Water NSW's 20 year plan for the future water supply of the State's inland communities is causing some concern with the Barnard River listed as a possible source for the Peel Valley.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
A report was presented to MidCoast Council at the September 11 ordinary meeting in Taree pertaining to a potential inter basin water transfer system from the Barnard River to the Peel Valley, which encompasses the Tamworth region. Councillors requested the report at the August 14 meeting in response to the August 7 Daily Telegraph article that referred to the system.
An inter basin transfer is a man-made way to move water from one river basin where it is available, to another basin where water is less available which can help alleviate water shortages.
The report, prepared by council's director of infrastructure and engineering service Robert Scott, outlined how inter basin water transfer schemes have been in the public forum at a conceptual level from as early as the 1930s as a way of tackling water storage issues across Australia.
The report stated that the concept of diverting water from the Barnard River to the Peel River was investigated in 1971, however in the early 80s an inter basin scheme was built to provide water security for NSW's largest coal fired electricity generators, Bayswater Power Station in the Hunter Valley. The scheme is presently able to transfer water from a weir on the Barnard River into Oaky Creek, a tributary of the Hunter River, which flows into Glenbawn Dam.
In a 2007, a review by Ghassemi and White of a 1981 study commissioned by the NSW Water Resources Commission summarised that "benefits and costs of the more favourable diversion schemes proposed could not be justified on economic grounds and were not supported by environmental or social impact assessment," council's report noted.
In June 2018, Water NSW released its 20 Year Infrastructure Options Study Rural Valleys Summary Report, which listed the Barnard scheme as one of 14 options for improving water availability in the Peel Valley. Outlined in the report are cost estimates for comparison only, estimating the Barnard scheme at $756 million, one of the most costly potential projects set to be investigated.
Water NSW says the report is designed to address its level of service and improve availability across the State by committing to investigating a range of options for 15 localities over two years with appropriate customer consultation.
The outcomes are to be published in the next edition of the report featuring a "customer shared long-term (seven to 20 year) context for each rural valley that leads to a broader context for Water NSW's investment decisions," the report states.
The Barnard River rises on the eastern slopes of the Great Dividing Range, near Hanging Rock, east of Nundle, and flows generally east southeast, joined by seven tributaries including the Bank and Curricabark rivers, before reaching the Manning River, near Bretti.
