Letter reveals the truth on TasWater

In a letter to the Government TasWater’s chair, Miles Hampton, clearly spells out the TasWater infrastructure crisis and calls for urgent action before the situation gets worse.
In his letter, Mr Hampton says that “…we have a problem that needs to be addressed urgently”, he then goes on to catalogue a range of infrastructure failures that are having an impact on Tasmania. Yet 12 months later, Mr Hampton has completely changed his tune.
Mr Hampton’s letter from 2016 completely debunks his most recent claims and shows what he really thinks about the current state of TasWater’s infrastructure.
Tasmanians know that our water and sewerage infrastructure isn’t up to scratch. That’s why we have set out a Plan to fix it quicker. By taking over TasWater we will ensure water and sewerage bills are cheaper, services are better and the infrastructure is improved over a shorter timeframe than currently proposed.
The Economic Regulator recently issued a damning report into water and sewerage that concluded the infrastructure was deteriorating faster than it can be fixed under the current plan. That’s why we are determined to takeover TasWater and fix the problem. Our Plan is supported by TasCOSS, the TICT, the TCCI, the Property Council, Master Builders Association, developers, businesses and the broader Tasmanian community, and it seems it’s also supported by Mr Hampton if his 2016 letter is anything to go by.
EXCERPTS FROM MILES HAMPTON’S 20 MAY 2016 LETTER –
• We have a problem that needs to be addressed urgently…
• for how much longer will we allow our sewage treatment plants to discharge treated effluent that pollutes our waterways…in 2014-15 only one of 79 of our EPA regulated sewage treatment plants achieved 100% compliance with its regulatory discharge limits
• most regulatory limits for sewage treatment plants reflect standards of yesterday, surely we should be seeking compliance with modern day standards
• for how much longer will small communities remain on boil water alerts or worse still do not consume alerts…23 communities remain on boil water or do not consume alerts
• which community will next experience water supply outages as we continue to have more than double the water main breaks per 100km of water main compared with the rest of Australia
• for how much longer will we have double the number of breaks and chokes per 100km of sewer main compared with the rest of Australia?
• We have proposed that TasWater customers will incur aggregate tariff increases over the next ten years of 52 per cent
• The boost to the Tasmanians economy from a $1.8 billion infrastructure spend would be very significant, and all regions of the state would benefit
Peter Gutwein, Treasurer