Plans to raise Warragamba Dam for flood mitigation have been challenged after the leaking of NSW Government charts showing a 14-metre lifting of the wall only provides small benefit during extreme flood events.
“It’s a surprising result,” Jamie Pittock, a professor and flood management expert at the Australian National University, said of the leaked charts. “It really undercuts the argument for raising the dam wall.”
“It goes to show how raising the wall could lull governments, businesses and communities into thinking they are safe from floods, when in reality they are not prepared for the inevitable big flood”, Professor Pittock said.
Professor Pittock added that “no matter how high you build that dam wall, floods will still happen in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.”
Western Sydney resident and GIVE A DAM Campaigner, Harry Burkitt, said “this latest leak goes to show just how much money the NSW Government is prepared to spend in order to help out floodplain developers.
“It’s now clear that raising the dam wall is not going to protect western Sydney suburbs from extreme floods as the Government has claimed for several years.
“Western Sydney tax payers are being sold a $1 billion white elephant from Stuart Ayes and Infrastructure NSW.
“The only way to properly ensure floodplain lives are saved is for the NSW Government to build high-level evacuation roads and to stop the rampant over-development of Western Sydney floodplains that is currently taking place.
“It is now time for the NSW Government to stop this proposal before more tax payer dollars are wasted on it.”