Councillor Debbie Blumel is hearing hundreds of complaints about water bills from the new Unitywater company, as she goes to the public with a plan to set up a community-owned water company based on roof harvesting of rain water – a technology being successfully trialled at Coolum Ridges. She talked to Diet Simon and Mark Rodriquez.
Part 1. Runs 6’41”
Councillor Blumel criticises past failings by council, where she’s none too popular, but doesn’t seem to mind.
Part 2. Runs 2’52”
The state government plans to quadruple the price of bulk water in our area by 2017, and those increases will be passed on to all of us. Councillor Blumel says Sunshine Coast people cannot afford to pay that. She argues that the Unitywater business model is unsustainable and the company will ultimately be vulnerable to privatisation, possibly by foreign buyers.
Part 3. Runs 5’17”
The Noosa state MP, Glen Elmes, who’s also receiving hundreds of protests about Unitywater billing, will host a public forum at the J in Noosa Junction on the 7th of September, which we will broadcast the next day, September the 8th shortly after 12 noon. The Unitywater CEO, Jon Black, will address the forum. Due to the significant turnout expected, you are asked to register your attendance by phoning Glen Elmes’ office on 5449 8788.
Unless Debbie Blumel can get her Community Water Limited up and running by Christmas, our region will lose a $4.6 million federal government grant for Coolum Ridges. Such was the resistance in Council to the new technology that Council missed the deadline for receiving the grant. It is now trying to get it for Community Water Limited. Council is gravely failing us on this. Here’s a chance to shield us from the price of water becoming four times what it is now in seven years and they’re stonewalling. I don’t buy their reasoning that it’s a non-viable technology on the scale needed for the entire Coast. There’s something not right underlying this – Cr Blumel calls it “vested interests”. I want to know what they are. To hear more argument in depth about this issue as we covered it in May, go to http://www.noosacommunityradio.org/water-price-to-quadruple-councillors-in-running-stoush/.
Unitywater CEO: “Meters must be read for billing water” // Sep 13, 2010 at 4:22 pm
[...] There are two recent interviews about the issue on our website, one with Jon Black at Unitywater chief claims “no systemic issues”, the other with Councillor Debbie Blumel, who spearheads a campaign to start a cooperatively owned community water company based on collective roof rain harvesting, at Councillor: “Let’s start a community water company”. [...]