NSW government assessment of Warragamba dam wall elevation grossly inadequate, critics say | New South Wales

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Conservationists described the NSW government’s assessment of the proposed elevation of the Warragamba dam wall as totally inadequate and called for alternatives, such as buying houses in the areas subject to flooding, be considered.

West Sydney Minister Stuart Ayres said the long-awaited Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), released on Wednesday, would give the community a full understanding of what is being proposed and the potential environmental impacts of a wall elevation up to 17 meters. .

The general public has 45 days to comment on the 4,000 pages of documents.

WaterNSW proposed to raise the dam wall to mitigate risk to human life and property in the floodplain of the Hawkesbury-Nepean watershed in the event of major flooding.

But the plan, which would see floodwaters temporarily held inside the Blue Mountains World Heritage area and then released in a controlled manner, met strong opposition because of the effects it would have on endangered species, the cultural heritage sites and the outstanding values ​​of the World Heritage area.

The EIS says the project would significantly reduce the risk of exposure to flooding for thousands of vulnerable people and their homes and that raising the wall would give emergency services more time to prepare and safely evacuate people. security.

He estimates that about 300 hectares (740 acres) of the World Heritage area would be affected in the event of a major flooding.

It is important to note that the upstream impacts of the proposal must be carefully measured against the social, economic and environmental impacts that the flooding may have on communities downstream of western Sydney, Ayres said on Wednesday.

But environmental groups, experts and an MP said the potential effects of the project were underestimated at several stages in the 86 documents.

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Jamie Pittock, professor of environmental policy at Australian National University, said the damage the project could cause to wildlife, including the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater, had only been assessed for part of the area of ​​potential flooding.

Indeed, WaterNSW had only considered the flood impacts over about 7.5 meters of the proposed elevation of the wall instead of its full height starting at 2.78 meters above the water level of the dam. current.

He said that the required compensations had also only been calculated for this part of the project.

The government is trying to pretend the environmental impact zone is much smaller than it actually would be by carving up land at the bottom and top of the flood zone, Pittock said.

What they are trying to do is reduce the compensation costs, which are huge and potentially of a similar magnitude to the costs of building the dam.

Pittock called the project unjustified and called on the government to consider alternatives such as buying homes in the lower floodplain.

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Harry Burkitt, of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, said the EIS was simply the latest act in the ongoing political farce.

The foundation campaigned against the project and on Wednesday highlighted the weak investigative effort undertaken for important species, including the koala and platypus, which the Federal Environment Ministry also highlighted in earlier versions of the Evaluation.

Last year, the Commonwealth’s Environment Department expressed the view that the dam project was likely to have significant and significant impacts on the national and world heritage values ​​of the Blue Mountains, Burkitt said.

Nothing has changed.

Chris Gambian, from the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales, said: The impacted areas have been massively underestimated, which is not surprising given the timidity with which the assessments were carried out.

Kazan Brown is a Gundungurra woman whose great-great-great-grandfather, John Joseph Riley, owned land at Burnt Flat, which is in the flood zone.

She said she would take some time to review the report but expected the project, if continued, to have a huge impact on the Warragamba community.

Brown has previously raised concerns that surveys of culturally significant sites have only been undertaken in 27% of the area that would be affected by the project.

We still have those concerns, she said. It is far from sufficient. If you’re going to flood something, you’ve got to do a lot more surveying than that.

NSW’s Labor opposition has said it will use a survey that has been established to review the project in order to fully question the EIS.

Independent MLC Justin Field called the EIS totally inadequate.

WaterNSW clearly did not respond to the myriad of concerns raised by NSW and Commonwealth government agencies in the leaked comments on earlier versions of the report, he said.

This is particularly the case for the assessment of biodiversity offsets and the impact of the 2019-20 fires, and the loss of world heritage and cultural heritage values ​​in the upstream area that will be flooded by this project. .

Ayres said the EIA was a thorough and robust assessment of the impacts and benefits of building flood mitigation capacity within the Warragamba Dam.

Warragamba’s compensation strategy takes into account all compensation requirements for inevitable impacts upstream, downstream and in the construction area, he said.

WaterNSW declined to answer questions, but said it encouraged members of the public to make a submission during the consultation process and read its project information portal.

The HIA public exhibition period runs until November 12 and provides the community and stakeholders with full knowledge of what is on offer and the opportunity to make submissions, as part of the process. NSW’s Department of Planning, Industry and Environment’s EIS assessment, he said in a statement.

Guardian Australia has requested further comment from Ayres.

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