Raising Of Warragamba Dam Axed

Common sense seems to be a rare commodity these days, and the NSW Government’s decision not to move forward with raising the Warragamba Dam is just one more sign of its impending extinction.

Hawkesbury City Council Mayor, Sarah McMahon was invited to speak with Karl Stefanovic on The Today Show earlier this week to discuss the devastating news.

Mayor McMahon said that the raising of the dam should have been one of the State government’s top budgetary priorities.

“It is disappointing that the State government has decided not to raise the dam,” Ms McMahon said.

“We have had six floods in the last three years.

“Data released has stated that raising the dam would mitigate the problem.

“It’s always happened since we’ve kept records, so it will happen again.”

Mayor McMahon said that Hawkesbury residents were still working to recover from former flooding events.

The State government has opted to go with small levies.

“We have not seen any designs for these levies that to me look like little, mini Giant Walls of China,” Mayor McMahon said.

Raising the dam was a one-off $3 Billion project, but the funding was not included in the budget.

It costs between two and three Billion dollars each time the Hawkesbury River floods.

In the end, the raising of the dam would save billions of dollars. Mayor McMahon said history would prove that the State governmentt had made the wrong decision about Warragamba Dam; that they had chosen politics rather than people.

• Topics:

• Floods
• Politics