TAMWORTH Regional Council has cracked down on water use in Nundle as the small village on the Peel River is switched to bore supplies.
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Nundle was moved to level four restrictions on Monday which means outdoor watering of any kind could draw a fine from the council.
Water director Bruce Logan said the town, which has been on level three restrictions for many months, needed to rein in its water use.
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He warned there could be “serious problems” if the Crawney Road bore gets depleted.
“Nundle is not meeting their targets under level three,” Mr Logan said.
“The bore supplying Nundle isn’t showing any signs of stress.
“But we’re asking Nundle people to further reduce their water consumption in accordance with level four because we are concerned about the long term health of that bore.
“There would be serious problems if that bore started to show some ill-effects.”
Nundle will enter emergency level drought response restrictions if the council needs to ratchet up water limiting measures any further.
Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) will investigate other potential groundwater bore locations in the meantime.
Under current levels, the council is aiming for Nundle to use 0.09 megalitres of water a day.
Attunga and Barraba are on permanent water conservation measures, while Manilla is on level three.
Tamworth, Moonbi and Kootingal remain on level one for now and will move to level two on Monday.
The council is about to step up patrols to catch those not following the rules and residents can expect to see water patrol vehicles in their neighbourhoods.
Residents are asked to be proactive in reporting neighbours who are not following the rules.
There have been 19 reports received since January 14 and after investigation all but one of those led to warning letters being issued.
TRC will usually send out two letters to “give people the benefit of the doubt” before issuing a fine.
If residents don’t comply after a second warning, they will be fined $220 and also have a restriction device placed on their meter which reduces their flow down to about three litres a minute.