Dubbo's civic leaders will be asked on Monday night to provide "additional resources" to help businesses develop Water Savings Action Plans (WSAPs) under level three water restrictions.
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The councillors are set to vote on a recommendation to introduce level three water restrictions from October 1 at their monthly meeting.
The recommendation comes from Dubbo Regional Council's chief executive officer (CEO) Michael McMahon who has identified the "main impact" of level three water restrictions.
"...many businesses will be required to develop a WSAP, an enterprise specific plan to encourage water efficiencies within non-residential water users," he said.
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Mr McMahon says "additional resources" are needed to work with businesses, especially high water users, to help them develop WSAPs and enable them to "implement meaningful and long-term actions which will result in more efficient water usage in both the short and long term".
The CEO is putting up recommendations in response to warnings that Burrendong Dam may be empty by the middle of next year.
He is calling for the amending of drought triggers to allow level two water restrictions to begin when Macquarie River high security allocations are reduced to 70 per cent.
"At the current time the 70 per cent reduction in high security river licences or a 50 per cent bore field allocation triggers level one restrictions," Mr McMahon said.
The CEO is recommending further increases in water restrictions be based on WaterNSW projections of reduced river flows.
Councillors are also being asked to support a media and communications strategy to "bring about significant behavioural changes to community use of water".
