Our Urban Water Strategy identifies what we need to do to ensure urban and industrial water availability, and sewer system capacity, in our region for the next 50 years.
Climate change, population growth and droughts put pressure on our water systems. Through the Urban Water Strategy, we put plans in place to respond to these challenges.
The strategy gives an overview of the capacity of our water supply and wastewater systems now and into the future, compared with our expected demand for these services. This allows us to take action to ensure the ongoing reliability of our water and wastewater services.
The Urban Water Strategy takes a long term view with a flexible approach, so it can be adapted to ensure we manage risks to service delivery and take action at the right time.
We completed our Urban Water Strategy in early 2022 and it was approved by the Minister for Water in June 2022. For a quick overview of our proposed actions check out our action plan or read the full strategy report to learn more.
Action plan 2022
| Action item | Location | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moondarra | Develop and implement a Moondarra On-Country Plan, which focuses on Traditional Owner access to land and website, increasing opportunities to realise objectives for cultural values and uses, building the cultural awareness of our team members and the community. |
| 2 | Stratford | Provision of reticulated water to Knob Reserve, a significant meeting place for the Gunaikurnai Community. Reticulated water will support sustainable use of water and health outcomes for Community. |
| 3 | Whole service area | Pilot the application of the ‘Multiple Benefits Of Ownership And Management Of Water By Traditional Owners Framework’ on key projects. |
| 4 | Whole service area | Integrate the ‘Multiple Benefits Of Ownership And Management Of Water By Traditional Owners Framework’ into our planning frameworks to ensure quadruple bottom line assessments are integrated into business decisions. |
| 5 | Whole service area | Continue to work closely with WGCMA to identify opportunities to collaboratively achieve outcomes that benefit each other’s objectives and values, and to foster an enhanced mutual understanding of our respective challenges. |
| 6 | Whole service area | Continue to work with local council and government to embed better water conservation planning for greenfield development. |
| 7 | Whole service area | Continue to deliver our Non-Revenue Water Action Plan. |
| 8 | Whole service area | We will expand our activities that support the government’s Target Your Water Use program including continuing with the Schools Water Efficiency program, facilitating any applicable grants schemes for water efficiency improvements in homes and businesses, and expanding our community education programs. |
| 9 | Whole service area | We will continue to work closely with our Gippsland Integrated Water Management (IWM) Forum partners to identify and deliver feasible IWM initiatives that benefit the security of our water resources, the liveability of our urban landscapes and the health of our waterways and the broader environment. |
| 10 | Briagolong | Drill a production bore in the deeper aquifer at Briagolong, buy a water licence and upgrade the water treatment process at our Briagolong water treatment plant. |
| 11 | Latrobe Valley | Continue working with DELWP and other agencies to plan and deliver on directions for the Latrobe basin set out by the CGRSWS and the Latrobe Valley Regional Rehabilitation Strategy. |
| 12 | Sale | Continue to work with SRW and DELWP to better understand the Boisdale aquifer and its future sustainable use. |
| 13 | Seaspray | Explore alternative flow sharing arrangements for the Merriman Creek Bulk Entitlement. |
| 14 | Drouin/Warragul | Acquire a 2 GL yield Bulk Entitlement to the Yarra-Thomson Pool to secure Warragul and Drouin’s future water. |
| 15 | Heyfield | Develop an augmentation strategy for servicing future growth at the Heyfield sewage treatment plant. |
| 16 | Mirboo North | Deliver project for additional irrigation capacity at the Mirboo North sewage treatment plant site to allow greater re-use by our agribusiness operation. |
| 17 | Neerim South | Develop an augmentation strategy for servicing future growth at the Neerim South sewage treatment plant. |
| 18 | Warragul | Plan and deliver augmentations to increase Warragul sewage treatment plant capacity. |
Explore our interactive map
Use the map to explore and learn more about our water supply and sewerage systems and find out where your water comes from and where your wastewater goes.
Watch our instructional video to learn how to use our tool.
Water planning in Victoria
Victorian water corporations, like us, plan for local water needs through Urban Water Strategies, which are renewed every five years. Our service area is part of the Central and Gippsland Region Sustainable Water Strategy, which is managed by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and renewed every 10 years. The Sustainable Water Strategy considers issues at a regional scale, whereas our Urban Water Strategy is at a local level.
The Victorian Government released a new Central and Gippsland Region Sustainable Water Strategy (SWS) in September 2022.
