Tillegra Dam: Proposed new dam on the Williams River

[astrogirl]

Does anyone know anything about this?

I live in Sydney now but I was handed a flyer about this, and a discussion for it at NSW Parliament House on Monday. I think I may well go.

To be honest, I don't even know where the Williams River is yet - just that it is in the Upper Hunter Valley.

So far I have only read this
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24261921-2702,00.html

Any views?

 

[Serc]

I don't know about the plans but there is always whinging like this when a new dam is announced (yes I am just some suburban city slicker really :sarcasm, the fact is they have to be built and someone is going to lose their house/land as a result.

The Williams is generally mentioned together with the Paterson, they both cover the area from the S Barrington Tops, down through Gresford and Dungog, and down to Maitland - pretty much drain the lower NE part of the Hunter catchment.

 

[roopy]

It is going to take up some of the best farming land in the country.

It is a brilliant location for a dam because the mountains that feed the river are very close to the coast, so get very high rainfall of coastal rains - which is forecast to increase with global warming. In contrast, all the Sydney dams don't get coastal rain, so will have less rainfall with global warming.

The only problem is that it is a long way from Sydney, but the mountains behind it will never be built out or polluted and the rainfall is very high, so it is a great source of clean and reliable water supply if droughts get a lot worse from climate change.

 

[astrogirl]

I need to have a think about it but my initial thoughts are that I don't know if I agree with potentially harming the Hunter Valley ecology to feed Sydney's excesses...

 

[cram]

It is going to take up some of the best farming land in the country.

It is a brilliant location for a dam because the mountains that feed the river are very close to the coast, so get very high rainfall of coastal rains - which is forecast to increase with global warming. In contrast, all the Sydney dams don't get coastal rain, so will have less rainfall with global warming.

The only problem is that it is a long way from Sydney, but the mountains behind it will never be built out or polluted and the rainfall is very high, so it is a great source of clean and reliable water supply if droughts get a lot worse from climate change.

Its a very difficult situation. I think of it like this. North QLD is earning the tag as the food bowl of Australia. It is where the rain fall is and has great potential to provide us with food. The perception is that most of our farming will take place in this are in the future.

The area where this dam is located provides tremendous rain fall. The Hunter has survived water shortage, in terms of drinking water during most droughts. The Tilligerry Dam will supply water to places like the Central Coast that have poor water storage.

Water has been a problem in NSW since the first fleet. In the early days of European settlement the colonists had difficulty finding water.

I am not sure what the right thing is on this issue.

On a side issue consider this. Australia exports alot of its food. If you look at how much water it takes to produce food then we are one of the largest exporters of water in the world.....

 

[roopy]

The other thing about this dam is that the water will not be needed except in an emergency and they are going to build a hydro electric generator at the dam.
The plan i saw said it will generate enough power for 500 homes, which i'm sure was a gross underestimation or perhaps a minimum that could be expected.
Hydro power is actually a lot more valuable than solar or wind power because it can be used as 'baseload' power - meaning you can bring it on stream any time you want to, rather than being at the mercy of the elements.

 

[Serc]

Now that I've heard a bit more, it sounds very similar to what they are doing up here - building a dam 150km N of the city in one of the best rainfall areas in the region. If you're building a dam, its smart thinking (better than the Warragambas and Wivenhoes of the world that are too far inland). Ultimately the state government is going to do whatever they want - and getting water to Sydney is a much bigger priority than losing x amount of hectares of quality farming land (and i bet its pretty damn quality too which is a shame having been up there once or twice). Building dams is also an easier solution to shipping everyone in Sydney out of the country, or sending half of them to Newcastle or a million and one other places ;p

In Australia, probably moreso than other countries usually the best dam sites coincide with where a) a fair few people live and b) where working the land is most viable.

 

[cram]

The other thing about this dam is that the water will not be needed except in an emergency and they are going to build a hydro electric generator at the dam.
The plan i saw said it will generate enough power for 500 homes, which i'm sure was a gross underestimation or perhaps a minimum that could be expected.
Hydro power is actually a lot more valuable than solar or wind power because it can be used as 'baseload' power - meaning you can bring it on stream any time you want to, rather than being at the mercy of the elements.

Very true Roopy, solar power is expensive and not that effective and wind power has proven not be viable in this country.....I lived in a little hamlet on the South Coast known as Bemboka. they had a dam on top of the escarpment and a hydro on the bottom. In its hey day it provided the bulk of electricty for the area but to this day it still provides power load for the area.

 

[astrogirl]

I ended up going to the thing tonight.

Apparently the water isn't for Sydney at all (I wrongly assumed that it was), and in fact it's not really for the Central Coast either. I'm not sure how but the CC seems to have its immediate needs sorted.

I still need to find out more but it appears the dam will flood the Williams River, with the downstream into Barrington Tops receiving half of the current water flows. The size of the dam is apparently going to be the size of Sydney Harbour.

I can't see why a river and farming land should be sacrificed when the Hunter has enough water for its needs. To my knowledge there have not been water restrictions in the recent past, and no water saving campaigns. I don't understand why such a big infrastructure project is the answer when there's no immediate water scarcity problem in the region.

Plus, Hunter residents will pay for this project through increased water bills, probably to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

And yeah, I know it looks like I was fed a heap of political and environmental alarmist cr@p tonight and am now regurgitating it, but I promise I have made my own judgements about what is alramist and what may actually be fact!!

 

[cram]

I ended up going to the thing tonight.

Apparently the water isn't for Sydney at all (I wrongly assumed that it was), and in fact it's not really for the Central Coast either. I'm not sure how but the CC seems to have its immediate needs sorted.

I still need to find out more but it appears the dam will flood the Williams River, with the downstream into Barrington Tops receiving half of the current water flows. The size of the dam is apparently going to be the size of Sydney Harbour.

I can't see why a river and farming land should be sacrificed when the Hunter has enough water for its needs. To my knowledge there have not been water restrictions in the recent past, and no water saving campaigns. I don't understand why such a big infrastructure project is the answer when there's no immediate water scarcity problem in the region.

Plus, Hunter residents will pay for this project through increased water bills, probably to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

And yeah, I know it looks like I was fed a heap of political and environmental alarmist cr@p tonight and am now regurgitating it, but I promise I have made my own judgements about what is alramist and what may actually be fact!!

Good on you for going and finding out about it. The fact you did indicates that you care and that is whats important.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Good on you for going and finding out about it. The fact you did indicates that you care and that is whats important.

Astro, cram is dead set right. Info is power. Now you just have to sort through the emotion.
The dam will provide additional storage capacity for the water that would otherwise be collected from the williams river at Seaham weir & directed to Grahamstown Dam at Medowie. Its major attraction was that it would store water that may be useful for the lower hunter or the central coast regions in another drought period. The hunter was very lucky that the rain that did fall through the last drought fell mainly in the catchment, unlike places like brisbane, which got minimal rain, & even less in their catchment areas.
The CC now has pipework in place to share the water between the major dams which they believe will better protect them in the bad times (hence their reluctance to pay for something they may not need).
The cost of any new dam is high, & it seems that the Hunter water users (current & future) will be required to come up with the money. The dam will flood an area currently used for dairy & beef farming.
On top of this is the seldom mentioned alternative dam location in the gloucester area. It would be a slightly cheaper alternative & not have the same impact of loss of good farming land. Does flood suspected coal deposits though....

 

[B-dos]

i 100% support this dam

those on the anti-dam side come up with absurd comments such as 'water we dont even need' which is hardly grounds for not building a dam. 2 years ago we were pumping water to the CC after all.

a population needs water and if if the population of newcastle and the hunter and the CC is to expand, so too does our water harvesting and collection capacity. claiming we all jusdt get water tanks is absolutely ridiculous.

DPR makes an interesting point on the option to build this in gloucester however id be surprised if there wasnt a few things far in favour of the tillegra location that contributed to its selection.

 

[roopy]

If it is true that the people of the hunter are going to have the costs of this dam added to their water bills, when the dam is being built to drought proof the central coast and sydney, then the people of the hunter should blow up about it.
We already pay for more water facilities than we ever use.

It would be like us paying for the whole states electricity because most of it is generated in the Hunter.

Nothing wrong with us being the place water comes from, as long as we don't have to pay for the privalige.

 

[Medievalknight]

Most water these days is consumed by ......
(1) Toilets
(2) Gardens
(3) Washing machines

New buildings these days also have to conform to BASIX requirements, one of these being that a RAINWATER TANK has to be installed and all the water from this tank has to feed the above mentioned items.

Further to this, Hunter Water are upgrading quite a few of there sewerage treatment plants and conveying this treated water to new land estates initially for the purpose of using this treated water for the above mentioned items also.

So the question remains


WHY DO WE NEED TILLEGRA.?????????????????

 

[macavity]

If it is true that the people of the hunter are going to have the costs of this dam added to their water bills, when the dam is being built to drought proof the central coast and sydney, then the people of the hunter should blow up about it.
We already pay for more water facilities than we ever use.

It would be like us paying for the whole states electricity because most of it is generated in the Hunter.

Nothing wrong with us being the place water comes from, as long as we don't have to pay for the privalige.

this is why im against it.

im pro dam.

but im anti hunter paying for cc/sydney needs. its an absolute joke and something we should flat out refuse to do.

 

[astrogirl]

In case anyone is interested