A Labor plan to pipe water from Warren to Nyngan has come under fire because Labor has suggested any water savings would not be kept for the Macquarie Valley, but instead sent into the Murray-Darling Basin.
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Labor’s water spokesman Anthony Albanese said a Labor government would put $12 million toward a pipeline running from Warren to Nyngan. Water would then be sent onto Cobar.
Currently, water runs up the man-made Albert Priest Channel to Nyngan but in doing so, Cobar and Nyngan lose about 50 per cent of their water allocation through evaporation and seepage.
Mr Albanese said that by piping the water, up to two gigalitres could be saved and returned to the Murray-Darling Basin.
A spokesman for Mr Albanese said Labor was supporting a plan by the Cobar Water Board to build the pipeline.
The spokesman said Labor had not looked “in any detail” about whether the saved water could be kept in Burrendong Dam or sent down to the Murray-Darling Basin.
Cobar Water Board secretary Ray Smith said the board did not support sending saved water to the Murray-Darling Basin.
“There is a limited amount of water coming down the Macquarie and diverting anything out of the Macquarie would only adversely affect communities like Nyngan and Cobar,” he said.
Mr Smith said a study had shown a $24 million pipeline could be built adjacent to the Albert Priest Channel.
“It would start at the Gunningbar Creek at Warren, run to Nyngan following the existing Albert Priest Channel to the Mitchell Highway and along the railway reserve into Nyngan - and then piped to Cobar,” he said.
“Cobar and Nyngan lose 50 per cent of their water allocation through evaporation and seepage - about 5000 megalitres a year.”
Labor would provide half the money, the Cobar Water Board would then ask the State Government to match. Mr Smith said the Cobar and Nyngan Shire Councils could also try to raise some of the funds.
Nationals MP John Cobb - running for the seat of Calare - slammed the “hastily cobbled together Labor pork barrel” to upgrade the Albert Priest Channel as a response to the Nationals’ promised $500,000 study of water channels in the Macquarie Valley.
“Labor will flush (the water) down the river to shore up green preferences” he said.
Independent candidate for Calare Gavin Priestley said Labor and the Nationals were turning a critical water supply issue for Cobar and Nyngan into a “political game for the sake of scoring votes”.
“The Albert Priest Channel ... is well overdue for investment,” Mr Priestley said. “Arguments like this will bog the project down even further.”
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