The second draft Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy and Lachlan Regional Water Strategy are now open for public comment.

We have suggested a few priorities you might like to comment on.

Please modify the email on the right by adding a sentence or two below the three suggested priorities.

Don't forget to indicate if you want your submission posted to the Department site anonymously, or as it is.

Please use your own words to make your submission more effective. Here are some points for each suggested priority that might inspire you.

Macquarie-Castlereagh

1. Protecting the health of rivers and wetlands should be the highest priority of the strategy.

• The Wambuul-Macquarie River provides 21% of flows to the Darling-Baaka river.
• Too much water is taken out of the rivers that feed the Darling-Baaka River, causing environmental catastrophies like the Menindee fish kills of 2019.
• The Ramsar listed Macquarie Marshes have been shrinking for forty years.
• Native fish numbers are down by 90% in the last 140 years.
• More water should be bought back for the environment.
• Floodplain harvesting should not be licenced until an assessment of the environmental damage it has caused has been done.

2. Stop ignoring recent droughts when working out how much water to release from Burrendong dam.

• No rainfall data from droughts since 2004 is used when working out how much water to allocate from Burrendong dam.
• It is assumed Burrendong dam will fill every two years, regardless of how little it rains.
• The government allocates water from Burrendong dam before it is even in the dam.
• Burrendong is a very large dam, holding 1,188 billion litres when full. Dubbo uses about 7 billion litres a year from the dam.
• If the water in Burrendong was managed more responsibly, Dubbo and the rest of the valley would have very secure water supply.

3. Cancel the Gin Gin re-regulating weir project

• No more public money should be spent on investigating the Gin Gin re-regulating weir project.
• The existing 120 year old Gin Gin weir should be replaced with a new fish passage structure designed for the dam safety upgrade fishway project, as has been legally required since 2009.
•  The proposed Gin Gin re-regulating weir would have had a significant impact on:
  • First Nations cultural sites
  • Threatened Murray Cod breeding habitat
  • Remaining threatened natural places
  • Ramsar listed wetlands
  • Migratory bird habitat
  The purpose of the proposed Gin Gin re-regulating weir was to provide more water for general security water licence holders, at the expense of the environment, First Nations cultural sites, towns and downstream water users.

The Lachlan

• Strongly support the removal of the Wyangala Dam Wall Raising Project and the Lake Rowlands Project as commitments under the Lachlan RWS.
• The assessment of groundwater use and management should be a top priority in the Lachlan
• A stronger focus on water efficiency and demand management for towns and communities must be a top priority for the RWS including a public education program for purified recycled water use.