Sydney Water Corporation

And it warned quite rightly that the city faces reliability issues and supply constraints, et cetera, et cetera, if these data centres go ahead.

Now, at the same time, Sydney Water has also warned that these data centres are going to create a lot of issues with water supply.

And Sydney Water estimated that data centre demand could reach around 260 megalitres per day by 2035.

Now, that's a big number.

It means nothing to anybody except it's a big number.

But if you annualise that over a year, that's about 15% to 20% of current Sydney water supply.

How does a data centre use water?

So it uses water to cool its servers.

ads? Oh, do you know who? I actually have a good answer for this.

Sydney Water.

Oh, of course.

And shout

out to Amy Code, who we love on this show, who did a video that went viral a couple of months ago explaining the difference between sewage and sewerage for Sydney Water.

But I've seen recently some like ads coming up on my TikTok and they're doing this series of verticals called Pipe Drama and And it's like a soap opera where, like, the drama is something stuck in the pipe or something's clogged the toilet or something like that.

And it's so smart because it's like a soap opera about plumbing.

I've only seen

So should I be using wipes?

On behalf of Sydney Water, can we not use the wipes?

What about the biodegradable ones that they say you can flush?

So I have been told that even they build up in the sewer system.

Spent a couple of years doing that.

And the last job I had, I was working for Sydney Water out at the new airport they're putting out in the western suburbs.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're out there putting in all the new water structure for 150,000 homes.

Some of the surrounding industrial land began to be redeveloped for housing and in 1997 the then South Sydney Council produced a refurbishment plan.

Sydney Water then followed up with a $4 million proposal to clean out the toxic polluted sediment and make it safer for other kinds of activities.

In 1998 a team of architecture students from Uni NSW were commissioned to imagine a new recreational future for the waterway and by 1999 there was a $300 million redevelopment scheme envisaged which would include housing for 25,000 people, cafes, restaurants and boating facilities.

This proposal imagined the Alexandra Canal becoming the Venice of Sydney

There's some beautiful big gums.

I can see why the planners thought that this area could be transformed.

But the $40 million naturalisation project that Sydney Water proposed for the canal

doesn't really seem to have gone ahead.

It follows two earlier detections in long-nosed fur seals and a case in a red fox, both in South Australia.

And Sydney Water is facing a major issue, a breakdown of a $40 million... $40 million new payroll system has led to staff missing weeks of pay.

The bungled rollout has left hundreds of staff without proper pay since July 8.

The issue has triggered four separate court actions.

It's even seen a letter urging Premier Chris Mintz to step down from senior leadership of Sydney Water without pay until everything is fixed.

One action is in the Fair Work Commission where the Australian Services Union is seeking permission for protected industrial action.

Staff say they don't want to impact city water supply but they do want to refuse to chase overdue bills or prepare water infrastructure DAs.