The dry state of a prominent rivulet system has prompted a landowner to quiz Bathurst Regional Council over the management of Winburndale Dam's water supply.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Winburndale Rivulet, which runs west from the dam of the same name to Killongbutta [near Freemantle], has battled dry periods for a number of years.
But Michael Inwood, a member of the Winburndale Water Users Group, has called into question council's approach towards releasing water from the dam into the rivulet.
"The dam was sitting at 71 per cent at the end of 2019, yet it was full at the same time last year," Mr Inwood said.
"Council stated earlier last year that they had almost exhausted their 1000 megalitre entitlement to release water from the dam for municipal purposes, yet the dam only dropped by 493 megalitres [29 per cent] in 2019."
Mr Inwood referred to a quote from council's director of engineering services Darren Sturgiss in an April 2019 Western Advocate story discussing Bathurst's water restrictions.
"We do have a licence for use of Winburndale Dam for municipal water supply to the value of 1000 megalitres per annum, of which we are close to using that capacity," Mr Sturgiss said in the story.
The same story also mentions that Winburndale Dam was above 90 per cent capacity as of April 2019.
Mr Inwood has approached council with the calculations numerous times to no avail, and said immediate action is required to rectify the situation.
"Over the past year, council has regularly told me there's been no visible flow into the dam, and that they've released .6 to .8 of a megalitre daily [approx 292 megalitres annually] into the rivulet," he said.
"Unless council has invented a machine that creates water, as much as 507 megalitres of inflow has stayed in the dam."
Mr Inwood's Glanmire property has been in his family for over 70 years, and he said many landowners along the Winburndale Rivulet have never seen the system in such a dry state.
"I've calculated council would have to release two megalitres daily for 350 days to make up for the water we should've received last year," he said.
In response, council's acting director of engineering services Russell Deans said the decline in water levels along the rivulet is due to the effects of the drought rather than operations at the dam.
"Council staff undertake visual and water quality testing on various rivulet systems on an as needs basis," Mr Deans said.
In January last year, a freak storm caused the rivulet to wash away Howards Bridge further downstream.
Winburndale Dam is at 66.5 per cent as of January 14.