SIMO has serious concerns about the amount of water being piped from the Minjerribah aquifer, to supply residents of Redland City Council with townwater.

Currently, more than 60% of Redlands water comes from Minjerribah.

The clean, sand-filtered water requires very little treatment for human consumption, making it a preferred, cheap source for the bulk water provider, Seqwater.

Currently, around 20 – 25 megalitres (ML) are being taken daily from the underground aquifer by Seqwater for use on the mainland.

Seqwater’s licence allows for up to 57.6 ML a day to be taken.

The island’s aquifer is being treated as if it was another dam on the grid. Dams are essentially ecologically useless, the water all but disconnected from living systems. But this is absolutely not the case for the island’s aquifer, whose environmental flow is critical to sustaining all life on the island.

How far Minjerribah’s ecosystem can tolerate water extraction is only poorly understood. No research or hydrological modelling has been done. No trigger levels are in place to reduce, or halt, water extraction.

Since 2014, the island’s aquifer has been falling steadily. The levels at the borefield monitoring site are now very low – below the level it was at the end of the millennium drought. Even if we do get above average rainfall, the bore data suggests that the current level of extraction is not sustainable. There simply is not enough reserve in the aquifer.

If the level drops, saltwater will infiltrate the aquifer, causing irreversible damage to the islands fragile ecosystem, plants and animals and potentially polluting drinking water.