page_title: Victorian Desalination Plant
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Victorian Desalination Plant / Location
caption_attribution_description: A photograph showing the control building, carpark and entrance of the Victorian Desalination Plant.jpeg
context_page_description: The Victorian Desalination Plant is a water desalination plant in Dalyston, on the Bass Coast in southern Victoria, Australia. The project was announced by Premier Steve Bracks in June 2007, at the height of the crippling millennium drought when Melbourne's water storage levels dropped to 28.4%, a drop of more than 20% from the previous year. Increased winter-spring rains after mid-2007 took water storage levels above 40%, but it was not until 2011 that storages returned to pre-2006 levels.
  The plant was completed in December 2012, and was the largest addition to Melbourne's water system since the Thomson River Dam was completed in 1983. However, at the time, Melbourne's reservoirs were at 81% capacity, and the plant was immediately put into standby mode. The first water released for public use was in March 2017 via Cardinia Reservoir.
  As a rainfall-independent source of water the desalination plant complements Victoria's existing drainage basins, being a useful resource in times of drought. It is a controversial part of Victoria's water system, with ongoing costs of $608 million a year, equivalent to .16% of Melbourne's FY2019 GDP, even if no water is ordered.
context_section_description: Nine sites were included in the feasibility study's "long list", and subsequently reduce to four (Surf Coast, East of Port Philip Bay, West of Western Port, and Bass Coast). The Bass Coast was chosen as the premium location. Compulsory acquisition notices were issued to affected residents on 25 January 2008.
  The site is a 20-hectare (49-acre) area in Dalyston next to Williamsons Beach on the Bass Coast in south-eastern Victoria. It is between Wonthaggi and Kilcunda and near the Powlett River.
  The site is located on Bunurong aboriginal land, specifically the Boakoolawal clan which lived in the area south of the Bass River before white settlement. Middens containing charcoal and shellfish mark the location of their campsites along the coast. Many significant archaeological artifacts have previously been discovered around the construction site, including Australia's first dinosaur bone, the Cape Paterson Claw, discovered nearby in 1903 by William Ferguson near what is now Eagles Nest, Bunurong Marine National Park in Inverloch.
  Plans are underway to build a much larger, wind farm at Glenthompson to offset the electricity used by the desalination plant.
  The site is located in the Powlett River Coal Fields where the State Coal Mine produced most of the steam-locomotive fuel that serviced the Victorian Railways network, from 1911 until 1978.
caption: Overlooking the carpark, control building and entrance
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