Koroit is a Water Smart Town

Koroit will become Wannon Water’s first Water Smart town in a new initiative that aims to get an entire community thinking about how they can become more water efficient.

The program was launched at the Replenish Our Planet Association’s seminar at the Koroit Theatre on Sunday afternoon.

Wannon Water planning and development professional Jess Quinlivan said that Koroit was at the western end of the Otway Water Supply System. Residents relied on groundwater supplied from local bores until the town was connected to the Warrnambool Water Treatment Plant in 1999.

“The Otway system is our largest and most complex system, providing 7,814 million litres of water, which represents two-thirds of our region’s needs,” Ms Quinlivan said. “The water flows by gravity from streams in the Otways or is pumped from the Gellibrand River. It’s then treated and supplied to residences, businesses and industries in 13 towns along the way.”

The Warrnambool Water Treatment Plant treats water for the city and for Koroit and Allansford customers. Currently, 90 per cent of the drinking water treated by the plant comes from the Otways with the remainder supplied by the Warrnambool Roof Water Harvesting System and bores at Albert Park.

Ms Quinlivan said this meant most of the water was pumped more than 90 kilometres along the pipe network. “There are huge financial and environmental costs to pump water such a large distance. Energy is a significant cost and we’ve been working hard to decrease our emissions. We want to be net-zero by 2030 and ensure our systems are resilient to climate change.

“Reducing our reliance on the Otway supply will help. It also reduces pressure on upper-catchment streams and the Gellibrand River That’s why we’re planning to expand our roof water harvesting system, which has zero carbon emissions, and investigating other sources of water, including bringing a bore at Curdievale online in the next few years.

“With the Replenish Our Planet Association’s interest in sustainability, we’re also keen to enlist the Koroit community in a case study for a whole-of-town water efficiency campaign.”

In 2023/24, Koroit’s 900 customers used more than 358 million litres of water. Of these, 834 were residences, 61 businesses and industry, and five were rural customers.

The Every Drop Counts campaign will run over summer and autumn with the entire community encouraged to join in to save water and money on their bills.