Warragamba Dam Raising

To whom it may concern,
I strongly oppose the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall. The resulting permanent loss and destruction of so much pristine world heritage national park is too big a sacrifice to protect homes built on flood plains in western Sydney. It is a short sighted and knee jerk decision that ignores the concerns of traditional owners, environmentalists and people who just want to maintain the beautiful Blue Mountains for generations to come.
Alternative options to raising the dam wall have not been adequately considered and in any case 45% of floodwaters come from other rivers and area outside of the upstream Warragamba Damm catchment. These flood plains willl still be flood prone even if the wall is raised.
Our community does not want this, we strongly oppose the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall.

Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I oppose the raising of the Warrragamba Dam Wall.
This government has allowed building on flood plains for years. But to destroy vital habitat by a government that insists on destroying the lungs of this planet is an abomination. By destroying ecosystems & biodiversity in this area is an abomination.
These residents need to flood proof their properties instead of this ridiculous notion of destroying Vital Habitat, Ecosystems & Biodiversity.
I strongly oppose the raising of Warrragamba Dam's Wall

Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
Please prove that you can predict rainfall and dam flows and that raising the dam is a more guaranteed way of protecting people in the flood plain than removing people from the flood plain.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
Raising the walls of the Warragamba Dam will not only destroy the largest native vegetation area in NSW, containing many threatened species, it will place the downstream people in greater danger during flood times, and destroy the ecology further upstream and around the dam height. It is far better to encourage people to collect some of their usable water themselves, such as for garden, laundry and toilets. Water filters can also be used, as are used in rural areas, as well as many other water saving devices such as composting toilets. Once again we are observing a demonstration of power to get what the premier wants at the expense of good scientific reasoning and data. Shame.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
What is this mindless nonsense to raise Warragamba dam wall inundating significant cultural heritage sites and flooding rare ecological habitats, displacing vulnerable species. All because you are any to develop more housing on a flood plain.
I strongly oppose this decision and urge you to consider the needs of the planet before the people.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I would like to strongly object to the proposal to raise the wall of the Warragamba Dam.
Rather than flloding culturally significant bushland and killing hundreds of trees, I undertsand that hydrologists have offered a very compelling solutions instead of raising the dam wall which involves increasing the carbon content in the soils of the Sydney water catchment (which is an area of 9000sq km). The argument is very simple: carbon (in the soil) is the means whereby water is held in the landscape and 1 g of carbon holds 5g of water. If we can increase the carbon content in Sydney’s water catchment by JUST 1% it would increase the volume of the warragamba dam 5 times - the water is held in the landscape and through hydrological action trickles down (slowly)) to the dam. The other important point to note is these scientists estimate that increasingly the carbon content by just that 1% (including an educating-the-populace programme) would cost around $100million and, again, increasing the volume of the dam 5X. By comparison raising the dam wall will cost $2.5bn and would only increase the holding capacity by 10%.
Clearly the governmnet needs to consult these scientists for more innovative solutions, rather than revert to ancient solutions such as the building of destructive dams.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern
I do not support the NSW government plan to raise Warragamba Dam.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is mistaken in saying the project should go ahead and that he would “put people before plants.” What about indigenous peoples sacred sites thereby threatened!?
His actions in declaring the dam raising to be Critical State Significant Infrastructure, a means to limit legal intervention and further planning processes are extremely concerning to me.
NSW Planning Minister Anthony Robert's release of the Preferred Infrastructure Report (PIR) into the raising of the Warragamba Dam should be thoroughly investigated. The idea that it opens the possibility for changing the World Heritage area boundaries, in an attempt to avoid Australia’s international obligations is dreadful.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
It seems that the raising of the wall is to allow more developement on the flood plain. A ridiculous money grabbing operation. There are other ways of diverting water... but be aware what has happend in towns all over the eastern parts of Australian that do not normally have a flooding problem. I heard a conversation on ABC where
Governors Phillip and Macquarie warned about building in the path of floods. Still we don’t listen

Wake up and realise its been a problem since settlement. Mega expensive stop gap measures by a Premier that looks confused by most things that happen in this state is NOT GOING TO WORK
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I oppose the dam wall being raised. Besides the massive environmental damage upstream this would cause it would also greatly increase lethal risks to people and the environment downstream.
When the dam was built it was built as tall as it could be taking into account the geotechnical, geophysical, and geological conditions of the area while still leaving some "safety factor" in case of unforeseen conditions, e.g. small earthquakes, severe storms, etc.
Making the dam taller would very likely, when full, exceed the load bearing strength of its underlying geologic foundations. Without the original safety factor the dam would probably FAIL if stressed.
The dam giving way would be lethally catastrophic to living things downstream. I'd prefer if the cities, towns, and villages downstream were not swept away. The laws of physics are strictly enforced!
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I am writing to express my dismay at the position taken by the NSW Premier to raise Warragamba Dam as a sole solution to flood risk.
The money to be spent raising the dam which will exceed current estimates would buy back at least 1000-2000 flood affected properties. This prime agricultural land could be used for many purposes including:
Creating active recreation space for a city that will add millions of people in the foreseable future.
Create passive recreation space for picnicing and camping along the river for a burgeoning city
Enable low carbon food production on Sydney's doorstep creating jobs for lower skilled workers.
An engineering solution is not the only answer to the flood risk. It is unfortunate that a wholistic view of possible solutions has not been taken. Engineers have as usual developed an engineering solution for a problem with a social context.
The loss of irreplacable world heritage and indigineous heritage shows a short sighted view.

Yours sincerely,

The Submissions Report (SR) authored by WaterNSW contains several inconsistencies and flawed logic in its rebuttal of the criticisms related to risks and impacts on Sydney’s drinking water.
1. Duration of FMZ flood operation
In several places, the SR states that the FMZ will be fully drawn down over a period of two weeks using a discharge of around 100 GL/day. On the other hand, it recognises the need to increase the drawdown to the (maximum) design discharge of 230 GL/d for a few days if another following flood event is forecast (Section 4.1.3.3 Issue 2).
The possibility of a substantial flood following one which first fills or overtops the FMZ is significant. It is not accounted for when determining the size of a flood with x% chance of occurring in any one year. Consequently, the duration of FMZ flood operations will need to be much longer than two weeks in these circumstances, possibly closer to a month.
Although the SR recognises the possibility of an extended drawdown, it does not recognise the implications for drinking water quality sourced from either Lake Burragorang or the Hawkesbury River at North Richmond.

2. Sydney Water (section 4.1.3.3 issue 10 and 4.7.1) raised the possible interruption of water supply to North Richmond Delivery Zone, due to a non-functional water treatment plant (WTP) during flooding and inability to cope with prolonged turbidity. The SR response that FMZ discharges have negligible impact on downstream water quality does not even recognise that the WFP could be non-functional for several weeks, nor that the extended duration of untreatable water are major problems probably requiring major capital upgrades for new processes and/or capacity at the WTP. Much greater storage and disinfection facilities would be needed within the Zone to cope with extended plant non-functionality.
3.
4. Sydney Water raised a similar issue of prolonged exposure of the major WTPs (Prospect and Orchard Hills) to poor quality source water from Lake Burragorang resulting in lower WTP production and the probable need to boil drinking water – a highly controversial and costly exercise when it last occurred in 1998! They also noted the changes to depth and stratification status due to operating the FMZ were likely to increase these risks.
The SR response that cleaner water could be selected if the inflow was colder than the lake contents would only be possible if the cleaner water is accessible from the FMZ. In other parts of the SR, it appears that the outlet tower will not be extended to withdraw from the FMZ. This conflict needs to be resolved.

5. In my previous submission (SE-31549607) I raised the additional risk from the increased sedimentation of turbidity that would occur from the FMZ during and after any major flood which pushed all the pre-flood (cleaner) water above the FSL.
The SR response that risks associated with poor water quality “will not fundamentally change with the Project” is patently incorrect.

6. In my previous submission, I also described scenarios in which the increased depth (due to FMZ filling) near the time of overturn could lead to deoxygenation of the bottom sediments, as the near-bottom oxygen levels are even now near exhaustion at these times. I cited a PhD thesis which examined 20 years of Lake Burragorang data to corroborate this view.
Such deoxygenation results in lakewide release of metals and nutrients which would contaminate the whole of the Lake upon overturn and take weeks to oxidise and/or settle out. As acknowledged in the EIS and SR, the WTP direct filtration process is not able to cope with such poor-quality water. The increased nutrients may result in later (summer) algal blooms. During such prolonged periods, lowering production at Prospect and Orchard Hills would not be sufficient to cope with source water that is difficult to treat. Major upgrades costing hundreds of millions of dollars would be required to mitigate this risk.

7. The SR response does not adequately these possible impacts of the Project. Whenever impact on drinking water is mentioned, “adjustment” of treatment process is the standard mitigation proposed. As stated in the previous paragraph, adjustment to existing processes is entirely inadequate to address these issues. The other SR response is that during major floods, there will be clean source water available from either some other level in Burragorang or from some other storage (presumably the Metropolitan storages). Yet the EIS and SR recognise that major floods are a result of East Cost lows, which means that all storages are full of poor-quality water, as happened in the relatively small flood of 1998.
For all these reasons, I maintain that the true risks and costs to Sydney’s drinking water have not been adequately addressed by the EIS or the SR. I previously suggested that the reservoir water quality models held by Water NSW should be updated and run to examine the likely effects on water quality in Lake Burragorang so that these risks and the associated mitigation costs are properly identified before the decision to raise the Warragamba wall is raised.

There has been no consultation with the families of ex-Burragorang Valley (who gave up their lands for Warragamba Dam and its water quality protection area/catchment) or local Heritage Societies that have valuable information of the many non-Aboriginal Heritage sites and items that are located on the foreshores of Lake Burragorang within and beyond the raising level.
There has been insufficient investigations of non-Aboriginal Heritage sites upstream of Warragamba Dam that will be impacted by this project, should it go ahead.

Absolutely necessary. Don't delay. Do it immediately. Make sure that it mitigates BOTH drought and floods

Requires more work on historic flood events. Very expensive project that, at best, will provide limited additional flood protection. Gives false expectation and hope to property owners along the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley as they can still get flooded from river systems below Warragamba Dam.

To whom it may concern,
I am writing to urge you to oppose raising Warragamba dam.
The Preferred Infrastructure Report dismisses community concerns raised in 2021, ignores the advice of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and ignores Sydney Water and Health NSW concerns about impacts on our drinking water.
Residents of the Blue Mountains, including me, worked for years to attain World Heritage status for the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. This is pristine wilderness and National Park that is being protected for THE WORLD - it should not be reduced or damaged simply to provide building land for developers to build houses on the flood plain. All this project will do is put more people in houses that will flood.
An estimated 65 kilometres of wilderness rivers, and 5,700 hectares of National Parks, 1,300 hectares of which is within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, would be inundated by the Dam project - thereby starting the destruction of the biggest tourist attraction west of Sydney. People do not come here to look at concrete!
There are multiple alternatives that will actually prevent flooding in the Hawkesbury Nepean Valley. As far as I can tell, raising the dam is simply a nicevisible infrastructure project that is being promoted for political gain by opening up more land for development. That land will flood. 45% of the floodwaters in that valley are coming from areas that are not in the Warragamba Dam catchment.
But there will lots of lovely pictures of pollies cutting ribbons. Shame on you!

Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I oppose the raising of the Warragamba Dam Wall.
This will NOT save the flooding of the lower river as much of the water comes from other sources than the Warragamba River. I have lived in th eBlue Mountains for 11 years and have walked most of the area involved as a member of Springwood Bushwalkers.
Destruction of the World Heritage area means a lot to me and the people of the future.
One of the only ways to save people and property is to move off the flood plains and to prevent people living there permanently.
A flood plain is a flood plain and the disasters will only get worse with Climate Change

Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I protest any environmental vandalism imposed on the World Heritage Area and the sacred Aboriginal Lands inland of Warragamba Dam.
People are NOT more important than preserving World Heritage areas, or than dishonouring standing agreements made to Aboriginal peoples and world preservation bodies.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
I oppose the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall because it will destroy habitat in a protected World Heritage area, ignores the wishes of Traditional Owners and will impact on critically endangered species.

The Environmental Impact Assessment is wholly inadequate, full of inaccuracies, misleading statements and missing information.

The Government is refusing to listen to over 2,500 submissions from community members and government agencies who oppose the raising of the dam. Furthermore, raising the dam wall would ignore the advice of UNESCO World Heritage Committee.

I have visited some of the last intact habitat in the Burragorang Valley, seeing Emus, Platypus, Eagles, Kangaroos, Dingoes and many other important enignmatic species. This is some of the last intact habitat for these species in the Greater Sydney Basin.

Raising the dam wall will not avert the flood risk to Western Sydney. There are many alternative options to building an environmentally and culturally destructive Dam wall, which is not even supported by national Insurance companies.
Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,

I apposition the raising of the dam and as a life long liberal voter I will never vote liberal again if this goes ahead. The blue Mountains Heritage area hold a special significance to me. It cannot be flooded.

Yours sincerely,

To whom it may concern,
experts have stated that raising the dam wall is not necessary and not needed and will be environmentally damaging. so do your job properly and don't do it.
Yours sincerely,