31 October 2018
Community campaign saves Cliefden Caves as government scraps reckless Cranky Dam proposal
The scrapping by the NSW government of the Cranky Dam proposal in the state’s central west is a victory for community environmental campaigning and for common sense.
“The Save Cliefden Caves group ran an excellent campaign against this damaging proposal, which should never have seen the light of day,” Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski said.
“Governments stopped building dams 30 years ago for a very good reason. Dams degrade river systems, cause a host of environmental problems, and fail to provide water security for local communities.
“An in the era of climate change and declining rainfall, new dams are unlikely to fill. The Berejiklian government has squandered thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on a feasibility study of a National Party pre-election thought bubble that was never going to work.
“Rather than wasting money on new dams, the government should be investing in water efficiency in towns and on farms.
“The Belubula flows into the Lachlan River, a major system in the Murray Darling Basin, which has significant wetlands in the lower catchment.
"Putting another dam on the Belubula would have added more stress to an already degraded system, with cascading impacts on the environment and landholders downstream.
“This proposal was not only environmentally reckless, it made no sense economically.
“The NSW Government would have spent millions on a dam to take water out of Murray-Darling Basin while the Federal Government was spending billions putting it back in.”
Ms Smolski said the NSW Government should be doing more to reduce climate pollution and embrace clean energy as a fundamental way to help farmers deal with water scarcity.
“Climate change is making large parts of southeast drier and hotter yet the Berejiklian government has done little to reduce our emissions.
“The coalition has had almost eight years to develop a plan but have almost nothing.
“They released a draft Climate Change Fund Strategic Plan almost two years ago and it has still not been finalised.”
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Forests and wildlifeRivers and wetlands
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