Walcha Council will now proceed to aggressively seek funding for a new dam following yesterday's acceptance of a consultancy recommendation at its July ordinary meeting.
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"With Walcha Council adopting the McDonald River Dam Feasibility Study the way has been cleared to source funding for the design and construction of a dam to secure Walcha's long term water security," Walcha Mayor Eric Noakes said.
"Council has worked hard over recent years to make sure we have the best option to take on this path.
"Securing our town water supply remains our main focus and with the help of our two local members, Kevin Anderson and Barnaby Joyce we feel confident that we have feasible and practical justification to access the funding required."
The Macdonald River Feasibility Study is the second investigation into securing water for Walcha.
In 2017 the Apsley River Feasibility Study investigated the potential of installing storage on or near the Apsley River.
Then in March last year, Walcha Council voted to accept the final report submitted by GHD, a global water services company, which suggested an 800 megalitre off-stream storage dam on a small tributary of the Apsley River was a better option than a large 25 gigalitre dam on the Apsley River.
With funding from the Safe and Secure Water Program, GHD commenced a feasibility study focused on the Macdonald River.
Ten favourable sites were selected and then through a process of elimination, five potential sites were focused on.
"Preliminary geotechnical investigations were carried out on these five sites," said Walcha Council director of engineering Dylan Reeves in his report to council.
"These were refined to two preferred sites due to favourable geotechnics, dam site location and proximity to existing infrastructure."
Securing our town water supply remains our main focus
- Walcha Mayor Eric Noakes
Walcha Council agreed with the GHD recommendation that Site 6 with an estimated cost of $7.355M for a 300 megalitre dam ( 20-25 per cent cheaper than the alternative site) is the most favourable site to pursue funding for the design and construction of Walcha's new off-stream storage dam.
The GHD report also estimated the total annualised operation, management and depreciation cost for Site 6 would be $119, 075 per year - more than $24, 000 less than the alternative.
The proposed dam site is located on private property near the existing pump station on the Macdonald River.
Vanessa Arundale
Everyone has a story to tell and I like to help them do it.
Everyone has a story to tell and I like to help them do it.
