Michael Derry conceived of the concept of transporting water by ship and started working on it in the mid 1980's to solve WA's water supply crisis.

Having worked in the Pilbara, Michael had his imagination inspired by the scale of the size of the ships carrying iron ore. He had read and seen pictures and film footage of the massive amount of unused water flowing out to sea from Lake Argyle (approximately 15 times the amount the Water Corporation supplies to Perth). So when he heard about 100 or so supertankers that were laid up around the world during the mid eighties from what was known as the, Second Oil Shock, he conceived of the idea of transporting water by ship.

Michael spent many months and many long hours in the State Reference and other libraries trying to get more information about his idea. He specifically searched the Water Corporation (or WAWA as it was called then) library for information about shipping as a water supply option however he could not find it had been considered before, although some quite unusual options had been considered such as towing icebergs, cloud seeding etc. It was after all this research that he realised the concept was practical and economically viable. At this point he had enough confidence and knowledge and approached a very influential backer to accelerate development. This person sounded out the Government on Michael's idea and shortly afterwards the then WA Water Resources Minister Ernie Bridge started to promote his own concept to build a pipeline from the Ord to Perth. Others subsequent to Michael have come up with various ideas to solve Perth's water supply problem, none however have put in the depth of effort or packaged together so many novel ideas to come up with a workable and practical proposal.

Michael's professional approach to his work resulted in him writing several major reports fully referenced to academic papers, market publications, maps etc.

Michael had support for his proposal from civil servants working in transport and transport economics, however shipping water had not been considered by the government water supply engineers before, and in any event they thought it was fanciful. These people controlled all the planning and development of water supply in the State so combined with their steadfast declarations that even allowing for climatic change we had way more water than we could need until the year 2050 even under 'the worst case scenario' , Michael's second backer could see the odds stacked against them. Michael consequently lost the financial support of his second backer, however he knew that the water bureaucracy was wrong about climatic change and that after we had our first failed desalination plant the figures on the cost of desalination would jump out at people rather than be baffled by techno speak from an industry with vested sales interests. Michael had a vision, and he knew the time would come for it.

Michael worked on this concept for 3 years full time in the mid 1980's and has been working part time on it ever since. He has spent tens of thousands of hours researching reading and analysing all the critical factors. External consultants and engineers have been engaged and Michael has met with countless government officials including senior officers and Ministers. The South Australian Government showed early interest and approached Michael quite early on recognising that the economics were more dependent on volume and economies of scale rather than distance. Two backers have fallen by the wayside however Michael will again seek similarly experienced players at developing large infrastructure projects when he is ready to launch the project and make it happen.

In the interim, Michael is available to assist Government  with professional consultancy work they wish to conduct in this very specialised area. Michael's experience and expertise in this area is unrivalled.

A private company Australian Water Resources Pty Ltd was incorporated in 1990 as the vehicle for developing the project.