Western Advocate editorial: March 28, 2921 | Money also matters when we look at water

When the wall was last raised about 2000 it doubled the capacity of the dam and set up the Bathurst region as one of the most secure regions for water in the state.

But it didn't stay that way.

The three-year drought that only broke last spring pushed our city to the brink in terms of water security, with the dam dropping below 30 per cent capacity.

It was a genuinely concerning time and it was left to the local council along with state and federal governments to investigate ways to drought-proof the region so we might never be so vulnerable again.

Raising the dam wall again would certainly achieve that aim, but at enormous cost.

And the question that all levels of government must ask is not only how can they flood-proof a region, but how can they most cost-effectively flood-proof a region?

On that equation, raising the dam wall simply might not stack up.

Easily the cheapest option available for improving a region's water security is to educate the community about water saving measures and to impose strict water restrictions on residents at critical times, as was the case in Bathurst in late 2019. But that can only do so much.

Probably the next cheapest option available is a stormwater harvesting scheme and, while it is taking much longer than expected to complete, that project is already under way in the Bathurst region.

After that come the big-ticket items, and raising the dam wall is the biggest of the lot.

Before we go down that path, though, expect to see much more discussion about a pipeline from Ben Chifley Dam into Bathurst, which would serve the dual purpose of minimising the loss of water through evaporation and also enabling greater monitoring of where the water goes once it's released from the dam.

And all the estimates we've seen so far suggest such a project could be completed at a fraction of the cost of raising the wall.

Raising the dam wall might be the best option available but installing a pipeline first might be the best-priced option.

No region can afford to run out of water but nor can any level of government afford to simply spend, spend, spend.

Water security is a balancing act and it's one that no community can afford to get wrong. We almost learned that the hard way.

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