Essential Energy sells water supply rights to Clarence Valley Council

In a move labelled a “giant step forward”, the communities of the Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour have secured the rights to their own drinking water – along with a 97-year-old relic.

Clarence Valley Council has secured water rights and critical infrastructure from Essential Energy, bringing its water supply back into public hands.

It may have taken the best part of a decade, but the Coffs/Clarence water supply will soon be back in public hands.

Essential Energy and Clarence Valley Council have agreed to terms over the sale of the disused Nymboida Hydro Power Scheme and water licences.

The 97-year-old power station forms part of critical infrastructure which supplies drinking water from the Nymboida River to Coffs Harbour and the Clarence through the Shannon Creek dam.

Clarence Valley councillor Richie Williamson was mayor when Essential Energy pulled the plug on the power station after damage by the devastating flood of 2013.

Mr Williamson said the deal was the “final piece of the puzzle” after Coffs Harbour and Clarence Valley councils invested heavily in the Regional Water Supply Scheme and the construction of the 30,000 megalitre dam in 2008.

Clarence Valley councillor Richie Williamson says the water deal is a giant step forward for the community. Picture: Bill North

“This really is a gigantic step forward for security of the most valuable resource, which is water,” he said.

“It will pay dividends for our residents for decades and decades to come.”

The value of the sale is yet to be revealed.

Clarence council general manager Ashley Lindsay said confidential motions, which contained the price, would become public once the deal was completed.

He said there were still some things to happen before that time, including a subdivision of land which contained electricity assets.

Reclaiming the water rights has long been a desire of the council.

An agreement which offered the council the first right of refusal if the assets were sold has been in place since 2008.

Negotiations ramped up in 2015, however, they haven’t always been as smooth as the past 18 months when the issue progressed significantly.

Construction started on the Nymboida Hydro-Electric Scheme in 1923.

Complicating the matter has been the power station itself.

Council staff had previously expressed a reluctance to take on the historic asset given it was superfluous to region’s water needs.

However, Essential Energy was not willing to sell it separately to the licences and critical water infrastructure such as the weir and pipeline.

Mr Lindsay said there had not been any preliminary work done to investigate possible uses for the building but he said the council would “do something with it” rather than pull it down

He said the machinery inside the building that produced electricity from its construction in the 1920s was “potentially priceless”.