Central Coast desalination plant: Councillor Greg Best resurrects plans
With our dams continuing to dry up, a Central Coast Councillor is urging council to reignite plans for a desalination plant at Lakes Beach before its too late.
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Controversial decade-old plans for a desalination plant in Lakes Beach could be revived.
Central Coast Councillor Greg Best is urging council to proceed with plans for the plant, near Toukley, in the likely event dam levels continue to plummet.
Cr Best is bringing the issue to Tuesday’s council meeting, calling for the project, which would remove salt from sea water, to be “shovel ready”.
“Our dam is going south at a relatively rapid rate. Last I checked it was 54.4 per cent,” he said.
“We have to be ready with the commencement of the desalination project in enough time so that we don’t run out of water.
“It’s a balancing act but I believe we are moving towards a knife’s edge.”
He has called on council to investigate what stage the plans are at, costings, how much water the plant would generate and what the trigger point is to start the project.
Mayor Jane Smith is also set to tackle water issues at the meeting, proposing to start a Central Coast Water Management Advisory Committee.
The committee would deal with issues such as water supply, sewerage and drainage services, water conservation, and catchment management.
In February, Cr Best successfully passed a motion to drop the trigger point for level 1 water restrictions. Level 1 will now be introduced when the Mangrove Creek Dam hits 50 per cent.
“Looks like we will be in water restrictions before Christmas,” he said. “We may have five years in the dam.
“This desalination project already has the major approvals in place and could take three years to deliver. There’s no margins for error here.”
The desalination plant was initially proposed around 2004, prior to dam levels hitting a critical low of almost 10 per cent.
The former Wyong council proceeded with approval processes, however when the drought broke the plans were put to the side.
Cr Best said it was a controversial topic across the coast.
“We explored 18 sites but Lakes Beach was the best option,” he said.
“We have designs for a plant which are almost 10 years old now.
“Technology is changing so what is it we are going to build? We need to make a decision now before it’s too late.
“We don’t want to be drinking the water if there’s less than 10 per cent in the dam as the water quality moves to marginal quality.”
He said the councillors cannot afford to turn the issue into a political football.
“If we muck around on this, we could run the Central Coast out of water,” he said.
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