During this week's Dubbo Regional Council ordinary meeting councillors debated a report by staff which said in the future Dubbo would not have sufficient capacity to meet demands for water.

"Council should be seeking to develop a resilient and diversified infrastructure response to its future water security," the report stated.

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Among the council staff's infrastructure recommendations were: the development of additional ground water supplies; re-use of treated effluent; pipelines linking water filtration plants; stormwater harvesting; and aquifer storage or recovery.

The bill for this infrastructure would be $140 million to $210 million and could potentially extend water supplies in excess of 50 years.

During the meeting, Cr Lawrence said he supported the report's recommendation of a five per cent increase in water and sewerage costs to help fund the infrastructure.

He said this would raise $600,000 a year ($2.4m over four years), which would add to the $30m that the NSW Government recently allocated to council to expand the bore field.

"It's beyond ironic for us to be considering this report and adopting this report when we as a council just decided to dedicate no money whatsoever to it," Cr Lawrence said.

"We need a five per cent increase to the water charges so we can fund the contents of this report because it's important for this community."

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Cr Lawrence told the meeting that unlike some of his colleagues he was not keen to take the "populist stance" and wanted to be "truthful and honest with the community" and make the hard decisions required for water security.

Despite Cr Lawrence, along with councillors Vicki Etheridge, John Ryan and Kevin Parker supporting the five per cent increase, council voted to keep the increase to 2.7 per cent in line with CPI.

Cr Dayne Gumley said in the meeting he was hopeful the report was the "first step" in changing how council looked at water security, use and capture as it was an "important strategic issue".

"I look forward to continuing with this council towards setting the stage for real action on water security for all of our residents," he said.

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While Cr Ryan said it council's "absolute responsibility" to ratepayers to make sure the next generation and succeeding generations were assured of water security.

Water and sewerage costs in the Dubbo Regional Council area will increase from Monday, July 1.

Currently, the local government area is on level two water restrictions with Burrendong Dam sitting at just 5.2 per cent capacity.

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