The Water Corporation’s Groundwater Replenishment Scheme (GRS) has been expanded in a move that secures even further Perth’s water future.
Minister for Water, Dave Kelly said the GRS was Australia’s first full-scale groundwater replenishment strategy and had an “annual capacity of 14 billion litres per year”.
He said Stage One of the scheme had been operating since 2017, recharging more than 54 billion litres of water.
“The second stage will double the long-term capacity of the scheme, up to 28 billion litres each year, which is enough water to supply up to 100,000 Perth households,” Mr Kelly said.
“Groundwater currently provides up to 40 per cent of Perth’s supplies of drinking water, along with water for industry and horticulture, garden bores, parks and other green spaces.”
He said that since 1980, the impacts of climate change reduced rainfall and increased groundwater abstraction had seen water tables fall by up to 10 metres.
“The innovative scheme sees highly-treated wastewater from the Beenyup Water Resource Recovery Facility purified at the Advanced Water Recycling Plant to a level that exceeds drinking water standards,” Mr Kelly said.
“Half of this purified recycled water will be used to recharge the Leederville and Yarragadee aquifers on site, with the remaining water used to recharge aquifers at bore sites in Neerabup and Wanneroo, via a 13-kilometre long pipeline.”
New infrastructure constructed as part of the Stage Two expansion also included a second Advanced Water Recycling Plant next to the first at the Water Corporation’s Beenyup facility in Craigie, and four recharge bores and four monitoring bores across two recharge sites in Neerabup and Wanneroo.
