COUNCILLORS have aired their frustrations that Bathurst Regional Council's key water infrastructure projects have yet to be listed under the NSW Government's Schedules of the Water Supply (Critical Needs) Act.
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It was announced in early March that council's stormwater harvesting and Winburndale Dam pipeline augmentation projects would be added to the critical needs list, which aims to fast-track essential projects.
The news came after months of back and forth between the two levels of government, which many councillors had been critical of.
However, despite this and further discussions with the state government, council has yet to receive a confirmation of when the two critical needs projects will be listed within the schedules.
At the April policy committee meeting, several councillors expressed their frustration at how slowly the process was moving.
They maintain that council staff have gone above and beyond to meet the requirements, while the state government is dragging its feet.
"It's verging on embarrassing, it's a total slap in the face that we, Bathurst, is not on that critical needs list already. It's well and truly overdue and it's simply just not good enough," councillor Jess Jennings said.
"If we don't get rain over winter, we will run out at some point and it's going to hurt."
He also noted that, despite receiving a lot of rain recently, very little of it was making its way into Chifley Dam.
According to Weatherzone's figures, Bathurst's total rainfall for the year so far is 322.6 millimetres, 53mm more than had been recorded by this time last year.
Last week, the dam was only at 30.1 per cent, increasing by less than one per cent in a two-week period despite substantial rain.
Cr Warren Aubin has been one of the most vocal and critical of the critical needs list process.
Previously, he described the situation as "bureaucratic bungling" that was doing nothing but holding up the vital water security projects for Bathurst.
He backed this up at the policy meeting, saying the projects should have been put on the list in November.
"I just cannot see for the life of me why Bathurst is not on this list yet and I think we need to kick hard and kick more often," he said.
"It's just not on; we should be on it, we've got to get those projects up and running. We know the consequences if we don't, so I think we really need to get behind our director [of Engineering Services] and our senior staff."
The director, Darren Sturgiss, has also provided an update on the two projects.
Design for stage 1a of the stormwater harvesting project is complete and pricing for the project is now under way.
As for the pipeline, the detailed design of the pipeline route is in development.
Council has also completed design work for the water filtration plant modifications, which will allow for early use of up to three megalitres of water sourced from Winburndale Dam into the town water supply.
