Deputy mayor Ian North and councillor Bobby Bourke are the last two standing from the council group of 2008 who rejected an approach from Cadia to buy Bathurst’s treated effluent.

Following a lengthy public debate about that proposal, a majority of councillors decided the region’s water resources were too valuable to be sold to a private operation in another council area.

At the time, both Cr Bourke and Cr North spoke out strongly against the sale, but when they spoke to the Western Advocate yesterday neither had taken a final position on the Regis deal.

Regis Resources is seeking to buy eight to 10 megalitres of treated effluent a day to divert to the new gold mine at Kings Plains.

Council staff are finalising a report on the proposal to be tabled at next Wednesday’s council meeting, but early indications suggest councillors will defer a decision.

Cr North yesterday said he wanted more information before deciding whether to support the Regis proposal, but admitted there were similarities to the Cadia proposal eight years ago.

“Water issues are water issues and once you lose it you lose it,” he said.

“But the difference this time is that we’re looking for a lot more information.

“It’s been a few years [since the Cadia proposal] and, if anything, water is becoming a more precious resource and we understand more about the environment.

“We have a lot more questions that need to be answered.”

Cr North also has concerns about the cease to transfer (CTT) rules that would be written into any contract with council and details of the final development application (DA) for the mine that would be submitted to the state government for consideration.

“We’re told a lot of our questions will be answered in the so-called next stage, but maybe they should be answered before we make a decision,” he said.

Cr Bourke also raised the question of pricing as a key consideration for council.

“There are 20-odd councils that have commercial deals to sell their water to irrigators or mines, but those deals are so confidential that you can’t get an idea of what the right price should be,” he said.

“It’s our water that they’re talking about selling and that’s water we could use to put on our sporting fields or sell to other businesses in the city.

“If we do sell it, we have to make sure we have the right deal so we’re not selling ourselves cheap.”

Cr Bourke also wanted to see a DA prepared by Regis before council made a decision on the sale.

“If they don’t give us the right information then they won’t be getting our water,” he said.