water minister, Kevin Anderson, Joyce travelled to the old dam to announce the project – one of the biggest water infrastructure projects in the last two decades – again.
There is also a shortlist of two contractors, even though the project is yet to clear environmental hurdles and remains only part-funded. The project is one of a suite of contentious dam projects that have been pushed by the NSW Nationals and which the federal government has agreed to fund 50-50.massive cost blowouts.
Critics, including the federal government’s productivity commission argue that Tamworth’s future needs could be met by spending just $10m on buying back water entitlements from irrigators., released in 2021, the commission said the proposed dam was a “costly way” to deliver more water to Tamworth. The Dungowan project was originally being run by WaterNSW, which, as a state-owned enterprise, has a mandate to deliver a commercial return to the NSW government.
Maybe the money could be better spent raising the walls of the mining sludge ponds to stop the continuous seepage and overflow during periods of rain particularly in the Barrier Reef and Hunter Valley areas groundwater and feeder streams.