NSW bushfires: $15m to truck water into drought-hit towns
Tens of thousands of litres of water will be trucked into some of NSW’s most vulnerable drought-stricken communities as the bushfire crisis pushes dam levels to their limits.
NSW
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Bushfires have drained dwindling water reserves in drought-hit towns, forcing councils to request emergency deliveries of drinking water.
The escalating crisis will today see the state government announce $15 million worth of funding to truck water to the worst-affected regions.
Desperate residents have been forced to use water supplies to flood gutters and downpipes to save their homes and properties from fires and embers. Firefighting sky cranes and water bombers have also used dams and reservoirs to replenish water used to fight fires.
The situation has left towns on the mid-north coast, including Taree, Bellbrook and Willawarrin, on the verge of running dry. The sixth person to die this bushfire season, Barry Parsons, 58, was found dead in burnt-out bushland outside Willawarrin earlier this month.
In Taree, fighting the bushfires has cost residents between five and six weeks’ worth of drinking water. The main dam supplying drinking water to more than 26,000 local residents now has only 70 days worth of water left.
There are fears Gloucester, which is on the fringes of the deadly mid-north coast fires that have been burning for three weeks, could run out of water in as little as a week.
The town, with a population of around 2500, doesn’t have a major water storage facility and instead relies on water pumped from the dwindling Barrington River into ageing water towers.
Conditions are so dire that, for the first time, residents will tomorrow be subjected to Level 4 water restrictions, banning all outdoor water use including washing cars and filling up pools.
The government’s new $15 million funding pledge takes its total spend on “water-carting” to more than $34.2m since the start of the drought
“This government will do everything we can to make sure towns do not run dry,” Deputy Premier John Barilaro said.
“An additional $15 million for emergency water carting is essential to the survival of small towns which are not connected to major water infrastructure.
“Regional NSW is doing it tough, and while our rural and remote communities show incredible resilience, they cannot take much more.
“We will continue to support rural communities until this devastating drought breaks.”
Water is already being carted to 17 towns across the state, including Murrurundi in the Upper Hunter, Oxley in the Riverina and Byrock in the state’s northwest.
The town of Guyra, between Armidale and Glen Innes in northern NSW, is an exception. It no longer needs trucked water after an 18-kilometre-long pipeline was built last month, capable of pumping 60-litres a second from the Malpas Dam.