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Indigenous administrators have praised the decision to scrap plans to build a dam wall that would have protected 140,000 residents from flooding.
Under a plan approved by the previous Coalition NSW government in 2016 under Mike Baird, the Warragamba Dam wall would be built up an additional 14 meters to reduce flood risks in NSW’s Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.
The initial cost was estimated at $700 million, but the parliamentary budget office estimated the bill in March this year at around $2 billion.
If the project were completed, 6,000 hectares of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area would be flooded, including works of art, camps, ceremonial and burial grounds.
Gundungurra elder Kazan Brown, who has waged a long campaign to save the area, said the news that the project had been canceled was ‘great’, with more than 300 cultural sites saved as a result.
Indigenous owners say cultural sites will be spared due to scrapping of plan to build Warragamba dam wall higher
“The best news I’ve had in eight years,” Kazan Brown said Guardian Australia.
“It’s a big burden off our shoulders.”
NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson said canceling the planning application was the fulfillment of Labor’s March election promise.
“It’s a box-ticking exercise, but it’s a box that needs to be checked,” she said.
‘WaterNSW had to formally say ‘we are not going ahead with that project’.’
Despite being touted by three coalition prime ministers, no money had ever been allocated to the project.
The minister said the Minns government would look at other options to reduce flood risk, such as increasing the size of Sydney’s desalination plant to supply more drinking water, meaning the dam would not have to be full to the brim.
Harry Burkitt, a leader of the Give a Dam campaign that opposed the higher wall, also welcomed the end of the fight, crediting a “handful” of obsessive people with the eventual victory.
“Their determination and dedication paid off today,” he said
Campaign financier Rob Pallin called the project’s cancellation “a major victory for the environment.”
He said the flooding would have endangered endangered species in the national park, including the Camden White Gum and the Regent Honeyeater.
The plan to erect the Warragamba dam wall was to reduce flood risk to the NSW Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley
The NSW government is considering expanding the desalination plant to gain more leeway on the Warragamba Dam level
“It was more than just the issue of that campaign,” Pallin said.
“It was more about setting an important precedent that would allow this kind of thing to happen in the future.”
However, the battle is not over yet Kazan Brown, who wants to include Burragorang Lake behind the wall in the World Heritage area to ensure more formal protection for the 334 known cultural heritage sites within the likely flood zone.
“I don’t think (the threat of walls being built) has gone away,” she said.
Expanding the World Heritage area “will not stop the government… but it will make it harder for them to build the wall.”