South East Queensland
Water overview

Persistent heavy rain at the end of January 2013 across South East Queensland (SEQ) triggered extensive flooding which continued in early February. The wet conditions during the 2012–13 year resulted in the allocation announcements being 100 per cent for all entitlements during the 2012–13 year. 

Water resource management in SEQ region has been undergoing significant reform since 1 July 2008. Phase one of the water industry reforms occurred prior to 2010 and phase two started in 2010–11. During the first phase four new, state-owned, bulk water entities were created for the SEQ water grid ( Queensland Government 2013g). 

• On 7 April 2011, the Queensland Premier announced that sections of the Queensland South East Queensland Water (Distribution and Retail Restructuring) Act 2009 would be repealed, allowing councils the option of continuing with or withdrawing from the water distribution and retail businesses.

• Council of the City of Gold Coast, Redland City Council, and Logan City Council have re-established their own retail water distribution operations on 1 July 2012 (Allconnex Water 2011).

• As of 1 July 2011, Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim, and Somerset councils have given their support for Queensland Urban Utilities to continue as the provider of water and wastewater services in their council regions (Queensland Urban Utilities 2011).

• Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast regional councils announced in June 2011 their intention to retain the current arrangements for the retail of water distribution and sewerage services via Unitywater (Unitywater  2011).

• On 1 July 2011, WaterSecure merged with Seqwater, which is now responsible for managing recycled water, desalinated water, surface water and groundwater resources within the SEQ region.

• On 17 February 2012, the Queensland Government passed the South East Queensland Water and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2012 (Queensland Government 2012b) enabling Gold Coast, Logan, and Redland City Councils to withdraw from Allconnex Water and resume the delivery of water and wastewater services to customers in their local government areas from 1 July 2012.

• On 30 March 2012, the Queensland government announced machinery-of-government changes for departments. The functions of the former Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) are now delivered by the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, the Department of Natural Resources and Mines, the Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing and the Department of Energy and Water Supply. The Department of Natural Resources and Mines and/or the Queensland Department of Energy and Water Supply have taken on much of DERM's function including surface water and groundwater licensing (Queensland Government 2013h).

• The Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts 2012) was formed following machinery-of-government changes implemented on 3 April 2012 by combining portfolios and organisational units drawn from the Department of the Premier and Cabinet and the former Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI), DERM, Department of Public Works (DPW).

• During early January 2011, the desalination plant had been operating at its 66% of capacity to ensure approximately 3,400 ML of quality water supplies for residents in Brisbane, Ipswich, the City of  Gold Coast, and Logan.

Figure A2 in the Organisations responsible for water management section shows the service areas for the  urban utilities, and the council areas they now cover.

In December 2010 the Queensland Government made changes to the operating principles of the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme. Gibson Island advanced water treatment plant (AWTP) and one of the two stages of the Bundamba AWTP were placed into standby. The plants will be brought back online if surface water storage capacity trends towards less than the 40% trigger level.

• Seqwater was formed on 1 January 2013 through a merger of three State-owned water businesses: the SEQ Water Grid Manager, LinkWater, and the former Seqwater in accordance with the South East Queensland Water (Restructuring) Act 2007 as amended by the South East Queensland Water (Restructuring) and Other Legislation Amendment Regulation (No.1) 2012.
• From 1 January 2013, the Queensland Water Commission ceased operations. Its policy functions moved to the Department of Energy and Water Supply (DEWS) and its planning and regulatory functions (including setting water restrictions) are now the responsibility of the  Seqwater (2013b) and the SEQ council water businesses (distributor–retailers).
• As of 1 January 2013, permanent water conservation measured ceased in South East Queensland (Department of Energy and Water Supply 2013).

• Rainfall from ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald during the 2013 Australia Day long weekend was the highest rainfall event to occur since the January 2011 floods and caused widespread flooding across SEQ. Flood flows passing through Moogerah and Borumba dams were the largest on record. Turbidity levels in the Brisbane River were four times the level experienced during the January 2011 flood event. Due to this record turbidity, the Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) were offline on Tuesday 29 January 2013. While the Mt Crosby WTPs were offline, Seqwater used the bulk water supply network to move water from a number of different bulk water sources across the region. The Gold Coast desalination plant was brought up to 100% capacity to supplement drinking water supply in the flood affected area of the SERQ region. The Mt Crosby WTPs resumed operations within 24 hours.

• SEQ's secure water outlook has resulted in a decision to shut down the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme as soon as practicable to reduce long-term costs. The scheme will still be available should the water security situation change in the future. Seqwater also introduced a more efficient operating mode for its Gold Coast desalination plant.

• Amendments to the Logan Basin resource operations plan (ROP), effective from December 2012, added Wyaralong Dam to the Logan River Water Supply Scheme (WSS), and also added a total of 972 ML volumetric entitlements to eight licences within Teviot Brook.

• A consolidated set of design and construction standards for water supply and sewerage infrastructure in South East Queensland came into effect on 1 July 2013. Five water service providers i.e. Queensland Urban Utilities, Logan City Council, Council of the City of Gold Coast, Redland City Council, and Unitywater will work together to develop the related SEQ Code (Seqcode 2012).

• The Fitzgibbon Stormwater harvesting (FiSH) Project is designed to harvest stormwater runoff from a catchment area of 290 ha within a residential development and to supply 89 megalitres/year of treated stormwater for non-potable uses within the Fitzgibbon Chase estate development. The FiSH project is under construction with completion due by June 2014 (Australian Government Department of the Environment undated).

• A major project to be undertaken in 2013–14 by the Seqwater (2013c)  is upgrading Maroon and Moogerah dams to comply with Acceptable Flood Capacity policy.

The Logan Basin ROP amendment was approved in March 2014 and it provides for water trading by:

• increasing the number of non-urban surface water allocations (line item 32.3) through conversion of approximately 120 water licences in the Christmas Creek and Running Creek catchments into volumetric tradeable water allocations

• establishing trading zones and specified rules for trading these water allocations and seasonal water assignments

• establishing a minimum flow threshold to ensure environmental and stock and domestic needs are also met.

 

 A draft Moreton ROP amendment, released on 23 September 2013, proposes to:

• grant resource operations licences to the Seqwater for the Warrill Valley and Lower Lockyer Valley WSSs
• convert interim water allocations to tradeable water allocations
• amend unsupplemented water licences within the area of the Warrill Valley WSS to include volumetric limits
• define rules for operation of the water supply schemes, such as seasonal water assignment rules
• provide for permanent allocations to be located on Somerset Dam to supply water to the townships of Kilcoy and Somerset
• provide for flood mitigation releases from dams.

The annual flow during 2012–13 for all the rivers was well above the mean annual flow (Table W1).

Table W1 Mean annual river flow

River	Period of record	Mean annual flow (ML)	2012–13 flow (ML)	2012–13 flow as % of mean annual flow
Albert	1986–2013	119,203	225,579	189
Bremer	1962–2013	73,955	198,348	269
Brisbane	1961–2013	806,560	2,901,759	360
Logan	1969–2013	326,618	649,763	199

In late July 2013, Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) changed the 'output time of period' configuration within the Hydstra Web Portal from 'end' to 'start'. If daily or monthly mean data is exported with end specified, a mean value for a day's or month's flow will be generated before the end of the day or month, which could lead to inaccuracy in mean data. The resulting mean value when the user exports daily data (say at 11 am) is used, a significant event occurring later that day may not be captured. Setting the 'output time of period' to 'start' avoids this issue. This change in configuration resulted in a slight amendment to the mean annual flow of 2012 reported in 2013 Account.

In the 2012 Account, the flow volumes on 12 and 13 January 2011 (extreme flood) were not available for Bremer River, which resulted in the mean annual flow being 4% less than true mean annual flow. However, these values are now available and recalulation of the mean annual flow for all the rivers show that the difference is very negligible (<0.2%).

The well above average flows in these catchments can be attributed to well above average monthly flow volumes and rainfall observed during January–March 2013 (figures W1, W2, W3) and during January and February 2013 (Figure W4). The high flows during these months reflect the significant rainfall events that occurred during this period (see Figure C3 in Climate overview). These events resulted in significant river flows throughout the South East Queensland (SEQ) region. Figure P6 in the 'Physical section' shows the location of the Albert, Bremer, Brisbane, and Logan river flow gauges.

Figure W1 Graph of total monthly flow along Albert River (Station 145102B) during the 2012–13 year compared with long-term percentiles



Figure W2 Graph of total monthly flow along Bremer River (Station 143107A) during the 2012–13 year compared with long-term percentiles



Figure W3 Graph of total monthly flow along Brisbane River (Station 143001C) during the 2012–13 year compared with long-term percentiles



Figure W4 Graph of total monthly flow along Logan River (Station 145014A) during the 2012–13 year compared with long-term percentiles

Major water initiatives were undertaken in South East Queensland (SEQ), triggered by the 2006 South East Queensland Regional Drought Strategy (Departmnet of Energy and Water Supply 2014).

Major water initiatives that were in the process of being investigated, designed, constructed or commissioned during the 2012–13 year included (Seqwater 2013c):      

• As a part of meeting the Acceptable Flood Capacity compliance, Ewen Maddock Dam was upgraded to strengthen and widen the dam wall embankment and to install drainage wells below the wall to control groundwater seepage. This project was completed in December 2012.

• Fourteen natural asset management plans were finalised in 2012–13. This included plans for the catchments around Wivenhoe,  Wyaralong, Ewen Maddock, Maroon, and Moogerah dams.

Prior to the 2012–13 year the following initiatives occurred: 

• Wyaralong Water Treatment Plant Project (design 2010, construction 2011, commission 2012)
• Gibson Island advanced water treatment plant was handed over to Seqwater on 13 October 2011. Final completion is pending based on some commercial negotiations.
• The Bribie Island project, to increase the supply of water from Bribie Island by an extra 5 megalitres of water per day, reached practical completion on 8 February 2012. Extensive groundwater monitoring systems and a management plan are in place to ensure the aquifer is not compromised by saltwater intrusion.
• Hinze Dam stage 3 (which increased the volume stored in Hinze Dam from 165,470 megalitres to 310,730 megalitres and increased the water available for supply by 7,700 megalitres per year) was officially opened on 19 December 2011.