Dungog Council responsibility
I agree with Sally Corbett’s comments in her letter last week’s issue of the Chronicle that Dungog Council has a responsibility to do more than just work through the process of the proposed Tillegra Dam proposal.
We understand that council is in favour of the dam and that they believe there will be benefits to the Dungog Shire if construction goes ahead. Now is the opportunity for council to appraise the community of exactly what these benefits are and how the community will be affected.
The only promised benefit to date was from the Premier who stated that the dam will drought proof the Central Coast and Hunter Valley however it obvious that in making this promise the premier has no idea how big the valley is or the magnitude of the task to reticulate water throughout the area from the central coast.
When it is considered that the Sydney Basin and Central Coastal regions received sufficient rain in 3 days during February to supply their entire populations with water for a year at current usage rates and that only 10% of that rain water ended up in existing storage facilities (the remainder being discharged into the ocean) it seem obvious where the collection and storage facilities should be.
Bill Williamson in his letter to the Chronicle commented that we should store every drop of water and I think that most people would agree with this view which applies equally to the people along the coastal strip as well as those of us who choose to live elsewhere. Given that rainfall patterns appear to favour coastal areas it seems obvious that even if Central Coast householders had only sufficient storage for their gardens, car washing and toilets that the existing dams would be sufficient to provide their essential drinking and washing water.
Surely collecting, storing and reticulating the water that falls all along our coastal regions is the answer rather than embarking on another potential environmental disaster.
A better solution would be for Hunter Water to invest the moneys earmarked for Tillegra in water tanks and connections to toilets and garden taps for all householders along the Central Coast and to strategically place a number of large reservoirs to service those properties that cannot accommodate a tank but of course this would mean that there would be significantly reduced annual revenue from water rates and dividends back to government or whoever owns the project
Geoff Berry
Wallarobba