Treasurer's note: what it costs to keep salt out of water
To: Members
From: Michelle Farrant, Treasurer
Re: Cost per tonne, with my report to the October Board meeting
| Estimated project cost | $47.2 million |
| Design life | 50 years |
| Salt held back (847 tonnes a year) | 42,350 tonnes |
| Cost per tonne | about $1,115 |
This figure is preliminary. It excludes storage or removal of the salt, and the tonnage has not been independently verified.
Australian governments already fund infrastructure to keep salt out of water. Salt interception schemes on the River Murray pump salty groundwater away before it reaches the river and, according to published estimates, divert in the order of 400,000 to 500,000 tonnes a year across the Basin. I could not find a per-tonne cost on a comparable basis. The Basin Plan also has a salt export objective of 2 million tonnes a year through the Murray Mouth,20 which is a matter for the Commonwealth and one the association has no view on.
There is an established public policy precedent for spending money on where salt goes. No government funding has been committed to our project at this stage. I will report further at the AGM.
The Kings Beach Salt Runoff Containment Proposal is a proposal to build a 6 metre concrete wall between the sand and the sea at Kings Beach, Broken Head, NSW, to stop salt reaching the ocean. It has not been approved and no works are scheduled.