Chapter 1 background to the water report
Yüklə 1,18 Mb.
|
A recent review of COWSIP found that although projects undertaken have met the selection criteria and warranted COWSIP support, the most needy cases, in terms of the severity of problem and the least capacity to self-finance improvements, were not always identified in State submissions. A number of such cases came to light following the Toomelah Inquiry (Human Rights Australia 1988), in correspondence directed to and through analysis of the Water Quality and Low Cost Water Supply Databases. The Water Quality database contains data on the quality and capacity characteristics of all water supply schemes throughout Australia. 3.3 Water Supplies in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities The Toomelah Inquiry found that the provision of water and sewerage to Toomelah had been mismanaged, unco-ordinated and inadequate, and that the conditions were intolerable. Since the publication of that report, the Race Discrimination Commissioner has been approached by numerous communities with accounts of similar problems. An analysis of water supplies in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (Australian Water Resources Council, 1989:10) found: • there are some 21,000 Aboriginal people in Australia living in communities of between 30 and 1,000 people who do not have a reticulated water supply. The average population of these communities is 160 and some 90% of them live in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. There are some 54,000 Aboriginal people in Australia served by reticulated water supply schemes supplying fewer than 1,000 people. • there are some 19,000 Aboriginal people served by water supply schemes having insufficient capacity to meet the reasonable water demands of their communities. Some 75% of these live in Queensland and the Northern Territory. • there are at least 1,000 Aboriginal people served by water supply schemes having severe water quality problems in that quality fails to meet the desirable current criteria of the NH&MRC-WRC 1980 Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality in Australia. The large population for which no data is available suggests that this number could be substantially higher. • there are at least a further 14,000 Aboriginal people served by a water supply which met the desirable criteria of the 1980 NH&MRC Guidelines but which does not meet the earlier 1987 Guidelines. Allowing for the supplies for which no data is available, the population affected could be as high as 30,000 people.7 The above results provide an indication of the conventional technical analyses of water supply issues. However, they omit a number of factors which would be relevant in understanding the situation in Aboriginal and Islander communities. These sociological factors will be explored further in this Report. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has recently completed Stage 1 of a national survey of housing and community infrastructure needs (ATSIC 1992a). The survey had nine questions related to the water supply of discrete communities, including outstations and homelands. An analysis of the data from 907 discrete communities (Hearn et al 1993), led to some of the summary observations presented in Table 3 over page. Groundwater is an important source of supply for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It was used by 63% of discrete communities surveyed. Tables 4 and 5 over page detail the distribution of water supply types. The quality of water available for use by a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is less than the accepted Australian standard. As shown in Table 6 over page, some 17% (14,616 people) of the population living in discrete communities relied on water not complying with the NH&MRC guidelines on water quality. Only 38% of communities had a qualified person doing regular water testing. The quantity of water available for use is not satisfactory for a significant number of people. Table 7 over page shows that water restrictions occurred during the past twelve months in 33% of the discrete communities surveyed. Equipment breakdown was one reason for water restrictions in 62% of these communities. The appropriateness of the equipment used to supply the water should be questioned given the high failure rate. A significant number of communities (14%) did not have a maintained water supply system, and 45% said their water supply infrastructure was inadequate to meet their housing needs over the next five years. The national survey (ATSIC 1992a) has thus provided, for the first time, comprehensive quantitative data on the water supply situation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia. A recent audit of water supplies of the Torres Strait Islands (Water Resources Commission 1992:19) further investigated some of the financial implications of maintaining small water supplies. The life of infrastructure in the Torres Strait is currently between 7 and 10 years when it could normally be expected to be 25 - 35 years. The existing water supplies were constructed between 1986 and 1988 at a cost of $9 million and would cost in the order of $4.5 million (June 1992 prices) to bring back to designed performance levels. The audit recommends that 5% of the existing investment by the Commonwealth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infrastructure and housing in Queensland (currently $55 million per annum) be dedicated to the express purpose of implementing sound asset management practices. There is no reason to doubt that similar performance characteristics exist in other States and Territories. Table 3 Water Supply Aspects of National Survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Discrete Communities 1992
1 Number of discrete communities surveyed 2 Percentage of communities that used groundwater as a source of water 3 Percentage of communities whose source of drinking water does not comply with NH&MRC guidelines 4 Percentage of communities that had water restrictions applied at any time in the past 12 months. 5 Percentage of communities in which the water supply system is not maintained 6 Percentage of communities with a water supply system unable to meet the housing needs over the next five years. Table 4 Source of Water Supply: Types Used by the Discrete Communities Surveyed (ATSIC, 1993)
Table 5 Source of Water Supply: Groundwater as percentage of Total Sources used by Discrete Communities within Each State/Territory (ATSIC, 1993)
Table 6 Quality of Water available for Human Consumption within the Communities which do not comply with NHMRC – AWRC Guidelines (ATSIC, 1993)
Table 7 Water Restrictions experienced by Discrete Communities over the past twelve months (ATSIC, 1993)
Reasons for water restrictions 1 Drought 5 Water source exhausted 2 Equipment breakdown 6 No wind 3 Lack of storage 7 No fuel 4 Inadequate reticulation 8 Other While the latest ATSIC and Torres Strait data is a significant base on which to establish decisions, the focus on technical compliance and comparative adequacy needs to be augmented with information on the actual water strategies and attitudes to water which people hold. Communities do not exist unless people have access to water or have a defined water strategy which allows them to live in certain geographical areas. In some communities the need for water may be associated with a broad range of issues. In some situations people may not directly refer to their need for water, but other cultural aspirations imply a need for changes in the level of service provision. Many of the case studies show the intricate social web between the need for particular types of water supply and the ability to follow culturally-defined lifestyles. Therefore, while it is useful to know how many services do not comply with standard guidelines, it would be equally useful to have an appreciation of whether the community can sustain the application of those standards if rigidly applied. An examination of water needs under this broader framework could provide meaningful results. This aspect of water supply audits in Aboriginal and Islander communities is a significant omission. The focus on data collection suggests a purpose of achieving equity against external norms rather than equity through Aboriginal ownership and control. With the exception of the recent ATSIC data, little is known about contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander water supplies. The information which does exist is often in government or consultants' reports and not easily accessible for wider scrutiny. Useful articles most relevant to communities in arid areas appear in several workshops, conference and seminar proceedings and papers (see Foran & Walker 1986, Mansell et al 1990, RADG 1988). Yüklə 1,18 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|