Councillor Sharon Cadwallader: ‘10,000 submissions to bring the Dunoon Dam project back’

Ballina Shire Council is reconsidering its support for Rous County Council’s future water plan, with one councillor saying the situation was now “very different”.

Ballina Shire Council is reconsidering its support for Rous County Council’s future water plan for the Northern Rivers.

It comes after Councillor Sharon Cadwallader ‒ who is one of two Ballina councillors on Rous ‒ told this week’s council meeting that most submissions to Rous during the future plan’s public exhibition period supported the Dunoon dam project.

Mrs Cadwallader said she was not at liberty to discuss the full details until they were reported publicly.

“What I can say, though, is that there were 13,729 submission received, and over 10,000 of those submissions wanted the Dunoon dam back on to the agenda,” she said.

The Dunoon Dam was removed from the plan last December by Rous County councillors over environmental and social considerations.

Mrs Cadwallader also said Rous councillors will meet again on June 28, due to the fact Byron councillors were absent at the workshop they had on Wednesday.

“We are going to meet again so that we all the same information, which was not only the results of the exhibition period but was also the way forward,” she said.

Rous will hold an extraordinary meeting on July 21, when a decision will be made on the new version of Future Water Strategy 2060, which does not include the Dunoon Dam.

Mrs Cadwallader also said the Rous workshop had shed some light on the quality of the water available in the deeper aquifers at the Alstonville Plateau.

“I can tell you, that deeper aquifer … the water there is very poor quality,” she said.

“Rous will have to go to the regulator to gain a licence.

“A deeper aquifer would cost a humungous amount of money to turn it into potable water.”

Mrs Cadwallader has been critical of the removal of the Dunoon Dam project from the water plan.

Part of the future water plan involves Ballina council transferring the ownership of the Marom Creek Water Treatment Plant to Rous County Council.

But with council elections looming in September, Ballina council will not be in a position to make a final decision on that before it goes into caretaker mode.

Councillor Phillip Meehan said the decision Ballina council made back in August 2020 was for the short-term use of the Marom Creek plant by Rous up to 2030.

“Future Water Plan version two came into place and it’s very different to version one in regards to Marom Creek, as it proposes to use it as a long term measure and involves Rous wanting to take over the water licences that Ballina Council holds as well as the ones they hold, to use them in a long-term basis,” he said.

“What we agreed to is very different scenario to where we are now.”

At Thursday’s meeting, Ballina Shire councillors voted to request from Rous a long term deed of agreement for the treatment plant to remain owned by Ballina council, or for more details on how Rous could take ownership of the plant.