Tenterfield Shire Council has thanked people for heeding its advice to lower water use, saying that every saving counts.
The dam level has dropped from 35 per cent to 33 per cent since 21 May, despite input from the Shirley Park bore and little evaporation.
The Department of Industry – Water, Department of Health, Natural Resources Access Regulator, the Minister for Water, the Cross Border Commissioner/Regional Town Water Supply Coordinator, specialist hydro geologists, water drillers and project engineers have been conscientiously working with council’s own staff on fast-tracking a solution.
It is a race against time to find, extract, pump, and transport more water to the dam, unless of course the catchment receives significant rain.
Council has been in direct communication with many community members at multiple public events and continues to welcome suggestions, a number of which are being actively considered.
During a couple of the more recent public meetings there were suggestions from some astute thinking community members that council would save on evaporation rates by pumping the Shirley Park bore water directly into the water filtration plant. Others in the wider community may have had the same idea?
This would be a solution in normal circumstances. However, the bore water needs to be mixed, just like a ‘shandy’, prior to treatment by the water filtration plant, as the water from the bore alone is of low quality as it contains too much naturally occurring fluoride, molybdenum, alkalinity (as CaCO3), and uranium.
The dilution ratio is vast – dilution factor 400Kl/day into the dam of approximately 450ML – or a ratio of 1 part to 1125 parts (dilution).
Although the mixing ratio in the dam from the entering Shirley Park bore water is enormous, council still tests exiting water from the water filtration plant and will continue to do so to ensure the water complies with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.
“Naturally, without rain, as the dam drops the dilution ratio’s favourable influence will diminish which may mean we’ll need to turn the bore off or add additional treatments: for example an ionizer,” a council spokesperson said. (Council is required to maintain a testing regime, which includes the Shirley Park bore water, dam water, final treated water from the water filtration plant, and water within the mains throughout the town.)
Many community members have asked council how all this extra work will be funded, as the financial strain from the drought has already severely hurt a great many people and businesses?
Mayor Peter Petty and the chief executive Terry Dodds have been in almost daily contact with the Cross Border Commissioner/Regional Town Water Supply Coordinator regarding emergency funding and funding of the future stages.
At this stage council has received part funding for the first stage, some $373,000, from the State Government.
The emergency water augmentation works will cost around $3.2 million. Council hasn’t the financial capacity to meet such an impost and is grateful to Water Minister Melissa Pavey, the NSW Government and their Departmental staff for their assistance.
“Please be assured that council is doing everything possible to ensure the sustainability of the Tenterfield water supply,” Cr Petty said.
“We are very aware that everybody is taking this matter very seriously and reducing their water consumption as far as possible. Council is doing everything it can to ensure that we don’t need to impact our community further.”
