Clive Quick, Rous
For around 20 years my wife and I have tried to protect Marom Creek Weir and groundwater from pollution and destruction. Recent action included stopping the Water Bottling fiasco on the Alstonville Plateau with the help of the Alstonville residents. This included letter drops, interviews with the Chief Scientist and his team.
We have watched intensive nurseries releasing their untreated waste water (nutrient, algae, farm chemicals etc.) into watercourses passing through our property flowing into the Marom Creek Weir for the last four days – and over 30 times in the last 15 years.
Ballina Council inform us that, in a Water Catchment Zone, Council ‘cannot and will not guarantee the quality and quantity of the runoff from [x} Nursery’.
Use of groundwater from Alstonville aquifers is increasing at a greater rate, and aquifer levels are dropping at a greater rate. Now WaterNSW is allowing irrigators (intensive industries not agriculture) to drill through this aquifer into the New England Fold below this to supply more water!
The ‘dreamers’ want to use Marom Creek groundwater for public supply. It takes hundreds of years to fill and refill an aquifer. More than thirty years ago we tried to put a proper water tank on our residence in Ballina and were refused by Council – now it’s almost compulsory!
Let’s get some common sense into this debate – dams are not the answer, neither is ‘flood plain harvesting’.
