Documents obtained under freedom of information from October 2019 (attached) show that the cost of raising the Warragamba Dam has more than doubled to $1.6 billion. The document’s release comes after Minster Ayres and Infrastructure NSW have repeatedly stood-by their figure of $700 million for the project under questioning in the NSW Parliament.
The October 2019 figure excludes the World Heritage offset costs which were leaked to the Herald in late 2020, that alone totalled $1.34 billion.
Campaign Manager at the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Harry Burkitt, said that Minister Ayres and the NSW Government could no longer hide from the real cost of raising Warragamba Dam wall.
"Minister Ayres can no longer squirm his way out of questions about the real cost to tax-payers of the dam project. We are talking about every Sydney household forking out a minimum of $860 for an ineffective food mitigation dam that is being pushed by floodplain developers.
"Quite simply, this is nothing but a $1.6 billion in-kind subsidy to the floodplain developers of western Sydney.
"Raising Warragamba Dam wall is an obscene waste of taxpayers’ money which will fail to alleviate flood risk and do enormous cultural and environmental damage to the Blue Mountains.
"The NSW Government should be urgently prioritising construction of flood evacuation roads in western Sydney for existing floodplain residents."