With nearly half of all water stored in its catchments being lost while getting to properties, Coliban Water has launched a "once in a 100-year" plan to rebuild antiquated infrastructure.
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The water organisation has announced a business case which will run over the next two years where it will look to improve its existing water storage and transport facilities.
The multi-million-dollar rebuild would be funded in part by governments and stakeholders with Coliban Water customers also likely to foot some of the bill.
Coliban Water managing director Damian Wells said the moment was right to start tackling the upgrade of this infrastructure.
"This is a huge opportunity for our region and all Coliban Water customers," he said.
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"We are really concerned in terms of our strategy about responding to climate change, aging assets and population growth.
"This gives us an incredible opportunity to look at assets across our rural network which all date back to between 1870 and 1930 when they were constructed."
'Antiquated infrastructure'
Mr Wells said inadequate infrastructure resulted in the loss of half of all water carried in channels and storm drains.
The business case to rebuild it has been made possible with $3.7 million in funding from the Federal Government.
Mr Wells said there was 1100 customers stretching from Kyneton to Raywood who would need to be contacted and involved in the upgrading process.
"At the moment, most of our customers in this network need to basically phone up and do a water order on a rostering basis," he said.
"So we need to get all the customers on their channel to agree to take in water so it can efficiently - or as efficiently as possible in a very antiquated network - deliver water to their place.
"That is not the best way to supply customers. There are opportunities in (the business case) to save water ... that is available 24/7, 3-6-5 (356 days a year)."
Cost to customers
Mr Wells admitted the overhaul of the existing system would be expensive which customers would never be able to foot on their own.
He said work still needed to be done with both levels of government and other stakeholders to finance the broader build.
The managing director said it was "unsustainable" to continue to lose such massive amounts of water through poorly maintained channels.
"More than half of the water from storage is lost," he said.
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"That is completely unsustainable in the long run. In our region, the water storage that supplies these customers is down by about 53 percent over the long run averages.
"That is climate change that is already arrived in our region so we must respond. We've got no choice in the matter."
Mr Wells said "inevitably" there would need to be discussions with Coliban Water customers around water tariffs and "willingness to pay" to keep up with the scale of the infrastructure build.
Upgrades well overdue
Federal Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters said it was great to see the project to redevelop parts of Coliban Water's systems go to the next step.
Ms Chesters said the upgrades were well overdue.
"Just like we need to maintain and upgrade or regional roads, we have to maintain and upgrade our water network," she said.
"It is quite alarming to think that a lot of these homes will have modern connectivity they can connect to the NBN, yet they are still ringing up Coliban to say send us some water.
"This is about modernisation."
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