I get rewarded if I am water wise…
Why not tell the truth, this is another Brumby cash grab. The Water Act requires that you make a double return to the Victorian Government, that is an operating profit AND a return on investment. The more you invest in facility the more that is required to be returned. This is an unending upward price spiral.
How about publishing detailed accounts in the press each year. information of substance and less spin please.
thanks for comment, we have posted it verbatim. Coliban has not returned a dividend to government since 2002. Our annual report which details financials is available on this web site. click on this link.
Gavin
I noticed recently two articles in the Bendigo Weekly on the small subdivision dams withholding water from lake Eppalock, was this a leak to the media to test the water or is it not in your thoughts, sounds very tempting though to deny this water to the small holder then onsell to the Bendigo people[those with the money] at a premium. Something you should be concened about,these automatic sprinklers operating in the early hours running water down the drains,that indicates they are on for too long or incorrectly placed. possibly both.
Thanks for your comment. It has been posted verbatim. Small farm dams are a problem. As on one hand people have a right to water and therefore should be able to build a dam if they like and on the other they take water from the natural environment and from other storages already built. Small farm dams, that is, those dams that are built on small rural lifestyle blocks are only part of the recent landscape. They have had a large impact on inflows to rivers and storages. It has been estimated by the CMA that it is up to 30% of the water. This water provides environmental flows to rivers and underpins security for the Regional Centres like Bendigo . Once the dams are built there is very little that can be done about it. Certainly in the future we will continue to work with the likes of the Council and the CMA to ensure that rural subdivisions are carefully designed to try and minimise the impact on rivers and the large storages.
Gavin
I would love an explanation as to how Coliban Water can charge $38.93 for water consumption for a 3 month period but the total bill is $157.55!!! $25.03 for the service fee which is fair enough, but $114.51 for sewerage fee!!! This is a 2 person household. We would not flush our toilet more than 3 times per day. We try to be water savvy and only flush when (obviously necessary). I really do object to the huge difference where the service fee is the same whether there are 4, 5 or 6 family households being charged the same sewerage fee and obviously utilising the sewer much more than our or a one person only household. Any increase is again going to hit the older people who can least afford it.
The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts released a Consultation Regulation Impact Statement on NATIONAL WATER INITIATIVE PRICING PRINCIPLES in November 2009.
See http://www.environment.gov.au/water/policy-programs/urban-reform/nwi-pricing-principles.html.
Coliban Water’s proposed price increase is not consistent with the National Water Initiative for Australia.
Thanks Gavin,
Your presentation at the info night in Castlemaine was excellent- as usual!
Of course none of us want water prices to rise and would like to see more stringent controls to protect upper capping of bills for economically vulnerable households.
However, we like what you are proposing to the ESC – the hard work Coliban have done on its values and its justice and its logic and its economics. We appreciate the work you are doing for just short medium and long term for water futures in our shire.
That you are doing what you can to reduce costs -eg permanent staff increases vs contractors – and that you are proposing to reduce the flat rate fixed cost component of bills for both potable and sewerage is excellent; to estimate costs to fluctuate within a band depending on water availability is a fair way to go- provided there are some brakes imposed by governments on water trading on the spiralling out of control prices of agricultural water.
That you are having to buy on that open market to provide product for your customers must push up water prices onto reticulation customers. As it is not fair in the agricultural sector both for production and consumption economics, it remains also unfair for town customers.
As you know, our first concern remains is how quickly can the old infrastructure channels be piped from the southern water catchments to McKay and other storages to stop the ‘operational water’ huge percentage of lost potable per Mg delivered; though sleeving reduces seepage, it is just not good enough, because of evaporation losses.
You said tonight that that would be addressed in the next pricing period, 2013-18.
While it is excellent that it is now firmly on the agenda, as usual we would argue that the costs of not doing it till then are way too high; that potable needs to be saved and of course, the costs of doing that infrastructure retrofit will nicrease annually – a delay that all up makes no sense.
Please can you look at moving that project forward into the second half of this ESC pricing period- into 2010-3, putting it forward with your pricing proposals.
And of course we are pleased the MOU about farm dams is starting to have impact.
Please can you notify us when the powerpoint from tonight is uploaded with its link.
Also please can you tell us more about your answer to the question raised about the Woodend/Kyneton link, which you said was not economic at the moment, in terms of where it sits in the thinking for medium/long term futures in best and worst case water availability scenarios.
Please accept this as a response from us to the Coliban Water Pricing Review
Kind regards
Carol McDonough
Co-Coordinator
Waterislife Mount Alexander, WiLMA
Water is Life Mount Alexander, a water users’ network: primary producers, industry, forestry, river flows & towns, responding to water scarcity as dam levels decrease by working towards complementary water systems – low footprint, low cost, local water harvesting, reduced use & recycling management
Thanks Carol. Its important that we continue to get out in the community and present whats happening with water in our region
.
We have started the process of modernising our rural system this will take time as we have to work with each rural customer individually to make sure we get it right. The down side to this is, of course, it takes time.
Finally on the economics of connecting Kyneton to Woodend via a pipeline, the preliminary work indicated that whilst it was possible it was not practical in terms of a providing a short term emergency supply.
We are about to kick off a review and renew of our 2055 long term water strategy so this will be a good place to flesh these things out more.
thanks for coming to the briefing tonight.
Gavin
Thanks for your comments Jan
By posting on this BLOG it ensures that your message will be heard by our regulator, The Essential Service Commission.
The ESC has to approve and changes in pricing and at this stage it is only a proposal.
You have highlights one of the biggest challenges in designing a pricing framework. How to design it so that it is fair to all.
We have heard loud and clear that people don’t think our sewer charges are fair.
We have let the ESC know this and that we would like to do a detailed review with a view to substantial change in the framework for the next water plan.
We have not recommended any changes to the sewer charges for the remainder of this water plan.
The increase in prices primarily relate to volume with a small decrease in the water access charge. The way we have designed this is that the more you use, the more you pay, with the aim of rewarding people who use water wisely.
We still have a lot of work to do on the sewer part of the equation.
Thanks again for your comments
Gavin
Thanks for your contribution to our BLOG
Your comment about the NWI is valid and I am happy to publish it.
My initial reaction the NWI pricing principles is that they are a good statement on how things should be in the future but they dont necessarily talk about how we are going to get there. To implement these principles in one go is likely to have larger impacts on communities than a transition over a couple of pricing periods.
gavin
Hi Gavin
Thank-you for your responses.
we appreciate the work you are doing with the 1600 rural customers, and the time that has to take.
It is the main channels we are concerned about. eg form the Southern Coliban dams to the town holding dams. That’s what we would like to see brought forward in the capital works program as an efficiency measure and a water loss reduction measure.
Also, please would you put on your Blog your comments you said at the Castlemaine info night on the temperature/water use analysis over the past years, and your rethink as to the meaning of interpretation of these.
In relation to water users behaviour modification over time.
A guess, please…
How much is people’s changed/changing water use behaviour a result of:
Ongoing drought?
Your community education?
People’s concern about the long haul of water provision?
Water pricing?
Discussion forum is a great idea.
Carol McDonough
Co-Coordinator
Waterislife Mount Alexander, WiLMA
It’s all about creating a “free market” for the trading of water. I wonder how much of our water is sold off to water bottling companies or soft drink companies before it actually enters the storages? Putting a price on water under market conditions will allow cashed-up interests like the aforementioned to obtain large quantities of the water supply at “competitive” prices and will also allow other copious users of water, like mining companies, to buy as much as they like provided they can afford it. This free market ideology needs to be purged from an essential and precious public resource like water.
I would just like to know exactly (a breakdown) of what we get for our $118 sewerage service fee??? I am sure that it is value for money, but I would still like to know!
Dear Gavin
We write one last time about the Coliban Water Pricing Review to the Essential Services Commission in order to support the comments to you of the Mount Alexander Shire Council also outlined on the front page of the Midland Express today, 31 March.
And there was support of Coliban’s proposals implicit in brief comment by me in the Castlemaine Mail p 5, last Friday 26 March.
Further thinking about our requests to consider hastening into 2011-3 rather than 2013-8 of the piping of the main channels from the Southern Coliban system dams providing water to both the Castlemaine system and to Sandhurst Reservoir [when water is available] is that
• piping and burying these systems not only saves many megalitre of potable water over the pricing five years
• but also in the event of catastrophic wildfire, increases the potential of water safety and therefore other infrastructure safety for Castlemaine and also Bendigo and small towns in the reticulation system
• obviously there could well be further works necessary to protect water pumping infrastructure against wildfire impacts.
With thanks for the continuing opportunities Coliban Water and yourself create for commenting freely on a few of the key water security and water justice issues facing our Shire.
Kind regards
Carol McDonough
Co-Coordinator
Waterislife Mount Alexander, WiLMA