The posse was accompanied by Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson to meet with the NSW Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair.

“It was a pleasure to bring the Walcha Council to NSW Parliament in a bid to secure a more permanent water supply for Walcha,” said Mr Anderson.

“The deputation, led by Mayor Eric Noakes, met with the Water Minister Niall Blair to obtain funds for a water study. I will fight hard for those funds.”

At its March ordinary meeting Council voted to accept the final report submitted by GHD, a global water services company, which suggested an off-stream storage dam on a small tributary of the Apsley River is a better option than a large 25 gigalitre dam on the Apsley River.

“The Apsley River Study took two years to complete and while delivering some vital information did nothing to solve the problem which has been around for some time,” said Mr Noakes. 

“The next and the hopefully penultimate step is to look at securing and being able to store the water we ‘own’ sourced from the Macdonald River. The final step will be when the surveyor’s pegs go in the ground.” 

Mr Noakes said Walcha already has access to 379 megalitres of water annually. An amount which exceeds the town usage in normal years. 

“The problem is that the water supply is too heavily reliant upon the flow in the river, which fluctuates with weather conditions,” he said. 

“When the water level within the MacDonald River is too low, the pumps are unable to provide water to town, and water restrictions begin. This happens far too often with current weather patterns, so much of our allocation cannot be utilised as it flows on down the river during high flows.

“One of the most disappointing aspects of this is the number of residents that say to me they no longer have a garden as it seems futile. In an area with the rainfall of Walcha, this is plainly unacceptable. We are the Pasture Wonderland yet cannot support gardens.”

The easiest and simplest solution to this is obviously to store the water in times of high flow and use it in times when we cannot pump from the river according to Mr Noakes.

“This is no different to having a tank on your house or shed,” he said. 

“To be able to harvest this water and store around two years of supply should give confidence that our town cannot only maintain its population but grow.”

Mr Noakes said Niall Blair was supportive of the concept Council put before him. 

“It must be remembered that there are many councils who want to improve their supply and we are just one in the mix,” he said. 

“To this end, we must keep our requests and applications to what we need. This is not a time for grand visions. If in the future we require more then that is the time to reassess.”