New Water Policy and Practice Issue 4, Number 1, Fall 2017 | Page 46
New Water Policy & Practice Journal
supported four other positions in drinking water quality management and supply,
including ensuring water quality in Perth’s metropolitan distribution network and
regional operations. More recently, Emma has joined the AWA YWP committee
in WA, as well as the AWA YWP National Specialist Network.
Emma has come to appreciate that it takes more than just a strong technical
ability to positively address water management challenges, it also requires strong
communication and collaboration skills to ensure the right people work together
to provide informed, relevant, and effective solutions. With this, she felt motivated
to begin her Masters of Integrated Water Management through the International
Water Centre part time in 2016. This has been a professionally and personally re-
warding experience for Emma. She has seen her final master’s project as an oppor-
tunity to pursue international experience with water management challenges, a
personal ambition of hers, and so will be undertaking her final project in Portugal
in 2018. Emma hopes this will lead to further opportunities to apply her skills to
address water challenges in the international water industry.
Risk-Based Pesticide Monitoring in Drinking Water
Catchments in Western Australia
T
his paper will introduce a three-year research project developed and
undertaken by Emma at Water Corporation (the Corporation) to in-
vestigate pesticide risk to drinking water quality in WA, and how this
fits within the water governance in the state.
Pesticide Research Project
The pesticide project, solely funded by the Corporation, began in September
2015 and has an estimated completion date of June 2018. The objective of
the project is to identify and implement efficiencies with risk-based pesticide
monitoring in drinking water catchments in WA. This project was developed
to address two key areas: (1) the Corporation’s drive to increase its under-
standing of pesticide risk to drinking water quality, and (2) that the Corpora-
tion’s regulatory requirement for pesticide monitoring could increase in the
future, as had occurred in 2014 on the adoption of the 2011 version of the
Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG). The 2011 version included
an extensive list of 155 pesticides, not all of which relevant to WA. Prior to
this project, initial work was completed to identify all relevant pesticides for
ongoing routine monitoring which included an increase from 45 to 97 pes-
ticides. This presented cost and resourcing challenges to the Corporation. It
is expected that this regulatory requirement could increase in the future as
more chemicals enter the market.
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