Southern water storage is go

Eurobodalla Councillors today formally accepted the NSW Government’s offer of $25.6M towards construction of a southern water storage.

Predicted to cost $105M, Council has applied for fifty percent of the project cost from the Australian government. Council will fund the remainder.

The 3,000 megalitre storage will be built west of Bodalla, pumping water from the Tuross River in times of high flow to an offstream storage and water treatment plant.

In another major milestone, development consent for the project has been approved by the NSW Department of Planning on 17 October 2019.

Council says work will start immediately to purchase land, while construction of a pump station to transfer water from the river to the new storage could start early in 2020.

Tenders for construction of the storage itself will start at the same time, ready for construction in early 2021.

The storage is not a traditional dam, but takes the form of a 370 metre long embankment, 39m in height, located on an unnamed tributary of the Tuross River.

The southern water storage will complement Council’s Deep Creek Dam and water treatment plant in Batemans Bay, providing drought security for Eurobodalla’s residents and businesses and increasing capacity for peak holiday water demand and predicted population growth.

Work began on the project in 2016, with concept designs and environmental impact statements already complete.

Details of the project are available here. Councillors also accepted the NSW government’s offer of $762,000 for a sewerage scheme at Akolele. This will be similar to other schemes built by Council in recent years at Guerilla Bay, Rosedale and Bodalla.