John Ringham

It’s been three years since The CEO Magazine spoke with John Ringham, Chief Executive of SA Water. In the meantime, John has seen the Adelaide desalination plant begin production of drinking water, and has led numerous projects for the organisation and the betterment of South Australia’’s access to clean water and sanitation.

While South Australia has the advantage of an integrated water utility that services the entire state, it does face some challenges. ““South Australia has a very prolonged dry period, which means it relies very much on flows in the River Murray, and now desalination. However, the quality of water it receives on the lower end of the Murray is pretty poor, so getting the quality up to drinking water standards is always a challenge. SA Water has an advantage in that the majority of its population is in the metropolitan Adelaide area.”

“”In terms of waste disposal, it disposes of its waste into a largely confined gulf, which means the quality of the effluent disposal has to be higher than some of the other disposals around the country, which go into open oceans. And that obviously means the treatment costs are higher, which is a burden on a lower population. If you looked at the proportion of the length of water main and sewer per customer in South Australia, it would be higher than other states, which means each customer is bearing a higher fixed cost.””