This region has a rapidly growing population and has already reached the limits of its water supply. This region had previously had an adequate water supply but over recent years has had water restrictions. Over the past few years there has been a new problem of blooms of toxic algae requiring a new expensive water treatment plant to render the water safe to drink.
The calculations are based on conservative calculations, the real cost of logging in this small catchment could be significantly greater than we have estimated. Our Science Research Officer, Richard Hughes, was careful to be accurate. Richard used the government's data for logging in the catchment, water loss from logging and rainfall.
Logging that has already taken place will result in loss of water worth over $80 million. By the year 2025 this catchment will be losing 3,500 million litres per year of water to logging. This is worth $2.38 million dollars on today's water prices. This is 1.5 times greater than the amount of water used by Bacchus Marsh currently.
The state government plans to log the remaining intact areas of mature forest within the catchment over the next few years. When logging is completed in the Merrimu Catchment these towns will be losing 4,500 million litres of water per year, this is greater than what Melton uses currently.
The Doctors for Native Forests report on the impact of logging in the Merrimu
Catchment is available for download. Simply click on the file below to download
to your computer. If you require Adobe Acrobat reader, go to www.adobe.com
and download the free reader.