After years of robust population growth, and an accompanying pride in how popular the city is proving with relocating citizens, there's been a noticeable shift in tone of late when discussing Bathurst's expansion.

In letters to the editor and on the Western Advocate's Facebook page, some are looking at the sea of roofs in the new estates of Eglinton and Kelso and asking whether there really is enough water to go around.

Asked this question earlier in the year, Bathurst Regional Council was unequivocal.

Average water consumption in Bathurst had actually reduced over the past decade despite the city's population growth, general manager David Sherley said, which he partly attributed to the introduction of the user pays system.

He said council was looking at other water supply options, including raising the Chifley Dam wall again and a pipeline from the dam to the water works, but said the water storage as it stood was "adequate for the current and future population growth".

That's all very clear and logical.

READ ALSO:

Responses to your most frequent comments on Bathurst's water restrictions

Council looks at more extreme water restrictions

Region could be on level four sooner than first thought

And yet as the rain refuses to fall in the volumes that are needed, and the dam continues to drop (it was just under 60 per cent when Mr Sherley gave his comments in January, but is just over 43 per cent now), there seems an air of disquiet about Bathurst's booming population that logic might not budge.

Bathurstians are used to rapid growth in their city, but they are not used to a rapid decline in their dam.

They've grown accustomed to seeing new house frames on the horizon, but are not accustomed to water restrictions telling them which days they can water their lawns.

Professor David Goldney wrote in an opinion piece for the Advocate last month that Bathurstians need to accept that their city can only house so many people, though he said it was not for him to nominate a population number.

Like any farm, Bathurst has a "carrying capacity", he said, and "the same dilemma faces every village and city west of the Blue Mountains".

It is unlikely Bathurst has reached that carrying capacity and it is unlikely that the majority of locals would like to see the city's population growth - and the economic benefits it brings - come to an end.

But as the dam drops, we can expect disquiet to continue to rise.