After being found by NRAR in July last year to have breached their Winburndale Dam licence conditions, council dismissed the decision as false, and have since endeavoured to prepare an environmental assessment [EA] application to amend the conditions.

Council and engineering consultants Premise met with Winburndale stakeholders at a forum in March to discuss the application.

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General manager David Sherley said the forum was required "to inform NRAR in their determination of council's application."

"The matter is currently in the Land and Environment Court where council is seeking an interpretation of various matters in the release conditions, particularly in relation to the term 'secure yield'," Mr Sherley said.

"At this stage, a final determination has not been reached."

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Mr Sherley said "it is vital council is able to ensure the security of the town water supply, while balancing optimum environmental outcomes for those downstream of the dam."

The Western Advocate first reported on the issue in January 2020, where the rivulet was found in a dry state at the Inwood family's Glanmire property.

Following an independent ecological investigation, Charles Sturt University adjunct professor David Goldney accused council at the March forum of rendering the rivulet's platypus population extinct between 2017 and 2019, during the height of the drought.

"The extinction is almost entirely due to the low flows, which are completely unacceptable to maintain the conservation status of platypi," he said.

"To maintain a platypus population in that rivulet, you need two to four megalitres a day, which clearly wasn't delivered at the height of the drought."

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The Winburndale Waters Conservation Group [WWCG] hopes the Land and Environment Court upholds the decision of NRAR and that council seeks to work more collaboratively with landholders in the future to find a workable compromise.

"What is even more frustrating is that during the 2017-2019 drought, water continued to flow into the dam upstream, which remained 70 per cent full," WWCG spokesperson Michael Inwood said.

"On investigation, we found council has been breaching their licence conditions for years, not releasing sufficient water to keep the rivulet alive."

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