Geurie residents were on a boil water notice for weeks before the issue was resolved, and now Dubbo Regional Council plans on spending $4 million to upgrade the Geurie Water Treatment Plant.
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"It is frustrating, I've travelled to countries around the world where you've had to boil your water and I think we live in a society where we have a higher standard of living then that and we owe it to the residents of Geurie to get that right," mayor Mathew Dickerson said.
Cr Dickerson said it was up to the new council to make sure their assets were at a common standard.
"One of the things that happened with the amalgamation was that we have a range of assets across the two local government areas...it's not acceptable to have the Geurie Water Treatment Plant at a lower standard then say the one in Wellington or Dubbo," he said.
"If it had still be in Wellington Shire Council then I'm sure given the fact it was built in 1993, at some point in the very near future they would be doing the same thing that we're about to do."
Cr Dickerson said water was important for regional communities and residents should never go without fresh drinking water.
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"I know when I was very young in my council career we spent $26 million on the Dubbo Water Treatment Plant, and the discussion was that we really have to make sure we have a water treatment plant that's up to a modern standard that can treat a large volume of water for future of Dubbo," he said.
"I think it was a fantastic move and on the back of that, we now pipe water out to Wongarbon for example, so that water treatment plant we upgraded in 2006 is now treating water not just for Dubbo but out to Geurie."
Cr Dickerson said it was critical the Geurie Water Treatment Plant was upgraded, but there are other options that could be considered.
"I'm asking staff to either do the upgrade which is the original proposal or we've already piped water all the way to Wongarbon, are we better off continuing piping that water out to Geurie?" he said.
The decision will come down to the numbers.
"It will probably be more cost effective to still upgrade the water treatment plant but those are the options we are looking at and the amalgamation will give you those sorts of options," he said.
"If it wasn't an amalgamated council you wouldn't look at taking the water all the way from Wellington out to Geurie but we've already gone all the way out to Wongarbon, and it's only and I'm only guessing here about 10 kilometres extra, so they will look at that as an alternative."
The mayor said he hoped not to see another boil water alert in Geurie before the council is able to upgrade the system "one way or another".
"The money is in the budget which has been approved, so effectively we can go forward and resolve that issue," he said.
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