DESPITE good recent rain falling in parts of the Upper Hunter it is important to reflect upon the impact of continuing drought conditions on our residents, primary producers and livestock.
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In my home town of Murrurundi, which has been on severe water restrictions since October last year, we haven’t had decent, soaking rain for months on end.
With water in such short supply, Council was for a while trucking in water every day to meet basic residential needs.
Whilst we live in a dry climate and must be judicious in our water use, Murrurundi residents are to be commended for significantly limiting their water use over this hot and dry period.
To help address the scarcity of town water, Council recently commissioned a ‘mobile water treatment plant’ in Murrurundi.
The plant filters water from the Murrurundi Dam and the bed of the Pages River using a state of the art membrane technology, which purifies water to well above Australian Standards.
Whilst it treats the water to an exacting quality, it does not provide Murrurundi with the long term water security needed for the district.
The permanent solution is the Murrurundi pipeline from Glenbawn Dam, which has been funded and is currently in development.
The first fixture for the 40 kilometre pipeline was installed last week.
There are still some discussions going on with land owners to finalise all the easements and land acquisitions that are needed. There is also a process underway to secure permits from the State Government before construction can commence.
Council is finalising the designs and preparing the contract documents. Importantly Council’s planned completion date of 2020 is still on target.
In these dry conditions residents are concerned that another two years is too long to wait. Murrurundi has been waiting for a very long time for its pipeline and it is only going ahead now.
The pipeline is a major infrastructure project for the Council. There is significant preparation to be done to meet the standards required for the piping of our drinking water and it is vital that we get that right.
There is no doubt we would prefer that the pipeline was in place right now but significant community infrastructure such as this takes time to plan and to build.
