Aqua Guardian Group CEO Nigel Blair, left, senior technician Dr Sarah Gray and weather presenter and director of World Wind Rob Gell launched 500 water saving pods on the Rochford Winery dam.
By Mara Pattison-Sowden
A NEW water-saving technology was launched in the Yarra Valley this month, amid discussions about the water industry and the future of Australia’s water supply.
The technology has been proven to reduce evaporation-related losses from major water storages by up to 88 per cent.
The Federal Government supported the technology with a $500,000 grant in 2009 to continue its development.
The water saving pods made by the Aqua Guardian Group took five years to research, develop and test and a major deployment of them next year in Ouyen, north-western Victoria, is expected to save enough water to supply 75 per cent of the town’s water requirements.
A catchment in the Rochford Winery dam has been filled with 500 AquaArmour pods that are being promoted as the cheapest way to reduce the effects of water evaporation.
Each hexagonal pod is made of high density polyethylene (HDPE), a 100 per cent recyclable material, which takes in 80 litres of water and floats on the surface.
Dr Sarah Gray, the senior technician manager at Aqua Guardian Group, said she calculated that evaporation would reduce the level water in the Rochford Dam by 1.5 metres per year – equivalent to more than three Olympic-sized pools.
Professor Gary Jones, chief executive of eWater Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), said Australians were getting smarter in how they allocated and used water.
“Irrigation, cities, the mining industry, the manufacturing industry, they all need water, and they need to get that sharing right,” he said.
Prof Jones said the water industry was difficult to sell into but needed to realise the potential that water saving technology had.
Chief executive of the Environmental Biotechnology Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) David Garman agreed with Prof Jones, and said it was particularly hard to sell water saving products in Australia.
“The water industry is not proactive, they do not invest.
“They build more dams when they run out of space, they solve algae problems when they are happening, not before,” he said.
