Water ambassadors congratulated

The Minister for Water, Nathan Rees, has congratulated 70 volunteer water ambassadors for helping Sydney's Chinese and Sri Lankan communities to save millions of litres of precious drinking water.

Minister Rees thanked the volunteer ambassadors at a special celebration event in Sydney on 25 February 2008, which was attended by over 150 people, including representatives from the NSW Government, Ryde Council and participating community organisations.

The event was organized to congratulate and recognize the passion and commitment of the water ambassadors for driving tremendous water savings within Sydney's Chinese and Sri Lankan communities.

The water ambassadors were recruited and trained as part of the Ethnic Communities' Councill's Home Water Action Program, which is supported by $70,000 in NSW Government funding through the Water for Life Education Program.

After volunteering through the Tzu Chi and the Lak Saviya Foundations, the ambassadors participated in intensive training with bilingual educators, before going out into their communities to spread the water conservation message.

During 2007 the ambassadors have donated their time and effort to educate more than 2,600 people about the water cycle and why and how to save water.

The ambassadors delivered numerous presentations to Tzu Chi and the Lak Saviya Foundation events, held information stalls at shopping centres and local festivals, as well as speaking one-on-one with their peers.

As a result of their efforts, members of the Chinese and Sri Lankan communities, and the wider community, have taken action to save water by having shorter showers, using a bucket to wash their cars, and participating in water savings programs, such as Sydney Water's WaterFix Program - saving millions of litres of drinking water per year.

Through partnerships with organizations such as the Ethnic Communities' Council, the Water for Life Education Program has resulted in thousands of Sydneysiders taking action to save our precious drinking water. As a result, we are now using the same amount of water now as we did in 1974, despite an extra one million people living in Greater Sydney.

While the recent heavy rain has eased the drought in the Sydney area, the community, business and the Government must all work together to continue to use water more efficiently, and adapt to the challenges of climate change and a rapidly growing population.

That is why the NSW Government is investing to ensure a diverse, reliable and affordable water supply and empowering the broader community to help drive down water use.

Projects under the Metropolitan Water Plan include:

constructing a 250 million litre a day desalination plant to be 100 per cent powered by accredited renewable energy and installing pumps to access water deep in our dams
increasing the use of recycled water to 22 billion litres a year, with plans in place to increase this to 70 billion litres by 2015
water saving programs, such as Sydney Water�s WaterFix and Every Drop Counts Business Program.

Minister Rees acknowledged that community support and participation had helped the Government to deliver these and other achievements, and that ongoing engagement on water education and conservation is vital to securing Greater Sydney's future water supply.

For the further information on the Water Ambassadors project, visit the Home Water Action Program page.