“IT’S damn disappointing.” That was the reaction from bitterly disappointed Griffith mayor John Dal Broi after he heard the district was left off a list of proposed sites for dams in the federal government’s green paper.
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Councillor Dal Broi said he would be lobbying the government to consider investing up to $100 million into drought-proofing the region by turning Lake Coolah, which is also known as Lake Mejum, into a permanent water storage that could be drawn on at times of excess flow.
He said the lake, located north of Narrandera and south east of Leeton, had the potential to hold 500,000 megalitres of water.
“This has been around for 20 plus years but in those days when we tried to lobby for funding, water wasn’t such an issue, there wasn’t such a shortage of it,” Cr Dal Broi said.
“The idea is very good.”
Cr Dal Broi said the future of the district was grim unless the government funded a water storage project.
“I would think you would be talking $50 million to have it done properly or up to $100 million,” he said.
“It sounds like a lot of money but it’s not if you look at the economic losses we’ve suffered.”
Cr Dal Broi said the lack of certainty regarding water was the region’s biggest issue.
“At the moment with the amount of water being allocated to this area we don’t have any capacity to grow,” he said.
“We can grow a lot more crops here, for example the chairman of the ricegrowers co-operative said they’ve got markets for 1.1 million tonnes but this year they can only produce 650,000 tonnes, so to meet their markets they’re going out and buying rice overseas.”
Cr Dal Broi said couldn’t understand why the district had not been included in the list of areas earmarked for dams.
“It’s terribly disappointing because the Murrumbidgee in particular, we are the ones who have been affected the most in the loss of productive water,” Councillor Dal Broi said.
“I am so disappointed that there was no mention of how we can increase storage for our irrigators.”
NSW is flagged as having four potential projects, including an enlargement of the Lostock Dam in the Hunter Valley, the Apsley Dam at Walcha, the Mole River Dam and Needles Gap.