THE debate over the now buckets-only brigade for watering in Tamworth because of the falling state of our water resources and plummeting dam levels has taken some strange turns recently.
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The latest was a peculiar twist after social media comments fuelled some fury and argument about the display of signs by people who had exemptions from using a bucket.
Under the Level 3 water rules invoked late last year, the frail, infirm, elderly and incapacitated can seek exemption – because the buckets are too much to lift.
They get the right to use a hose for 15 minutes twice a week between certain hours – instead of the buckets every evening.
The bucket restriction was originally imposed to stop us using water; to make us conserve it, because we face the real chance, if Chaffey Dam, the main source of our domestic and commercial supplies, doesn’t improve its water levels, of actually being banned from using water outside at all.
This time around, some people believed that displaying the sign was a real flag to the flagrant crims that inside were little old ladies being set up as prime crime targets.
It’s a very simple premise. And it’s not entirely wrong or without value.
Now, Tamworth Regional Council has decided that it is up to the householder to decide whether they want to display their signs if they have them.
Councillors this week voted unanimously in favour of abolishing the rule requiring signs to be in a “visible position”.
That’s all well and good.
But we must remember the original intention was to avoid such exempted people from being targeted for abuse or mistaken misuse of water.
Certainly, it was hoped it would protect them from irate neighbours or vexatious locals who dobbed them in, thinking they were cheating on their water use.
Lately, there’s been some groundswell that the signs instead posed a safety risk for those who had them.
The council this week took the centreline and made a commonsense ruling, formulated from its staff, who stressed the resource issues involved, and the verbal assaults that some might attract, but also from police, who said they believed there were no issues in putting the elderly at risk of break-in or robbery.
We also need to understand exemptions can also apply to people temporarily incapacitated, like a new mum who’s undergone a caesarean, or that 150-pound ex-boxer or martial arts proponent who broke his wrist last week.
In the end, the signs have never discriminated among all those possibilities.
