The mayor agrees that Hydrosphere’s costings on Lavertys Gap versus Rous Water are so wrong that they need revision. He brought a ‘mayoral minute’ to last Thursday’s Council meeting.
A mayoral minute is a special motion that doesn’t require notice and isn’t accompanied by staff comments. It is for urgent matters.
This important matter has no urgency except that this mayor wants to kill Lavertys Gap while he is still in power. Hopefully that is only for another six weeks. Councils go into ‘caretaker’ mode 28 days before an election. That is on August 16. The mayor and his wall-of-men councillors including mayoral hopeful Aspen Pugh, will kill Lavertys Gap on August 15. Shame on them!
The August 1 motion was supported over an amendment to produce the new costings without the rush. The costings will be shared with councillors but not with the public, and not with any time for proper scrutiny. Councillors Lyon, Pugh, Swivel, Hunter and Westheimer don’t acknowledge that 89 per cent of respondents to Council’s recent Your Say are in favour of keeping Lavertys Gap, with only 5 per cent against.
These councillors don’t want a proper assessment of the off-stream storage that makes Lavertys Gap a far better choice. It gives Mullumbimby a disaster-proof water supply rather than Rous’s flimsy long pipeline system.
You’d be a fool to dig up a productive garden and buy veggies at the supermarket instead. It’s the same here with Mullumbimby’s water supply.
BTW Rous is trying to take over in Nimbin as well. It’s expanding its network and doing that while still trying to work out where its future water will come from.
If we don’t run amok against fossil, fossil will run AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) against us.
Human-caused climate change may push the AMOC toward a critical tipping point sooner than expected.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
