Binningup desal plant (part 1) opens

The first stage of the $955 million Southern Seawater Desalination Plant was officially opened in Binningup on Friday, indicating a trend towards climate-independent water sources for the State.

Picture by Jon Gellweiler: Water Minister Bill Marmion and Water Corporation chief executive officer Sue Murphy tour the desalination plant with engineer Ulrich Bosse.

Water Minister Bill Marmion officially opened the plant after two-and-a-half years of construction.

‘‘This breaks a long tradition of reliance on our dams and groundwater supplies, which have been suffering due to lower than average rainfall,’’ he said.

The Binningup plant will provide up to 50 billion litres of water a year, which will be fed into the Integrated Water Supply Scheme, delivering drinking water to Perth, Mandurah and the Goldfields.

‘‘The plant has already started supplying water into the IWSS and will reach its full capacity within about a year,’’ Mr Marmion said.

The official opening was followed by the news that the green light was given to expand the plant to produce 100 billion litres of water through the construction of stage two of the project.

‘‘Stage one brings on 50 billion litres of water into the scheme supply so that’s a massive amount of water and stage two will be another 50 billion litres.

‘‘So in 18 months we’ll have 100 billion litres in our system which is 100 billion litres that we didn’t have last year,’’ Mr Marmion said.

Water Corporation chief executive Sue Murphy said she encouraged the trend towards climate independent water sources.

‘‘The Southern Seawater Desalination Plant combined with the Perth desalination plant means that now one-third of Perth’s water supply will be absolutely independent of climate and when the second part of this plant is complete it will mean that half of our water supply will be absolutely independent of whether it rains or not,’’ Mrs Murphy said.

While she said producing desalinated water came at a higher energy cost than water from dams, it was a choice that had to be made to secure Perth’s water supply.