Rous is planning to remove 1.2GL from Alstonville aquifer

The Future Water Project 2060 is currently on public exhibition and explains where water will come from.

Ballina Cr Keith Williams is the chair of Rous County Council.

Extracting 1.2GL of water a year from the Alstonville Plateau aquifers should not affect farmers in the area or the amount of water available in nature, says Rous County Council chairman Keith Williams.

The measure is part of the Future Water Plan 2060, currently on public exhibition.

"The overall capacity of the aquifer is estimated to be about 640GL, or 6400 megalitres," he said.

"It's estimated that the aquifers receives 50G of new rainfall per year.

"That 50GL is the maximum that the State Government would allow to be extracted from the aquifer, so we would be only using what is naturally refilling rather than drawing down from the total aquifer.

"Of those 50GL, 80 per cent is reserved for the environment, that's 41GL.

"The other nine gigalitres can be made available to users on the Plateau, and Rous wants to have 1.2GL, which we currently hold the licences for.

"People who are understandably worried if we are taking too much water from the aquifer can rest assured the State Government would not allow that to happen, and it's not Rous' intention to do so," he said.

 

 

Mr Williams said Rous was planning to drill bores that will not affect farmers on the Plateau.

"That's part of the aim of this scheme," he said.

"At least one of our existing bores seems to have an impact on farmers' aquifers when it's dry. We rather not do that.

"The idea is that, if we drill down deeper, we can get into a separate aquifer, prove to the regulator that it's a separate aquifer, and get the 1.2GL of townwater water in existing licences from there instead of Rocky Creek dam to supply Alstonville Wollongbar.

"Alstonville Wollongbar use around the same amount of water this will produce, so more or less this water will go up Marom Creek up to the Wollongbar Reservoir and then get distributed to Wollongbar Alstonville."

 

The water extracted from the aquifer will be similar the the mount of water used by the population of Alstonville Wollongbar, Rous’ Keith Williams said.

 

Mr Williams said adding the Alstonville aquifer to the main water plan for the area will allow Rous to keep up with demand until 2029.

The current five-year average water consumption for our region is 11.3 gigalitres per year.

Population growth forecasts indicate a 37 per cent increase in drinking water demand by 2060.

On current growth, the amount of water consumed a year by the Byron Shire, Ballina Shire, Lismore City and Richmond Valley will exceed reliable supply by 2024.

The Future Water Project 2060 is on public exhibition at Rous County Council's website until May 28.

 

 

 

Originally published as Alstonville aquifer to supply 1.2GL of water every year