ANU looking to cut its water bills

The Australian National University in Canberra has launched a major water savings initiative to reduce the annual cost of utilities.

The move follows federal funding cuts of more than $2 billion to universities to fund secondary education reforms. According to its website, the ANU spends $17.5 million a year on energy and water and wants to reduce that by 10 per cent in 2014. It says the “vast majority” of water consumed on campus is used in toilets, showers, taps, laboratories and in landscape irrigation. “Up to 10 per of water can also be lost through leaks,” the website says.

Canberra is the biggest city in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s major food producing region. Under the MDB plan for re-allocation of water entitlements, Canberra is largely exempt from the mandatory water reductions facing large regional towns across New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. That has been a bitter point of contention with cities like Griffith in the NSW Riverina, which face cuts of up to 40 per cent to regional water entitlements.