Golf courses facing water bills in excess of $300k for summer

Clubs ACT chief executive officer Gwyn Rees said some golf clubs had been forced to use potable water as their dams dried up.

Some clubs are in discussions with government hoping to get some financial relief. "We would love all our political leaders to commit to looking at this issue again," Mr Rees said.

"Clubs will be amongst the hardest hit by the ACT's water charges this summer. The ACT has some of the highest water charges in the country and unlike many other jurisdictions do not have a commercial or community facility rate.

"Here in the ACT we also bill for dam water, which is unique, and we charge many times what other states do for our non-potable water."

If the hot weather continues, some clubs are forecasting their water bill for summer to exceed $340,000. Belconnen Golf Club's dams have already dried up - just three weeks into summer - and golf operations manager Adam Porker said there was little rain expected until February.

They're using recycled water from the Molonglo treatment plant and are charging every player a water levy to help cover costs.

It's a measure a lot of other clubs have also introduced.

"It's dire to say the least. Our dams are completely empty. We're hand-watering greens," Mr Porker said.

"We're not in the worst position in the world though - we've got a golf course, the members get to play it.

"The people fighting fires are the ones. This weather is unprecedented. It's a bit much for everybody. There's no doubt about that."

Some clubs have been able to secure an exemption from charges to draw water from their own dams, but that agreement runs out next year.

Clubs have reported water bills are many times higher in the ACT for sporting clubs than across the border in NSW.

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Mr Rees said if the grounds were lost over summer, the cost to recover them was high.

He said the government had dragged its feet on a promised review into water rates for clubs.

"The clubs maintaining our sporting grounds cannot afford more delay," Mr Rees said.

"The government wants clubs to diversify and find new streams of income outside of gaming, yet its own charging regime makes the provision of other services all but impossible."

Golf NSW chief executive officer Stuart Fraser said the ACT government should give clubs access to water at a reasonable cost in line with other jurisdictions.

"Clubs are not for profit organisations, so many of them already ride pretty close to the wind and invest back into infrastructure," he said.

"The ACT sticks out with its astronomically high water prices."

A government spokeswoman said it was open to discussing what further measures may assist particular clubs, but it would not agree to cut the cost of using limited drinking water to water golf courses.

She said the government did examine revising water and land rates as part of its wider clubs taxation reforms.

"Providing concessions on water charges for clubs was considered during the development of incentives for clubs to surrender their gaming machine authorisations," she said.

"Providing concessional charges for potable water usage by clubs would ultimately be passed onto other customers in the form of higher overall prices."

She said a 50 per cent reduction in water extraction charges for golf clubs using non-drinking water had been in place since 2014 and would continue.

Gungahlin Lakes Golf Club has their own dams and are usually self sufficient, but with their water rapidly running out it's looking looking likely they'll also have to start buying water.

Their club captain Kevin Flanagan said their water levels were the lowest they'd been in the club's history.

"We are struggling. We don't use any town water. All of our water's fed from the lakes we have on our golf course and at the moment they are the driest that they have been in the history of the golf club," he said.

"At this stage no [we don't buy water], but if we don't get a decent amount of rain soon we are going to have to look at options of getting water [externally]."