Ballina Shire Cr Keith Williams is calling for restoration works on the Richmond River to be the top priority for the council’s next budget – and he’s asking for a rate rise to help fund it.
At last week’s Ballina council finance committee meeting, Cr Williams put up a motion for a 1.5 per cent rate rise to help fund a healthy waterways program.
The motion was defeated on the casting vote of Mayor David Wright.
But Cr Williams is hopeful a compromise can be reached at this Thursday’s council meeting, which will reconsider the issue.
Cr Williams said the river is ‘in serious trouble.’
‘The situation has gotten worse in the four years I have been a councillor. The death of the majority of oysters in the estuary over the last couple of years is a sign we can’t allow this to continue,’ he said,
‘We have talked the river to death. It’s time for action and action will cost money.’
Cr Williams estimated that the total cost of implementing the Coastal Zone Management Plan for the Richmond River is ‘around $16 million.’
‘A 1.5 per cent rate rise raises $300,000 per year.
‘This is nowhere near enough to do the job but it provides a starting point to apply for state and federal funding to implement a wide range of strategies to improve the health of the river.
‘We can turn our river around. It has been done elsewhere and it can be done here. Thursday’s Council meeting will be the test of whether there is a will to begin,’ Cr Williams said.
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