A range of structural and regulatory reforms are being implemented to improve the way water services are provided in SEQ.

Key elements of the reforms:

• Bulk source and treatment - ownership of water sources such as dams, weirs and aquifers has been aggregated into a single Bulk Supply Authority owned by the State. The Queensland Bulk Water Supply Authority, trading as SEQ Water, conducts its affairs on a commercial basis and sell all its water services to the Water Grid Manager
• Manufactured water - the SEQ (Gold Coast) Desalination Plant and the Western Corridor Water Recycled Water Project will be located within a second State owned bulk entity focussed on manufactured water
• Bulk transport – a state owned authority will own the major transport infrastructure, including that presently owned by local governments and that being built by the State as part of the SEQ water grid to enable conjunctive (regional) management and distribution of water. The Bulk transport authority is required to sell all its water services (transport from the Bulk Supply and Manufactured Water sources to the Distribution Entity’s network) to the Water Grid Manager
• Water grid management - the Water Grid Manager has been established by the State to manage contracts with the Bulk Supply and Transport Authorities and the retailers, and to manage the flow of water around the SEQ Water Grid allowing for the sharing of costs. The Water Grid Manager will buy the services of the Bulk Supply, Manufactured Water and Bulk Transport Authorities and sell the treated water to Retailers and power stations
• Distribution/Retail – three combined distribution/retail entities will own the water and sewerage distribution infrastructure and sell water and sewerage disposal services to customers.  Distribution infrastructure includes reticulation pipes, reservoirs, pumps (i.e. all non bulk transport assets) and sewage treatment plants. The entities will sell and deliver water to customers, collect sewage and deliver it to treatment plants, treat and dispose of the sewage, and purchase treated water from the Water Grid Manager. These entities will be established by 1 July 2010. The entities will be made up of the following council groups:
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    1. Brisbane, Scenic Rim, Ipswich, Somerset, Lockyer Valley
    2. Gold Coast, Logan, Redlands
    3. Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay

The Bulk Supply, Manufactured Water and Bulk Transport Authorities and the Water Grid Manager will be State statutory authorities, each governed by its own Board. There is provision for Ministerial direction (akin to shareholding Minister’s direction of a Government owned corporation) to perform, for example, non-commercial activities.

Consolidating the ownership arrangements for water supply and sewerage presents an opportunity for improvement in a number of areas including:

• Providing security of supply - to all of SEQ’s population, now and into the future;
• Developing consistent service standards - addressing the current variability in service standards throughout the SEQ region;
• Technical expertise - bringing together of staff expertise in developing and providing the region’s future water supply and sewerage services;
• Optimised network planning - creating the opportunity to plan future infrastructure networks across the whole of the SEQ region; and
• Improving financial capacity - bringing together assets under one entity and increasing financial capacity. In the case of the Distribution Entity, this creates an opportunity to more proactively construct water supply and sewerage infrastructure to support future development.

In 2007, the Queensland Water Commission recommended a series of changes to SEQ’s water supply arrangements. Read more