The issue of water use and water cheats, coupled with the agonising drop in Tamworth’s water supplies over the past two years, has ignited a vocal response in the community.
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At times it is strident, sometimes instructive, maybe vitriolic, at times silly and superficial, but at all times illuminating.
Just as you can lead a horse to the water trough, you can’t make it drink.
However much councils and media provide information and detail about water management, drought plans and water-use rules, you cannot rely on the general population understanding or accepting, or even knowing, the very basic details about what’s going on. Some, not all.
Take the case of some social media chat this week – over the issue of Tamworth Regional Council proposing they might go after our “dam pirates” and implement compliance patrols to check on cheats.
Not only was the council blamed for letting the dam run down and giving away too much water (State Water actually owns the dams and the city buys its supply from them), not actually doing anything to increase supply (we are helping to raise the dam capacity by 40 per cent with a $50 million project underway at Chaffey), they were hit with allegations of wasting it on parks, gardens, roundabouts, new developments and not imposing stringent restrictions eons ago.
They were accused of letting neighbours get away with blue murder in the form of water thefts at night.
It’s also been accused of not having any plan to have a plan to manage droughts and our consumption.
Chaffey Dam is now at its lowest level in seven years. Two years ago at this time it stood at 70 per cent – it’s down by half that now.
We face all hoses being banned in about 10 days if current conditions continue, if we keep using the same amount we are and we get no rain and no runoff into the dam.
The Tamworth region and its water rules work off a drought management plan formed in the wake of that dreadful drought seven years ago. It’s had reworkings and it is in about its eighth revision. It determines when water restrictions are imposed and when they change. The water bans that the council introduces at any time are not arbitrary – they’re based on an orderly plan.
It controls when parks get watered, when we keep our cemeteries green or leave them, when we stop watering roundabouts, when we stop watering our green spaces.
If we don’t agree, we change the rules. But we need to know them first to make informed decisions.
