Water usage

TAKING up on the SMS from “JH, Gvale” (TC, 13/03), the region’s daily water supply data can be found on the council’s website at www.tr.qld.gov.au/ environment-waterwaste/watersupply-dams/ dams-bores/ 8066-watersupply-anddam-level-statistics.

On that page, move down to the bunch of figures in the block headed 2. “Water Consumption this year” where you will find seven lines of various datasets for the preceding seven days (in columns) and a “total” column. But also note that the first six lines in this block refer to Toowoomba City while the last (seventh line) is simply labelled “other shires”.

This whole table was the one being used by the former TCC before amalgamation (more than eight years ago) and has never been updated to show what is actually happening outside the city. So much for protestations of not being city-centric.

For the seven days ending 10/03/17 it is currently reported that the city’s average daily water use was 37.4 Ml or 294 L/person/day. Note also that it peaked on the Tuesday at 39.5 Ml or 311 L/person/day.

However the next line has simply the one total for “residential” use and is reported as 168 L/person/day. This is the figure always used by the council to suggest the overall level of water usage throughout the region, which it is not, and in fact last week, a quick calculation shows that residential usage was (claimed) at just 57% of the overall total – again “in the city”.

As we have recently seen via reporting here in The Chronicle, water usage varies widely between areas.

Therefore if the council is fair dinkum about ratepayers and residents having a better, and more accurate, understanding of its water supply functions and potential for up-coming challenges, then it must come clean with full, supportable, and relevant data – area by area and to the same parameters - and not simply “cherry pick” the most convenient, but misleadingly optimistic, number. — TONY LAKE, Meringandan West