Viewpoint – Water tanks incentives needed

As a community and a nation that has been through so much in recent times, it has been an opportunity to reflect on what around us could do with a little “tweaking”.

We all know what a precious commodity water is – never more so than when we are running low in reserves, as is happening right now.

My husband Ken and I looked at connecting to town supply years ago, when I believe it was about $2500 for the connection. At that time the charge could be added to our rates with a loan repayment scheme.

I would like to see our residents given an incentive to have water tanks installed, similar to the previous incentive for connecting to town supply. Also as it became compulsory in certain parts of drought-prone Australia to install tanks with new house builds, make it so with our new builds.

Imagine if, added to that scenario, we were able to incentivise the local schools and businesses into tank installation.

And don’t stop there – how about giving the same incentives to those with old tanks that need fixing or replacing?

I’m unsure what it would take to realise an incentive scheme like this, but it does seem like such a waste to have all the potential for roof collection of water under-utilised while our reserves are running so low.

I would think this would be an extremely cost effective alternative to, for example, investing in desalination plants.

Conserving water, regardless of whether there is a shortage or not, is the right thing to do. If even 10 percent of houses, businesses and schools were to install tanks in our region, the effects would be incredible and help ensure water resources were available for generations to come.