Mark Coulton, speaking to ABC Broken Hill on Monday, said he understood that due to Covid, a flood, etc there had been some unavoidable delays to the new Wilcannia Weir. However he is now at a loss as to why, at 5 minutes to midnight, the NSW government has changed the design of the weir. Mark told ABC radio that it is his understanding that the new design is an update model of the old one, with a fishway. Mark said from the beginning, in 2015, he understood that the new weir would be higher than the existing one and would have a gate system to allow water to be released downstream during dry periods.
Mark said he had been advised by a member of the community learnt that the design had changed, after that resident had attended a poorly advertised (and poorly attended) community consultation in early December 2023. Mark noted that there had been many rounds of community consultation since the money was first allocated, after which the community appeared to be united in the choice of site and design.
Mark said he is a loss to work out what has happened, as late last year he had a meeting with the Shire Administrator and General Manager when everything appeared to be on track. As the Federal Government is involved in the funding, Mark said he would be talking to Minister for Environment Tanya Plibersek about the weir. When asked by the interviewer if he (Mark) ever thought he would see the weir happen, Mark replied that with promises going back to the 1960’s he didn’t wonder that the Wilcannia community are a bit cynical.
Editors Note: The meeting had been scheduled earlier in November but was postponed due to a funeral. Unfortunately there was little notice of the new date and when the community consultation was held it was 45C, thus very few people attended. The reasons given for the change of design was cost and complexity of an operating system to change the water height that would stand being completely submerged in a flood. This was to control the extra metre of water storage and sadly the option to drain poor quality water from the weir pool was never in the final design.
This article appeared in Wilcannia News, February 2024.
