Rous County Council and that Dunoon Dam proposal now risen from the dead

 

In 2014 Rous County Council (RCC) adopted its Future Water Strategy which recommended detailed investigations to assess the suitability of increased use of groundwater as a new water source, and if groundwater was not suitable, investigate complementary options such as water reuse and desalination.

After completion of this investigation Rous produced the original Future Water Project 2060 which did not prioritise groundwater use, reuse of already available water or building a desalination plant/s.

Instead it chose another option – the 50 gigalitre Dunoon Dam, with the concept design indicating an initial capital cost of approx. $220 million.

“In considering options for the future, Rous County Council conducted extensive assessments to weigh up environment, social and economic impacts. The result of these assessments indicate the Dunoon Dam is the preferred long-term water supply option when compared to demand management and water conservation, groundwater sources and water re-use”.

It is worth noting that the proposed Dunoon Dam would be the second dam on Rocky Creek thus further fragmenting this watercourse. The first water storage is Rocky Creek Dam which will continue to operate if the Dunoon Dam was built. Rocky Creek Dam does not have an outlet structure so it does not provide releases for downstream flows. [NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 2020]

By 2020 this incredibly flawed second dam plan still relied on the widely discredited ‘offset’ scheme as a workaround for the widespread level of environmental destruction, significant biodiversity & species local population loss and, for the drowning of land sacred to the Widjabul Wia-bal People and the desecration of highly significant cultural sites.

Rous authorized preliminary investigation of the Dunoon Dam project in mid-2020 allocating a $100,000 operating budget.

However, the Widjabul Wia-bal, local residents in Lismore Shire and many people in the three other shires within Rous County Council (Byron, Ballina & Richmond Valley) remained concerned with Rous’ choice – the Future Water Project 2060 Public Exhibition Outcomes revealed that 90% of the 1,298 submissions received by 9 September 2020 expressed concerns about the Dunoon Dam proposal.

In March 2021 Rous was reconsidering its earlier Dunoon Dam decision and by 21 July it had voted 5 to 3 to remove the Dunoon Dam from its Future Water Project 2060. At that time a second public exhibition from 1 April to 24 May 2021, this time of the revised Future Water Project 2060, was put in place which resulted in an RCC digital file of supporting submissions 1,754 pages long and confirmed that voiced public opinion was still against building the Dunoon Dam.

By 16 December 2021 Rous County Council had authorised “the General Manager to cease all work on the Dunoon Dam and provide a report on the orderly exit from Dunoon Dam as an option in the future water project, including revocation of zoning entitlements and disposal of land held for the purpose of the proposed Dunoon Dam”.

There the matter should have rested, but after the December 2021 local government elections there was a changing of the guard at Rous Water and six of the eight current sitting RCC councillors are pro-dam.

This led to the unedifying sight on 16 February 2022, of Rous County Council by a vote of 6 to 2 vote reinserting the Dunoon Dam proposal into the revised Future Water Project 2060. No genuine forewarning of what that first RCC meeting of 2022 would contain, no prior consultation with Widjabul Wia-ba elders on the Item 12.1 motion, no community consultation.

The community scrambled to respond. So on the day RCC did hear objections to Item 12.1 from Hugh Nicholson, a previous Chair of Rous Country Council and Friends of the Koala representative Ros Irwin.

A young Widjabul Wia-ba woman, Skye Roberts, addressed the councillors as a “custodian” of the land. She spoke with conviction, determination and, clearly informed all present that: the proposed dam was sited within the large tract of land between three ancient mountains and that land was “sacred land” to all the Widjabul Wia-ba; this included Channon Gorge, the waters that ran through it and the wider dam site; the stone burial mounds which would be submerged by dam waters were part of the circle of cultural connection between land and people; men’s places & women’s places were on land to be flooded; and that land connects to living culture.

The message she carried for her grandmother and mother fell on predominately deaf ears and it was ‘ugly Australia’ which voted the dam back into future planning on that Wednesday in February.

Rous County Council already has before it the Ainsworth Heritage “Dunoon Dam: Preliminary Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment for Rous Water, May 2013” which can be read in digital form or downloaded from:

https://issuu.com/jwtpublishing/docs/ainsworth-heritage-preliminary-cultural-heritage-i.

It also has before it the SMEC “Dunoon Dam Terrestrial Ecology Impact Assessment, Prepared for Rous Water November 2011”. An assessment of which can be found at:

https://waternorthernrivers.org/ecological-impact/

For a brief summary of some of the technical flaws in the Dunoon Dam preliminary investigation:

Dunoon Dam: 4 Risks & Considerations by Water Expert Professor Stuart White - Feb 2022

 

NSW National Party - determined as ever to ignore the rights of traditional owners and vulnerable biodiverse landscapes - are investigating dam & diversion options in northern coastal river catchments

Rous County Council - which has bulk water supply responsibilities across the Ballina, Byron, Lismore City and Richmond Valley local government areas - in a 5 to 3 vote put aside the 253ha Dunoon Dam proposal for the next four to five years to enable comprehensive talks to occur with Widjabul Wia-bal traditional owners before going back into the plan.

Instead, it is exploring groundwater and recycling options with the aim of securing water supplies by 2024-2030.

However, there are objections to this course of action within the county council and in the broader community, along with disturbing echoes of colonial racism.

Section of the Channon Gorge, the proposed site of the Dunoon Dam wall
IMAGE: David Lowe

The proposed Dunoon Dam would be the second dam in the Rocky Creek sub-catchment, which if it becomes the preferred option would leave only approx. 4 kms as the crow flies between these two bodies of stored water.

North Coast Voices readers will probably not be surprised to find that NSW Nationals MLA for Clarence, former property developer & mining consultant Chris Gulaptis, the Nationals  MLC for Bathurst small business owner & recent undeclared candidate for Leader of the Nationals Sam Farraway and, Nationals candidate for the Lismore electorate in the last state election Austin Curtain, all support inundating a river valley to build this dam and including this proposal in the long-term regional water strategy.

The Echo, Letters, 3 November 2021:

If councillors in favour of the Dunoon Dam (DuD) are elected in December we will see several things happen.

Water resilience will collapse. The ‘10,000 signatures’, on which the pro-dam candidates base their political stance, demanded that all options be taken off the table, except for a second dam on a small creek: being completely dependent on increasingly erratic rainfall flowing through that small creek would intensify our climate risk.

Water shortages would be incurred soon because demand exceeds supply in three years, but the dam could not possibly be built until at least 2030.

Local jobs, which would have been boosted by diverse water options and long-term conservation measures (eg large-scale refitting), would be axed in favour of a short-term boost to a huge non-local company to build a dam.

Water rates would escalate rapidly to pay for a large one-off project. Government contributions are unlikely, leaving current ratepayers to foot the bill. The poorest people would be paying the most because water is non-discretionary, like food.

The Widjabul Wia-Bal people would be told, yet again, that their opinion does not matter. The burial sites, which have been compared by the Native Title Services Corp to the Juukan Cave in WA, would be lost. The living heritage of our own citizens would be discarded.

The Endangered Ecological Community of Lowland Rainforest, part of the remaining one per cent of the Big Scrub, would be severely reduced. In The Channon Gorge, the rare warm temperate rainforest on sandstone would be almost completely destroyed.

Opposition to the DuD, including direct action, would escalate, causing increased social division and unrest. When a large dubious project lacks social licence, the outcomes for local politicians pushing the project are never good.

There are plenty of alternatives to the DuD but the pro-dam candidates are going for the least efficient, most expensive, slowest, and most reckless option for water in the future.

We can have more water more cheaply and more quickly without needing a dam or groundwater; just by water efficiencies alone. But the pro-dam ideologues are not interested.

We have a problem here with local would-be politicians who want to capitalise on anxiety about water in order to score political points. They are not genuinely interested in water security. This is easily proved by their refusal to discuss anything other than one unrealistic and unsafe option.

There is a terrific opportunity here to pull together to solve our water problems. It may be lost owing to the political ambitions of a few cynical dog-whistlers.

Nan Nicholson, The Channon

ABC News, 4 October 2021:

Australia's national science agency is to investigate how to best manage the NSW far north coast's long-term water supply and river health.

The state's Water Minister, Melinda Pavey, has announced that scientists from the CSIRO will provide independent advice reviewing options proposed in last year's draft Far North Coast Regional Water Strategy.

"It developed from a lot of conversations around the strategy and a view from some community members that we haven't dealt enough with issues in relation to flood mitigation and water quality on north coast rivers, as well as long-term future supply for an area with a strong population and a lot of rainfall," Ms Pavey said.

The review will look at water security and flood risk management, particularly for the flood-prone city of Lismore.

"This will be really important foundational work that could be relevant to other parts of NSW," she said

Keith Williams, chair of regional water supplier Rous County Council, has welcomed the study and believes it will dovetail with council's existing priorities outlined in the Northern Rivers Watershed Initiative.

"About what we can do to decrease downstream flooding and a lot of that involves trying to re-establish wetlands, replanting river banks that exclude stock, and generally slowing water down within the landscape," he said.

"To have the CSIRO helping with that work would be fantastic. I don't see any threat to Rous from further scientific studies; we would welcome it."

Study will include Dunoon Dam option

Ms Pavey confirmed that a new dam at Dunoon would be included in the study.

A majority of Rous County councillors voted earlier this year to shelve the dam option from its future water strategy.

Robert Mustow, who was one of three councillors who advocated for the dam option to remain in the mix, welcomed the CSIRO input….

"This study will now reveal everything and it will be scientific-based and that's how it should have been to start with."

The CSIRO work is expected to be completed within a year.

What Minister Pavey is careful not to mention is that this 'review' is likely to be used to bolster the NSW Perrottet Government's preference to increase the size of the Shannon Creek Dam in the Clarence River catchment area [Draft North Coast Regional Water Strategy, "Long List of Options", March 2021] in order to allow the Coffs Harbour City LGA to increase its water draw from the Nymboida River and this large side dam (these being Coffs Harbour's only source of urban water) AND at the same time allow yet another local government area outside the catchment area to draw water via the Shannon Creek Dam. Thereby placing an unsustainable water draw of the Nymboida sub-catchment for a combined est. resident population of 142,519 persons [ID Community Demographic Resources, 2020].

BACKGROUND

EchoNetDaily, 14 December 2020:

Widjabul Wia-bal traditional owners of the area between Dunoon and the Channon have told Rous County Council not to follow Rio Tinto with the destructive Dunoon Dam.

They have told the General Manager of Rous County Council, Phil Rudd, that they will not accept the building of the proposed dam, which would inundate ancient burial sites and extensive evidence of occupation in the past and in recent times.

John Roberts, a Senior Elder of the Widjabul Wia-bal said, ‘I was one of the stakeholders consulted in 2011 about the impact of the Dunoon Dam on cultural heritage.

‘In the 2011 Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment prepared for Rous, we stakeholders said with one voice that no level of disturbance was acceptable to us. We still say that. Nothing has changed. There is no need for another study. Our opinion has not changed.

‘Our cultural heritage is a direct connection to our ancestors. We have been here for thousands of years. These sites provide us with a link to our traditions, our land and our living heritage. They allow us to educate our young ones in their history.’....

Echo, 22 July 2021:

Proposed Dunoon Dam, now scrapped. Rous County Council.

Dunoon Dam divides councils

The council itself is almost evenly divided: the traditionally more conservative Richmond Valley Council representatives further south want to consider a dam (and also want to connect Casino up to the Rous County Council water supply) while Byron’s representatives in the north are publicly opposed to the dam and Lismore’s progressives have cited concerns over cultural heritage.

Ballina is less cohesively represented in the Rous County Council, with each of the shire’s two representatives taking opposing sides on the dam idea....

The Daily Telegraph, 4 August 2021, p.11:

Lismore Mayor Vanessa Ekins said lobbying the NSW and federal governments to force the Dunoon Dam back into Rous’s Water Future Strategy was a political manoeuvre by conservative councillors and MPs ahead of upcoming elections.

“I think there is a bit of local lobbying going on, people are gearing up for an election and trying to position themselves with a little project,” Ms Ekins (pictured) said.

“(The dam) doesn’t relate to the science, technical expertise and decades of thought and work that has gone into coming out with the Future Water Strategy…..

SMEC Australia Pty Ltd, Dunoon Dam Terrestrial Ecology Impact Assessment*, November 2011:

One endangered ecological community (EEC), Lowland Rainforest which is listed under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (TSC Act), was recorded during field investigations. In addition, nine flora and 17 fauna species (including one frog, one mammal, one fruit-bat, six microbats and eight birds) listed as threatened in NSW under the TSC Act were also recorded. Of these species, eight flora and one fauna species are also listed nationally under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). An additional seven fauna species listed as migratory or marine under the EPBC Act as well as two Rare or Threatened Australian Plants (RoTAP) and three regionally significant plant species were also recorded.

Note:

* SMEC, a member of the Surbana Jurong Group, is a global engineering, management and development consultancy. SMEC field studies were undertaken in April 2010 - October 2010 and targeted threatened species within the study area.

Rous County Council's authoritarian members will ride forth at 9:30 am this morning armed with what can only be described as an anti-democracy revenge motion

Channon Gorge, site of proposed Dunoon Dam.
Photo David Lowe.
Image: Echo, 10 December 2020

It took a long hard campaign on the part of the Widjabul Wia-bal People and the people of Lismore to protect the area known as Channon Gorge and the river which runs though it - rich in cultural heritage as important today as it was thousands of years ago, high in environment values and biodiversity.

However, even when Rous County Council voted to take the proposed Dunoon Dam out of future planning in late 2020, it was obvious that the 'build it it and enough water will fall from the sky' brigade, along with those who appear to take umbrage at the thought of any Aboriginal landscapes escaping destruction, would be returning for another chance to submerge the Channon Gorge.

So the struggle continues and the Widjabul Wia-bal People are not backing down when it comes to protecting the land their ancestors also protected. On 11 February 2022, at their invitation, two members of the NSW Legislative Council met with their representatives at Channon Gorge.

Water Northern Rivers, retrieved from the website 15 February 2022:

Water Northern Rivers Alliance¹

Our region is at a critical point

The current challenge for the Rous region (Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Richmond Valley council areas) is to create a drought-resilient water system without destroying cultural heritage and irreplaceable ecology.

In the face of climate change and projected population growth, the Northern Rivers has become an important testing ground for modern water supply options.

Rous County Council’s revised Integrated Water Catchment Management Plan (revised IWCM 2021) meets the challenge. It is investigating and moving forward with diverse options, instead of the White Elephant Dunoon Dam.

Recent council elections resulted in a new Rous County Councillors being appointed. The new make is predominantly pro-dam, so the time ahead is crucial.

Channon Gorge
Photo David Lowe
Image: Echo, 17 December 2020

Echo, 14 February 2022:

Just when we thought we’d seen the last of the Dunoon Dam, over a year after it was scrapped in 2020, a Rous councillor is moving a motion to put it back on the table.

The 2021 LGA elections saw the Dunoon Dam used as a platform for swaying votes on December 4, often the choice of ‘toilet water’ or the dam the only possibilities offered by candidates.

Now that this term of local government has begun, Ballina, Lismore and Richmond Valley Council have seen pro-dam councillors elected to the Rous Country Council which is made up of eight councillors – two from each of the constituent councils of Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Richmond Valley.

With the swearing-in of this term’s representatives, councils chose Councillors Sharon Cadwallader and Rod Bruem for Ballina, Councillors Michael Lyon and Sarah Ndiaye for Byron, Councillors Andrew Gordon and Big Rob for Lismore and Councillors Robert Mustow and Sandra Humphrys for Richmond Valley.

Ballina’s new Mayor Sharon Cadwallader has been nothing if not desperate to see the dam approved and has gone to extraordinary lengths to see it become a reality.

Ms Cadwallader has been voted on to Rous and she joins at least five other dam supporters on the Council.

Apart from the Byron representation, this group of Councillors have been clear about their support of the dam….

One of the results of this gaggle of duly elected environmental vandals gaining what appears to be a strong foothold on Rous County Council, is the motion set out below authored by a Lismore City councillor with the legal name of Big Rob.^{2, 3} And I have a strong suspicion that this particular motion was not presented (for formal agreement) to a full sitting of councillors on Lismore City Council – the particular local government Cr, Big Rob is legally obliged to represent at Rous County Council meetings.

Rous County Council, Ordinary meeting business paper, Wednesday, 16 February 2022:

Notice of Motion

Council Meeting 16 February 2022

Subject: Dunoon Dam

I hereby move:

That Council:

1. Adopt Revision 7 of the Integrated Water Cycle Management (IWCM) Strategy (Attachment 1) and update Revision 7 of the IWCM to reflect the inclusion of Dunoon dam investigations as part of the Future Water Project 2060

2. Approve the completion of detailed cultural heritage and biodiversity assessments associated with the proposed Dunoon dam in consultation with relevant Traditional Custodians.

3. Defer implementing the resolution associated with the proposed Dunoon dam, resolved by Council at its meeting of 16 December 2020 (resolution [61/20] Item 2), until after Stage 3 options have been determined (Attachment 2)

4. Utilise existing budget allocations for Dunoon dam land management to progress the actions in Item 2.

Signed: Councillor Big Rob

Date: 19 January 2022

The meeting at which this motion will be considered today can be accessed by the wider New South Wales & Northern Rivers general public:

Rous County Council meeting 16 February 2022
Public access, 9.30am – 10.00am: Zoom link.
Council meeting from 10.00am: Zoom link.

A public meeting is being held before the start of Rous County Council proceedings:

NOTE:

1. Water Northern Rivers, retrieved 15 February 2022, excerpts:

Ecological impacts of Dunoon Dam site – cannot be offset

• Internationally significant ecological remnants are our responsibility

• Only 1% of our region’s Big Scrub rainforest remains. 6.7% is in the proposed dam site & would be destroyed or fragmented.

• These rainforests are part of the Endangered Ecological Community Lowland Rainforest of the NSW North Coast and Sydney Basin Bioregions.

• Water Gums and Grey Myrtles in The Channon Gorge are the largest on record.

• Loss of flora species is cumulative, relentless and ultimately terminal. 

• 52 ha of critical koala habitat and corridors would be destroyed.

• Extinction already seriously threatens multiple species including the iconic platypus.

Why Dunoon Dam would NOT HELP with DROUGHT RESILIENCE

• A second dam would only receive water from the catchment above Rocky Creek Dam when it overspills. But Rocky Creek Dam currently has no provision for overflow and is full only 30% of the time, so a new dam may take years to fill. (Rous does not measure water flows over the spillway).

• Dunoon Dam is 3.5 x the size of Rocky Creek Dam, but has half the catchment size.

• In drought, when overall rainfall decreases, the runoff decreases even more drastically.

• Dunoon Dam’s relatively catchment would deliver very little in a drought.

• Multi-year droughts, predicted with climate change, mean that after a 4.5 year drought we’d have TWO empty dams.  

2. Big Rob Archives – The Echo at https://www.echo.net.au/tag/big-rob/

3. Cr. Big Rob Archives – The Echo at https://www.echo.net.au/tag/cr-big-rob/