Member for Dubbo Dugald Saunders was "disappointed" to hear that five million dollars of State Government money had been wasted on the potable pipeline project because of a Dubbo Regional Council error.
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The $4.95 million pipeline was to bring recycled water from the Dubbo Sewage Treatment Plant into the city to replace non-potable groundwater used for irrigation, and in turn take the groundwater to the John Gilbert Water Treatment Plant.
But, the previous council didn't get approval from the Department of Planning and Environment [DPE] to have the treated effluent taken from the water to go through the pipes.
Meaning, the project is at a stand still until the DRC can find a solution, or use the pipes for something else.
"That's disappointing from the former council, I know current council is looking at all opportunities to make use of that pipeline in a different way," Mr Saunders said.
"The former council staff who were looking at that obviously didn't take into account all the problems that could arise and that is clearly disappointing."
Mr Saunders said he was confident that the current council, staff and chief executive officer would find a use for that pipeline and make it a resource that is "actually beneficial" to all community members.
Councillor Joshua Black said on the surface it may seem like a "complete failure" however he was sure that DRC staff could find creative ways to use the pipeline.
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"Water is only going to get more expensive as rainfall becomes more variable. At some stage we will go back in to a rip roaring drought, the last 2.5 years have been very pleasing compared to the three years before that," he said.
"We will have some creative solutions to use that pipeline and get the water around where it needs to be and to efficiently use it."
Cr Matthew Wright said it was a significant investment which utilised public money and it was sad to see the asset sitting redundant.
"I look forward to a council report somewhere down the track explaining the sort of costs it's going to be to revert that redundant asset into something usable and what kind of time frame that would take," he said.
"At this stage as it stands, a significant amount of public money is sitting unutilised and I look forward to the day we can use it for those purposes."
DRC Mayor Mathew Dickerson said it was a failure of the senior management of the previous council.
"The staff did all the right things but the senior upper levels of council at the time didn't go through a process that I believe would've brought an appropriate outcome," he said.
"We are left to fix this particular issue or find some solutions and I have confidence the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] and his staff will find some way to go and utilise this, but as councillor Wright said, we have an asset in the ground that we are unable to utilise.
Cr Dickerson said it was "very disappointing" and hoped they would be able to come up with a solution that utilises the asset.
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