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.”

Image: The Davis family gets a trial run on the purple pipe network that will deliver quality recycled water.

The Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast are seen as rivals in many ways. Sunshine Coasters see their southern counterpart as a high rise shrine to the gaudy and glitzy, whereas many Gold Coasters regard their northern neighbour as being a bit off the pace and a haven for eccentric environmentalists.

So, it might come as a surprise for many that part of the Gold Coast is leading the way in planning for environmental sustainability, especially with the use of water. And it’s leading the way with a far-sighted strategy that introduces, on a large scale, the concept of water sensitive urban design.

It will also bring into play an advanced dual-reticulation system which delivers potable water and recycled water treated to Class A plus which is the highest quality of recycled water for non-drinking purposes in Queensland, having been filtered and disinfected through two different treatment plants.

Water experts predict that this system will eventually reduce the use of drinking water in new homes by up to 84 per cent. It will make a significant impact on the total water consumption habits of Gold Coast residents since the new water strategy is focused on burgeoning Greenfield development sites at the northern end of the Gold Coast.

At the moment, every resident of every new home in the Pimpama-Coomera region of the Gold Coast is embarking on a learning curve, not only on how to turn on to a twin water network, but also in experiencing a lifestyle that makes them, their homes and their neighbourhood become more environmentally friendly. (view google map)

And the spin-off is that everybody becomes happier, they have a better environment, a closer connection with nature and a personal input in helping to save the planet and some of its species – including the human kind perhaps.

Presently, the population of the Pimpama-Coomera area is about 20,000 and expected to top 120,000 by 2055. Indeed, it is the Gold Coast’s fastest growing region and designed within the guidelines of the Pimpama Coomera Waterfuture Master Plan - a Gold Coast City Council inspired and award-winning project that is intended to ensure sustainable development.

The Master Plan package, costing more than $200 million, includes all kinds of environmental goodies, enough maybe to make some Sunshine Coast environmental campaigners even greener with envy. Nothing on the Sunshine Coast development horizon comes close in terms of large scale impact in a positive ecological sense.

A recent short tour through the Pimpama-Coomera region reveals a wonderful work in progress. While there’s the usual array of typical Aussie homes, from the humble three-bedroom to the more luxurious and spacious semi-mansions, it’s what’s partly hidden or that which surrounds them that really captures the imagination.

The first impression is how well landscaped the neighbourhoods’ open spaces are – indeed that there are open spaces – where vegetation in places has replaced the usual bleak concrete kerbs and guttering. How the planting of native species and grasses follows original creek lines; how swales have been used on the natural contours to filter and slow stormwater run-off so that it soaks into local areas before reaching the waterways.

Drainage ponds and water infiltration zones are also used to capture stormwater at times of torrential rain. These are sand-based and allow the water to filter into surrounding soil over several days, thus slowing and reducing the flow that may cause erosion problems downstream.

But the clever thing is that some of these ponds and zones double up as attractive mini parklands at drier times, imaginatively landscaped, grass-covered and with well-designed social amenities built alongside. The other magic of this Master Plan is a network of purple pipes and mains – the pipes designed to carry the recycled Class A plus water to be used for flushing toilets and external use and so save unnecessary use of the precious potable supply.

While each new home and business in this region is plumbed with two totally separate water networks – the traditional one for drinking water and the easily identifiable purple one for high-grade recycled water – residents will have to wait until early next year before the system is thoroughly checked and comes fully on stream.

It means, that at the moment, potable water is coming through the purple network of mains, meters, pipes, taps and hoses and that home owners will have to remember which tap to turn come early 2009. The handles of taps are removable, rendering them childproof when necessary

The Pimpama Recycled Water Treatment Plant will soon be completed and then undergo a long testing period. This is a secondary treatment plant that processes treated water from the adjoining Pimpama Wastewaster Treatment Plant to a higher quality. Also, two large reservoirs are being constructed to hold a head of supply for both drinking and recycled water.

Stage 1 of the plant will convert up to nine million litres of wastewater into Class A+ recycled water each day .
Another benefit of the dual reticulation system is that home owners will have two separate meters, making it easier to track water consumption and to make appropriate savings where necessary.

The Waterfuture Masterplan also includes installation of plumbed in rainwater tanks on all new homes to supply cold water for the laundry and an optional external tap. Another environmental bonus comes with the wastewater system which is designed to limit stormwater infiltration and so reduce, in turn, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions due to less wastewater requiring treatment.

The council has also upgraded its wastewater pipes, creating ‘smart sewers’ which are made of new advanced materials and designed to reduce the amount of stormwater and groundwater entering the wastewater system. In all, it’s a win, win, win water system that has been developed uniquely through a Gold Coast community-based advisory committee with input from industry associations, developers, residents associations, council, government departments and not least, environmental groups that included Gecko (Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council), a sister organisation to our own Sunshine Coast Environment Council.

And to further demonstrate that recycled water Class A plus is a really cool item, Queensland fieries have given it the nod as being safe for firefighting.