In his comments (Letters, December 27, 2023) about Rous’ Future Water Strategy 2060, the Rous General Manager, Mr Phil Rudd, stresses the need for ‘comprehensive and contemporary’ information to enable decision making.
When considering the cultural heritage of the local Widjabul Wia-bal people, whose heritage here can be traced back 30 thousand years or more, in what way will ‘contemporary’ studies change the findings from the Cultural Heritage Studies which Rous commissioned in 2011 and 2013?
These studies found that evidence of long-term occupation including more than 20 grave sites (of enormous significance to the Widjabul Wia-bal people) would be drowned beneath the waters of the proposed Dunoon Dam.
Once this information was released to a previous Rous Council, the councillors immediately realised its significance and voted against proceeding with the Dunoon Dam.
The Rous Chair at the time, Mayor Phil Silver from Ballina, said the Dunoon Dam proposal should be abandoned in favour of ‘serious demand management and alternative sources’. In December 2013 Rous Councillors voted for the preferred Future Water Strategy which listed three facets: 1. water efficiency; 2. groundwater; and 3. water re-use.
To these, Mr Rudd has added desalination. He would do well to include stormwater harvesting and encouraging householders to invest in tanks. But first, Rous should work with its client local councils (Byron, Ballina, Lismore and Richmond) to fix the leaks which see 15 to 20 per cent of the supplied water being lost from the system.
It is surprising and disappointing to see Rous wasting money on more cultural heritage studies which can only find more evidence, not less.
Mr Rudd, it is time to move on from expensive, unrealistic surface water and move us all toward a future of secure, reliable water from diverse, efficient, alternative systems.
