Eleven councils were recognised and awarded for their Milestone achievements at the ICLEI Oceania, Department of Water and Water Corporation joint Water Campaign and Waterwise Council Program Recognition Event and Briefing Breakfast on 2 August 2012, where the Hon. Minister Bill Marmion MLA, BE, MBA provided a keynote address and presented the awards. ICLEI Oceania congratulates the Cities of Fremantle, Joondalup, Melville, Nedlands, Rockingham, Stirling and Subiaco, the Shire of Peppermint Grove, and the Towns of Bassendean, Claremont and Mosman Park. Their achievements highlight the commitment of councils and the integral work they are undertaking in their water management.

The Western Australian Waterwise Council Program received the WA State AWA Program Innovation Award. This award recognises significant and innovative environmental or sustainability programs within the water industry. The Waterwise Council Program is a partnership between the Water Corporation, the Department of Water and ICLEI Oceania’s Water Campaign™ and builds cooperative working relationships with local governments to improve water use efficiency, across all their operations, indoor and out, scheme and bore water usage. ICLEI Oceania congratulates past and present staff involved with the Water Campaign and the Waterwise Council Program.

2012 has seen an improvement in the way council’s record water saving actions through the introduction of an annual recording requirement. There has also been a move to include more detailed groundwater recording. Feedback from council’s has been largely positive with many saying the annual recording of data will help to keep track of information relating to the Water Campaign.

A snapshot of 2011-12 annual recording process shows that an average of 14 931 kLs per council water saved. With 17 councils reporting their water actions, a total of 253, 832 kLs has been saved. This is the equivalent to 100 olympic swimming pools, or the total wastewater recycled in Adelaide each year.

WA Council participants attended the Local Government Water Efficiency Forum, delivered as part of the WA Waterwise Council program and hosted by the Shire of Peppermint Grove. At the Forum, Greg Hales provided an update of the Water Campaign. Participants learnt of the turf trials conducted by the University of Western Australia and highlighted some alternative water use strategies for local governments.

ICLEI Oceania has been involved in the New WAterways Reseach Forum, a forum of WA industry participants and other key stakeholders to progress strategic urban water science, capacity building and the development of CRC’s Water Sensitive Cities and towns in WA. The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) is pursuing solutions to address major challenges facing Australia.

ICLEI Oceania is collaborating with a number of other groups. These collaborations enhances the implementation of Total Water Cycle Management and include

• The Perth Region NRM’s Integrated Water Management Reference Group (IWMRG), building on the Water Campaign™ program into the implementation of the Local Government (LG) NRM recommendations and development of an overarching LG NRM Business Plan.

• The South West Group. In the development of their NRM Plans to address landscape change.

• ICLEI has also been a part of the Garden Industry Reference Group where water and garden industry representatives discuss and plan alliances for water conservation and efficiency and social and economic impact minimisation.

ICLEI hosted a Water CampaignTM LG forum at the City of Melville with LG representatives where strengths of the program and opportunities for its development to provide further ongoing support in the face of proposed LG amalgamations was discussed. Martin Brennan, ICLEI Oceania’s CEO and Regional Director will be taking the outcomes of the discussion to Melbourne where tool development is being researched with the support of City West Water.

ICLEI Oceania hosted the 2012 Water CampaignTM Water & Liveability Workshop Professor Tony Wong, CEO and Director of the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities at Monash University provided the keynote address. The panel of speakers included Clare Lombardi, Healthy Urban Habitat Project Manager, City West Water, Rob Curnow, Co-Director, Community Change, Phil Edwards, Integrated Water Partnership Manager, Melbourne Water, providing extensive experience and knowledge, to make for valuable discussion on Water and Liveability to the seven Melbourne Water Campaign™ participants who attended.

Ground water efficiency has been a significant focus of the Water CampaignTM in Western Australia this year as WA has experienced continued drought, and the drawing limits of ground water from aquifers, particularly in the South West of Western Australia, are reaching their sustainable limits. This, combined with the pressing demands of population growth and associated spread of urban and regional development, poses challenges for local governments (LGs) to improve their ground water efficiency without compromising public amenities.

The Water CampaignTM has encouraged LGs to maintain their community assets of POS while improving their water conservation and ground water efficiency practices. Councils have reported practices such as improved irrigation upgrades and centralized computer management, improved turf maintenance, hydrozoning and using native plants or finding alternative water sources for irrigation.

Greg Hales has been on the judging panel of the Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities program and ICLEI congratulates the City of Cockburn for being named Australia’s most sustainable city for 2012.

Staffing: This year we had new casual staff to assist with delivery of the Water Campaign

• Alison Dorn completes her contract with us at the end of the year. It has been great having Alison on the Water team and we wish her all the best for her future endeavours.

• Emily Scarbro completed a 8 month contract in the Melbourne office and the staff of ICLEI Oceania and the Water Campaign™ acknowledge the terrific work of Emily in her engagement with the City West Water (Vic) funded councils.

The ICLEI Oceania Water Campaign Team thanks the City of Melville for hosting the Campaign and the Western Australian Government through the Department of Water for their funding support.

We wish all in the Campaign best wishes and looks forward to another successful year in 2013.

Greg Hales, Water Campaign - Australia, Manager

Lis Sturrock