I WAS disappointed and angered to read that the NSW government is committing funds to examine the feasibility of constructing a dam at Needles Gap on the Belubula River south west of Orange.
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In my view this is a highly destructive and unnecessary proposal and local councils and politicians need to think very carefully about supporting it.
If built, it will destroy a unique riparian corridor, an extensive limestone cave system and a heritage-listed area of fossil deposits.
It is unnecessary.
The 90,000 megalitre dam will only add 3 per cent to our regional storage capacity.
If this amount of water is such a game changer, as our own resident fossil John Cobb claims, then surely there are other options worth exploring to obtain such minimal extra capacity.
We have plenty of viable options - large-scale urban water recycling, better irrigation licence allocation, management and buy-backs, inter-catchment transfer via pipelines and reclaiming underused or unused water allocations from existing storages.
These are all “shovel ready” solutions.
The Mt Piper and Wallerawang power stations, for example, use 25000ML every year from our regional river and storage systems.
With Wallerawang currently in the process of being mothballed and decommissioned, and the continued decline in demand for coal-fired electricity generation, there will be underutilised water allocations for use in our region.
Our local fossil, sorry, member, John Cobb claims that this project is an example of “outside the box” thinking. This claim is laughable.
It comes from an archaic grab-bag of unimaginative solutions to emerging issues that include building dams, digging big holes, cutting down forests and championing unfettered development.
We must reject this proposal and the politicians that support it.
Tim Roebuck, Bathurst
