This morning in the SMH 8 August 2011, I read that the Barry O Farrell government and ALP cut 9 NSW water saving schemes. The effect of the loss in water efficiency is good news for the elephantine Kurnell desalination plant. It's value will supposedly increase making it attractive to private buyers. Unfortunately the sale will trade at the expense of efficiency, not to mention other incidentals that taxpayers will incur.

Those 9 schemes were instrumental in reducing Sydneysiders per capita water consumption to under $329 per day. It still seems like a lot of personal consumption compared to other world regions. If you are in a developing country the average amount used for drinking, washing and cooking is 10 litres. In Europe the average is 200 litres for the same. Probably no surprise to anyone, we fall under the average 400 litres consumed by North Americans.

I find it hard to comprehend the logic in dumping the schemes since they were directly and indirectly significant in helping households reduce water consumption and bills. Instead taxpayers are likely to bear the higher costs. And for what? Well basically, a bad idea from the start. This deal is "ugly" written all over it. The only winners are going to be the private companies which I cynically assume will be handed guaranteed profit for a drop in the bucket.

The forecast is that in 20 years time consumption of water will increase 40% more than it is now. Our caring government should think twice about scraping the tiny 6 million dollars in schemes that were achieving such positive outcomes.

We seem to have forgotten we live on the driest continent. The sooner we place more value on water the better off we will be. Water is the most precious resource we have.