Editorial: Manilla residents blocking bulk water station mob rules or peaceful protest?

Many people in the community applaud the action of the group, and that's understandable. Water is a emotional topic.

Let's take the specific details out of the situation for a moment.

A group of angry residents have seized control of a community asset, because they disagree with the decisions of their government. I think many people would agree that's not the right way to go about things.

There also seems to be some misinformation about the town's water situation. Of course it's not great, but the towns of Manilla and Barraba, who have been grouped together as a single water user, are in a much better position than many other places.

Split Rock Dam is down to 0.8 per cent, but it's a massive dam and that's still roughly 3176 megalitres. The combined water use of Manilla and Barraba is between 400 and 600 megalitres every year.

Let's just say that a significant portion of Split Rock's water is unavailable due to dead storage and transmission losses - let's throw out a high arbitrary number like 50 per cent.

That still leaves more than 1500 megalitres for the two towns without any rain, or more than two and a half years, which is longer than Chaffey is expected to supply Tamworth.

There are a number of restrictions on Split Rock at the moment which means all the water in the dam is reserved for the two towns. Manilla is not going to run out of water tomorrow, next week, next month or even next year.

Topping up pools with drinking water doesn't pass the pub test, but at the moment it is legal. Let's get everyone informed with the facts and have a proper discussion about it.

Let's write to councillors or hold a community meeting before we jump straight to civil seizing public facilities.

Now is not the time to reduce ourselves to an "us" and "them" argument. We're all in this together.