Why desalination for Melbourne

According to Wikipedia: Large-scale desalination typically requires large amounts of energy as well as specialized, expensive infrastructure, making it very costly compared to the use of fresh water from rivers or groundwater.

What is Victoria doing? We are spending 3.1 billion on a desalination plant when we are trying to reduce our greenhouse footprint. The plant will produce annually:

• 150 billion litres of water - Thats the good news
• 250 billion litres of brine and salt
• 1 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (200 kg for every man, woman and child in Victoria)
  

It will also cost Victoria between $300 and $500 million years every year for 30 years
... cost to our sea-life?

Alternatives:

1. Make the hard decision that NO drinking water is used on gardens/parks.... only recycled or tank water....saving us at least 80 to 100 billion litres
2. Use one billion dollars to provide 1 million homes with a water tank costing $1000..at current prices. that would allow a capacity of 4.5 billion litres...most tanks are filled and refilled a few times a year...
3. use 500 million dollars to outfit major public buildings** with water tanks, waterless toilets etc
   
4. do something about the 140 billion litres of water used to generate coal fired electricity in Victoria...can we use rainwater? recycled water?
5. every year Melbourne Water pumps 300 billion litres of treated sewage into the sea and 500 billions litres of rain water falls in the metropolitan area***

OPPOSITION VOICE:
GOVERNMENT VOICE:

**Parliament House, Musuem of Victoria, MCG, Spencer St Station (yes I know it has been renamed), Flinders St Station, the various Markets, sports facilities etc etc
***The Nationals