GINGIN residents and businesses can benefit from a program to provide water fit to maintain sports grounds and public spaces, industry supply, livestock requirements and emergency firefighting purposes.
Water Minister Mia Davies said the first round of the $21.6 million Watering WA Towns grants program would make hundreds of millions of litres of fit-for-purpose water available in the state’s agricultural towns for the above mentioned projects.
“In the first two years, Watering WA will focus on dryland agricultural areas from the Mid-West to the Great Southern – areas that have an average annual rainfall of less than 600mm – before being expanded to include regional areas across the state,’’ she said.
“Watering WA Towns expands the Community Water Supply Program grants – from a maximum of $100,000 a grant to up to $2 million – for local governments, community groups and businesses to co-invest in infrastructure to harvest, store, treat and distribute non-potable water for irrigation and community use.’’
To be eligible to take part projects in the Shire of Gingin would have to be east of the Brand Hwy.
Regional Development Minister Terry Redman said the unprecedented investment in non-drinking water projects was ultimately aimed at supporting long-term growth of regional areas.
“Regional areas support a variety of industries that contribute billions of dollars to the state’s economy and Royalties for Regions is investing in the development of practical water supply works that help support regional areas as attractive places to live, work and invest,” he said.
Ms Davies said grants of up to $2 million to increase fit-for-purpose non-drinking water use were available.
Watering WA also expands the Department of Water’s existing Farm Water Rebate Scheme to include farms connected to scheme water, as well as increasing rebates for on-farm water supply improvements from $15,000 to $20,000 – continuing more than $36 million spent in the past two decades building on-farm capacity.
Visit http://www.water.wa.gov.au/wateringWA for details on Watering WA grant applications
Watering WA Towns applications need to be in by November 30.
