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Mayor Des Kennedy and General Manager, Brad Cam will meet with Minister for Water, Property and Housing, Melinda Pavey in Canberra on Thursday over a recommendation to take water out of Windamere Dam to a level Council is unhappy with.
A recent committee meeting recommended allowing Windamere Dam to go below the current floor of 70 gigalitres, maybe as low as 60 gigalitres as part of bulk water transfer. Council discussed an objection to the recommendation and moved to reject any further water trading that would take Windamere Dam below 70 gigalitres.
From the Council business papers:
At a May meeting of the Macquarie-Cudgegong River Operations Stakeholders Consultation Committee (ROSCCo), it was recommended that the Bulk Water Transfer and carryover water be allowed to reduce the floor of Windamere below 70 gigalitres.
"It's been bandied around that they're going to take 10 gigs off us."
- Mayor, Des Kennedy
It is suggesting as low as 60 gigalitres. The water sharing plan protocols states that transfers of water from Windamere Dam must stop at 70 gigalitres, this at best then gives 3 to 4 years of town water supply.
Speaking at the June 19, Ordinary Council Meeting on Wednesday evening, Mayor Des Kennedy outlined the risk that lowering the dam level poses to Mid-Western residents.
"There is talk that Windamere Dam now has a ceiling of 70 gigalitres to always remain in Windamere Dam - that's three to five years of water supply for our valley, for us," Mayor Kennedy said.
"So in their wisdom, somebody from State Water or the minister's office has said that the cotton farmers or somebody downstream needs another 10 gigs [gigalitres]. It's been bandied around that they're going to take 10 gigs off us,"
"I have a meeting tomorrow morning [June 20, 2019] with Melinda Pavey, the new minister for water in Canberra so Brad [Cam] and I will be attending that to try and push our case that we can't afford let another 10 gigs go,"
"In real terms letting 10 gigs into Burrendong Dam to help a cotton farmer- by the time it gets there - 10 turns into about four or five, or three with evaporation, wastage and whatever else,"
"So it'll make very little difference but it'll make a big difference to us."
Councillor Kennedy went on to further suggest that the Mid-Western Region move to level one water restrictions as of 'soon', later agreed to be August 1 to give the public time to comment on the proposal.
"I'd like to see that introduced only as an awareness for people more than anything else at this stage. Hopefully we keep that 10 gigs of water and hopefully - of course - it rains in the next month or so," Mayor Kennedy said.
Councillor Russell Holden spoke in favour of protecting the water in Windamere Dam.
"I think it's sad that we're going to get to this stage that we have to consider the introduction of water restrictions," Cr Holden said.
"I think that this Council has been fairly unanimous on the fact that we need to protect the water in that dam simply for the fact that that dam does not fill,"
It's a fact of life, it does not fill. I'm aware of the fact that lots of irrigators look at the state with a bit of envy, I understand that but if we pull this down and allow them to take the extra 10 gigs or more, and get it down to a floor of less than 60 [gigalitres], we're in grave danger of the fact that if it does not rain and it does not fill that we could be in very, very serious water trouble in two years time. Worst case scenario."