Eco online

New housing developments need not link to centralised water and sewerage systems, according to a Sunshine Coast surveyor and town planner.

Greg Downes, of the Downes Survey Group, speaks from experience when he explains his belief that the water and sewerage needs of new housing developments could be self contained in many cases.

"A lot of society's rules and regulations still reflect old thinking," he said. "We've come a long way, for example Maroochy Council's planning scheme has sustainability as a core objective. But old patterns are hard to break, and planning schemes can prevent planners and developers from looking at how the site is connected to the wider landscape and responding to its special characteristics."

While water efficiency measures are cost effective and should not be ignored, the major leaps in sustainable water use come from redesigning the whole system.

"We need new thinking to solve old problems. In the past the various professions involved in housing development focused on specialist areas, trying to optimise their own little bit of the picture. Now we need to work together as teams of specialists."

Centralised sewerage systems defy all criteria for sustainability, Mr Downes said and they have huge energy costs and are the cause of much environmental harm.

"Water comes to the house from a long way off, and waste leaves the house to be pumped a long way in the other direction. Then it's treated and poured into the river because we have so much of it and opportunities for large scale recycling at the plant are limited. And the pipes leak and overflow, especially in storm events," he said.
Underground stormwater pipe systems also break the natural water cycle that, without human interference, would see a much slower flow between rain falling on the ground and entering waterways.

"Allowing nature to treat the water by filtering it through vegetation and soil is the key to healthy waterways."
An integrated approach can avoid waste, large transport costs and disruptions to natural systems.  Whereas pumping wastewater to centralised treatment plants and treating it to drinking standard is expensive and energy intensive, the Buderim Escape development in Buderim replaces the notion of waste disposal with recycling through on-site treatment systems.

The average household needs only 30 per cent of its water to be drinking quality. The Buderim on-site systems integrate recycled water into home uses such as toilet flushing and garden watering, using all waste water without suggesting it be treated for drinking.

Because the demand for outdoor water use fluctuates, recycled water storage was incorporated with the treatment plants to avoid waste. Collecting rainwater from roofs instead of channelling it as stormwater into streams not only helps balance the hydrology of the area, it also avoids the need for much underground infrastructure.

"Newcastle University worked out that each house's water needs can be met by a 3000 to 5000 litre tank and on-site reuse. Overall, it reduces mains water use by about 75 per cent and demand on infrastructure by about two-thirds," Mr Downes said.

Sustainably integrating housing into the wider landscape goes beyond water and sewerage services, and Mr Downes is particularly concerned by the threats to biodiversity on the Sunshine Coast.

"The hinterland's riparian forests are threatened because of our history of land clearing, and now our lowland heaths and wetlands are threatened by coastal development," he said. "We need to restore and link remnant vegetation and control the weeds that have exploded since the 1970s - they're destroying the environment as effectively as clearing."
Mr Downes' work in revegetating some 13 hectares of previously cleared farmland at West Woombye as part of a rural residential subdivision won him a 2006 Sunshine Coast Environment Award.

The project removed tens of thousands of weeds and replanted 15,000 trees, reconnecting remnant vegetation to cover two-thirds of the development site. This achievement would not have happened without a passion for the environment.
"We need incentives to protect and restore vegetation. It's unfair that landholders who have been good environmental custodians in the past are penalised compared with those who have cleared everything in sight and whose usage options are much wider," he said.

"If we are to build the capacity to meet our sustainability challenges, the response needs to be broadly based, with inclusive partnerships between councils, industry and communities."

Advertisement
 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

Related articles:

1. Water wise on the Gold Coast
2. Affordable eco-houses
3. Remove solar hot water from renewable energy target
4. Sustainable housing a must
5. Fluoride a concern