BEN Chifley Dam has a catchment area of 960 square kilometres and Oberon Dam a catchment of 140 square kilometres, but I would suggest that Oberon is a much better catchment as it is alpine and has been significant over the years to the Macquarie River system.
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The Campbells River catchment has always been fickle. That's why even as we have rainfall, not all water is reaching the dam.
There needs to be a hydrological study and water storage data register for the area to understand what is going on.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) says "the basin plan recognises that sharing water between all water users - including environment - is critical to our variable and changing climate".
The basin state government (NSW Government) is responsible for developing water resource plans. It sets out the rules and arrangements for how water is used at a local government level, including new limits on how much water can be taken from the system, how much water will be made available to the environment and how water quality standards can be met.
The government is also supposed to include new arrangements that strengthen water management at a local level.
If you care to look at the Macquarie-Bogan Unregulated Rivers Water Sources 2012 (draft), water source number nine on the map, Fish River water source, is vacant; nothing exists there.
READ ALSO: Oberon Dam falls below 25 per cent
Why is it that a western tributary of the Macquarie is diverted to the east of the Great Dividing Range? It's simple.
The state government receives a dividend from Water NSW for selling water that should be running down the Macquarie.
The reason? Its customers on the eastern side of the range are more important, even though they have no water restrictions.
On March 10, government officials said they will bypass an independent review of the Natural Resources Commission of the water sharing plans for six areas. The Macquarie is on that list.
That means no review for 12 to 17 years, no review for area nine, no local catchment review, no new water limits, no new environmental water, no new arrangements for Bathurst or anyone else in the upper Macquarie area.
How convenient.
