Protect Warragamba Dam, Do Not Raise the Warragamba Dam Wall
Petitioner:
Dr Elizabeth Farrelly
| Member:
Greenwich, Alex
| No. of Signatories:
200
| Date closed:
12/08/2023
To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly,
NSW is at the precipice of making a bad infrastructure decision that will damage the environment and communities. The Blue Mountains National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Warragamba Dam was originally built to that size and to those specifications for a reason. We understand raising Warragamba Dam will not prevent flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. We urge the NSW Government to listen to local residents and to listen to independent experts, and to protect the local environment and to protect local communities moving forward.
We support the published findings of Professor Dr James Pittock from the Australian National University. We simply cannot keep building new houses on a known floodplain, and we need to protect precious Indigenous sites as well. We support the options of dredging and releasing water ahead of big rain events, as well as building levees if and where appropriate. We support water recycling and solar-powered desalination as viable and sustainable alternatives to raising the Warragamba Dam wall.
We ask the Legislative Assembly to call on the Government for a comprehensive Parliamentary Inquiry that listens to local communities and addresses our Warragamba Dam concerns openly and transparently.
