ORANGE'S deputy mayor says he is ashamed of the lush condition of Orange Regional Museum's roof as lawns across the city struggle in drought.
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Sam Romano used Tuesday's Orange City Council meeting to ask how much water was used to keep the roof green - the roof and Cook Park are currently exempt from water restrictions because they are public spaces.
"Everyone else is on water restrictions," he said.
"Can that be replaced with artificial turf or better still, put iron on it with insulation batts?"
On Wednesday, he clarified his position, saying artificial turf was his preference and if that was not possible, to lay Colorbond.
"People's plants are dying and their lawns are dead - we have to draw the line somewhere," he said.
Several councillors spoke on water during the meeting at Glenroi Community Centre, despite having no water items on the agenda.
Councillor Russell Turner opened the planning and development committee with remarks applauding the building industry for "not listening to what I refer to as the dooms-dayers that believe that all development should stop until the rain issue has been solved".
"If we did stop, it would take a long time to crank it all back up again and we would have lost the confidence of the community," he said.
"We're going through restrictions at the moment but a lot of other towns and cities are doing it worse than we are."
Cr Turner said between the work to connect Orange's water storage to Wyangala Dam, plus previous work on the Macquarie River pipeline and stormwater harvesting, the council was working well with the state and federal governments.
Councillor Kevin Duffy later applauded the raising of the dam wall.
"Where would be be if we didn't raise that [dam wall] and the pipeline [trigger point] didn't come through to us on the [10th] of February?" he said.
"We would be into level six and throwing rocks at each other."
Councillor Joanne McRae criticised members of the public registering their concerns in the press, which accused the council of "doing nothing".
"That is incorrect and I am sick of defending it, uninformed community members," she said.
"I believe we have written to various levels of government requesting action on dams but have we had any responses?" she said.
According to the federal government's response, the National Water Grid Authority is using "best available science" to determine where water resources could be sustainably developed.
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