Our community has known we have to ‘Live with the River’ since the time of settlement. Our relationship with the river and the inevitability of floods mean we’re forever torn between the blessings of rich soils and the river’s deadlier moods. My own ancestor was killed in Windsor in the flood of 1809.
But human ingenuity has given us the ability to dam rivers, and we’re now told that raising Warragamba Dam by 14 meters will reduce the frequency and severity of flooding here by 75%. That it would reduce the number of homes flooded by 5000. That the damage bill would reduce by $3,000,000,000. We need that. If only we had it in March – it would have spared 500 homes and reduced the flood height by 3.5m.
The new EIS is open for public comment until the end of November. Here are all the EIS documents, and I strongly suggest you start with the Executive Summary, given that the whole EIS is 8092 pages long. Council would be completely negligent on behalf of our community, who endure the highest risk of flooding in Australia, if we didn’t make a submission. Submissions run until the end of November. You should consider making a submission (look for the link in the top right corner)
I’m appalled that a majority of Councillors are so wedded to their ideology that, at last night’s meeting, they voted even that down. The video above summarises what happened at the meeting.
That’s right – they voted down even putting forward our own community’s concerns in a document to the State Government.
I know not everyone agrees on this issue, but this is reckless and treats the 600 families whose homes were flooded out in March with contempt.
And yes, this absolutely should be an election issue.
I have of course been very, very active on the subject of flooding over this five-year term of Council: Here’s a list of all my videos and motions before Council on this subject.