Australia Turns to Desalination Amid Water Shortage

Look at the grass courts at Perth's Peppermint Grove Tennis Club, and it's difficult to believe the talk about drought and the possibility that this west Australian coastal city will run out of water.

Beyond the fence, sailboats and kayaks bob in the Swan River, a thick ribbon of blue that winds through a city bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean. It is a city where water seems to be everywhere. But Perth is facing a serious water shortage.

Over the past 10 years or so, the city has seen a 21 percent decline in rainfall, but the stream flow into dams — the actual amount running into storage — dropped about 65 percent, according to Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's minister for the environment and water resources.

"We've seen similar declines in stream flow, though not quite so dramatic across southern Australia," he says.

Turnbull calls Perth the "canary in the climate change coalmine," a city scrambling to find other sources of water for a growing population. The city is riding a wave of economic prosperity fueled by China's insatiable appetite for Western Australia's natural resources.

Perth, with a population of about 1.7 million, is growing 3 percent a year — about 750 families a week move to the city, says Gary Crisp of the Western Australia Water Corp.

"We need more water," he says. "We're absolutely running out."

The Water Corp. turned to the nearby Indian Ocean to help solve the problem.

The Kwinana Desalination Plant south of the city opened two months ago. The facility, the first of its kind in Australia, covers just a few acres in an industrial park next to the ocean.
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