About Us

Agritech Hydropower (a related entity) was established 10 years ago with the express aim of correcting vast tracts of salt affected land in the south west wheatbelt.

Over the past 10 years a team of 27 of the states best scientists, engineers, and academics have devised three large scale projects with the aim of recovering the saline land, the rivers, streams and lakes, in the wheatbelt.

During the development of these proposals it became apparent that Western Australia had two major crises, "Salinity" and "Water". It quickly became apparent to the team that our water problems stemmed from our salinity problems. Correcting salinity would ensure the reclamation of a number of our rivers, streams and lakes. This reclaimed water could then be used to eliminate our current water shortage and provide for our future water needs.

The Wellington Dam Water Recovery Project emerged from all of the work that was done in developing the Agritech Wheatbelt Salinity Strategy. The demise of Wellington Dam was caused by the East Collie catchment having become saline and contaminating the Collie River, which in turn caused the loss of the dam as a major source of potable water.

In brief, the Agritech Hydropower proposals relate to three major projects, covering the Blackwood, Murray and Avon Catchments. These areas contain most of WA's salinity problem, which totals some 2.2m hectares of lost land. The State is losing land at the rate of 11.4 hectares per hour . Nearly every river, stream and lake in the wheatbelt has become saline.

The Blackwood, Murray and Avon rivers were seen as potable sources of water for the South West of the State. The Blackwood river is now discharging more salt at its mouth than the mighty Murray-Darling system.

Because the wheatbelt drains from east to west, that salt is now having an effect on coastal land. The dams along the Darling Scarp are experiencing increases in their salinity levels. Nothing of any consequence is being done by government or their agencies to fix these problems.

The projects involve the construction of a series of canals that drain the wheatbelt and deliver the saline water to the top of the Darling Scarp, from there it is delivered via pipeline down the scarp to a hydro electric power station which generates the power and discharges the waste water to the sea. The Blackwood project is expected to remove 400million tonnes (400 GL) of saline water per year at a flow rate of 12 tonnes per second (24 hrs per day, 7 days per week). This water will generate approx. 20 megawatts of cold, clean, renewable energy. Some of this water can also be used to supply a reverse osmosis plant, where more high quality potable water could be produced. (For further detail see here)

As a consequence of the enormous amount of work done by the Agritech team of scientists, engineers and academics, particularly in the Blackwood Catchment, we have extensive knowledge of the Collie Catchment, Collie River and Wellington Dam.

Development of both projects has seen a greater synergy develop between Agritech Hydropower and Agritech Smartwater. Agritech Hydropower was set up essentially to deal with salinity and Agritech Smartwater was set up specifically to treat the saline Wellington Dam water. In addition, it has now been found that we are able to also treat part of the saline water coming in from the wheatbelt on the same basis as the Wellington Dam proposal. i.e. Using the fall or head pressure of the Darling Scarp in substitution of fossil fuel power generation.

By diverting 20% of the wheatbelt water away from the three hydroelectric power stations and through three reverse osmosis desalination plants, these projects have the ability to supply 250 gigalitres per year of potable water to Perth. The furthermost distance of any of these plants to Perth is only 170 km, a far cry from the 3700 km (and very expensive) Fitzroy River canal project.

Conclusion

To correct salinity in the wheatbelt the saline water table MUST be lowered and maintained in the lowered state. In other words, this saline water MUST be removed if we are to recover the lost land, rivers, streams and lakes of the wheatbelt. Combined, these projects provide the ULTIMATE quadruple bottom line.
- Huge Environmental Bonuses
- Social Benefits
- Cheap Clean Renewable Energy Source
- Abundant and Economic Potable Water Supply

Finally, Agritech Smartwater and Agritech Hydropower collectively believe these projects to be far better and a more viable solution for the provision of potable water for Perth and environs than to resort to expensive seawater reverse osmosis desalination or risking our precious groundwater aquifers.

(see www.agritech-hydropower.com.au)