Warragamba Dam Raising

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Please see the attachment

I object to this project due to the detrimental impact it will have on not only the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park but also the aboriginal sites within it. We have so little wilderness remaining we owe it to future generations to protect what remains, not flood it out. This national park was world heritage listed because of it's unique values, this project makes those values meaningless. I object to this political act designed to prioritise developers over the last vestiges of important biodiversity which still exists in this national park. The insurance council stated that the money would be better spent buying out the owners who have built in flood prone land.

The raising of the wall will have devastating effects on:
- the environment of the world heritage Blue Mountains area
- several species of rare and endangered flora and fauna
- multiple Aboriginal heritage sites
- will not increase the water available to Sydney

On the other side of the debate are developers who want to build more houses, more densely, in flood-prone areas.

Australia's heritage, which can't be replaced once it is gone, is more important than the wants of developers. This project should not go ahead.

Concerned Blue Mountains resident

Please see attached

To the Warragamba Dam Assessment Team,

I am writing to express that I object to the project proposal stated in the Warragamba Dam Raising Environmental Impact Statement prepared for WaterNSW by SMEC Australia Pty Ltd, reference no. 30012078, dated 10 September 2021.

I would like to both register my fundamental opposition to the proposed Warragamba Dam Raising (the project) and express serious concern about deficiencies in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and assessment process.

The greatest negative impacts from the project will be upon the upstream study area – a place with which I have a strong personal connection. I grew up and continue to live in the Blue Mountains. It is a place, landscape and environment that is very dear to me. For me, it is ‘home’ in the fullest sense of the word. Hiking and camping in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA), particularly on the Kowmung River, is one of the most profound experiences of my life and amongst my fondest memories. I sincerely hope that experiencing its pristine wilderness can continue to be more than just a memory for me and everyone else fortunate enough to visit it.

I make no claim to represent Gundungurra, Darug or Tharawal peoples, but am concerned and ashamed that some Gundungurra Traditional Owners, including Kazan Brown and Taylor Clarke, and Darug representatives, including Justine Coplin, say they have not been given sufficient opportunity to undertake cultural heritage studies of the impact areas, and that there has been inadequate assessment of the impacts of temporary inundation to the hundreds of identified cultural heritage sites within the upstream impact area. Australia has a shameful record of mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, deliberate erasure of their culture and severing of their cultural connections. This must end. If the project were to proceed, it would add to the ongoing negative cumulative impacts to Aboriginal cultural heritage, especially that of Gundungurra people. Aboriginal peoples’ cultural connections to their Country are far in excess of anyone else’s, and they deserve to be properly consulted and for their cultural heritage to be protected.

I am concerned by evidence given to the NSW Select Committee on the Proposal to Raise the Warragamba Dam Wall and reports in news media, such as those published by the Sydney Morning Herald on 27 October 2021 and Guardian Australia on 8 November 2021, that ecologists consulted for the preparation of the EIS, including former primary assessor for biodiversity surveys and analysis for the EIS, Rachel Musgrave, and Ross Crater, were pressured by WaterNSW to make substantive changes to their findings and that these were subsequently misreported by SMEC in the EIS. This undermines confidence that the EIS presents a true account of the ecological impacts of the project.

Chapter 13 and Appendix F6 of the EIS outlines the proposed biodiversity offset strategy for the project, but do not identify any specific, suitable sites or options. Numerous, ongoing issues have been identified regarding current practices for biodiversity offsetting in NSW and Western Sydney in particular, including delays to protection of offsets until well after project completion and ‘double counting’ of offsets. These issues have been widely reported in news media and are the subject of the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the Integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme. I am sceptical that sufficient, appropriate offsets will be found for the 1,400 hectares of land to be subjected to temporary inundation above the full supply level, including 304 hectares with Outstanding Universal Values in the GBMWHA, up to 76 threatened flora species and up to 16 threatened fauna species. I am also sceptical that these offsets would be properly protected/implemented such that the project truly results in no net negative impact. Especially concerning to me is reliance upon offsets to manage impacts on threatened species recorded during surveys of the impact area, such as the Kowmung Hakea (Hakea dohertyi) given its endangered status and extremely limited distribution, 199 hectares of which is identified by the EIS within the upstream impact area, and the Regent Honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia), given its critically-endangered status.

I do not contest nor discount that the project would provide flood mitigation benefits to people in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. However, I do question the assertion from Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Management Taskforce’s Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Risk Management Strategy, repeated in the EIS, that non-infrastructure measures for reducing flood impacts and risks in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley are no substitute for infrastructure-based mitigation measures. The balance of flood risk to communities, economic and social costs of alternative measures, and environment impacts is ultimately a question of values. In this instance, I believe that development on flood-prone land in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley is being overvalued relative to the environmental impacts, and lower-impact options that nevertheless reduce flood risk to future development such as raising of the flood planning level and changes to land zoning within the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley are dismissed. Strategic decisions by the NSW Government and its agencies, including WaterNSW, to pursue infrastructure-based mitigation measures while dismissing changes to planning and land use zoning may in fact have the unintended consequence of increasing flood risk due to the ‘levee paradox’, contrary to the aims of the project.

For the reasons stated above, I object to the raising of the Warragamba Dam as proposed by WaterNSW, do not have confidence in the adequacy of the project EIS, and urge the Minister for Planning to reject the proposal.

Regards,
Myles Harris-Ayling
Springwood, NSW

I am totally opposed to the raising of Warragamba Dam wall for a number of reasons. The main reason I object to this proposal is that I believe that the NSW government is not being transparent about the reasons they want to do this. I believe that this proposal has been put forward to allow the flood zones to be changed downriver from the dam which would then allow more development and more houses to be built in areas where they should not be built, e.g. Marsden Park. This proposal, to raise the wall, has totally been motivated by greed.
Secondly, the environment has not been taken into consideration. Allowing areas of the Blue Mountains National Park to be flooded, even for minimal periods of time, would result in the destruction of unique flora and fauna, habitat areas for many of our unique creatures would be destroyed and the plants would not recover.
Thirdly, no attempt has been made to carry out a complete survey of the area that would be flooded in relation to the many areas of First Nation significance. So much of their heritage was destroyed when Warragamba Dam was built but there are still many, many areas of significance still remaining. There does not appear to have been any real attempt to negotiate with the traditional owners of this land.
Fourthly, the town of Warragamba has suffered significantly since the building of the dam. The township had become a thriving place, both for its residents and for tourists/visitors. The construction of the spillways brought enormous pain and hardship to the residents. Businesses closed as the visitors to the area significantly reduced in numbers and the constant movement of trucks to and fro caused traffic chaos and road destruction, not only to Warragamba but to the adjoining areas as well. The roads are in terrible condition and have never been fully repaired since that time. They are still rated as the worst roads in New South Wales and any increase in truck movements will cause even more deterioration.
As well, why has there been no attempt to look at other methods of flood mitigation. There are many rivers that flow into the Nepean/Hawkesbury system which also cause major flooding, not just the Dam overflows. There are chokepoints along the River system which cause a bathtub effect as the water cannot get through these chokepoints quickly enough. There is not an evacuation plan currently in use that would be able to evacuate the existing residents should a major flood occur, let alone if there was an increase in residents.
It appears to me that the NSW government are being completely biased in supporting this proposal and are unwilling to look at anything else. Once again, to me, the only motivating factor that I can see is GREED and caving into the wealthy developers.

To whom it may concern,
I have been an avid bushwalker, canyoner, rock climber, caver and nature lover all my life inc membership in "Three Peaks Outdoor Society". I love the Blue Mountains and have friends and family living there.
The facts are that I and many others have explored and canyoned in the Burragorang Valley and Kowmung River areas that are totally unique, unspoilt and have indigenous history all at risk if the dam wall height was increased.
I strongly object to any increase in the height of Warragamba Dam wall for nature, heritage and conservation reasons. Any change will cause irreversible damage to a World Heritage environment.

To whom it may concern,
Please abandon Stuart Ayres' dangerous and stupid idea to raise the Warragamba Dam wall. This area is World Heritage-listed and must NOT be further destoyed by flooding the catchment. Its a total waste of $3.5 billion which would be better spent on services that help communities inc schools, hospitals, affordable housing and social services.

Dear Sir/Madam
RE: Warragamba Dam Raising Project – SSI -8441
Please find attached the Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment Inc. submission.
Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment (FOKE) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Warragamba Dam Raising Project.

It is FOKE’s view that the Warragamba Dam Raising Project is ill advised and needs to be immediately abandoned because it will:
• place the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA) ‘in danger’
• destroy Gundungarra heritage
• fail as a flood mitigation project

FOKE was founded in 1994 to promote, protect and enhance the Ku-ring-gai local government area’s environment and heritage. It proudly follows the tradition laid down by many past Ku-ring-gai conservation pioneers who advocated for Greater Sydney’s environment, including Western Sydney and the Greater Blue Mountains.

These Ku-ring-gai conservation pioneers include:
• Eccleston Du Faur (1832-1915) who contributed to protecting the Blue Mountains’ Grose Valley before working to establish Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in 1894.
• Annie Forsyth Wyatt (1885-1961) who founded the National Trust (NSW) in 1945 that today has properties in Western Sydney (Old Government House and Experiment Farm Cottage) and in the Blue Mountains (Norman Lindsay Gallery & Museum, Woodford Academy and Everglades House and Garden).
• Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean (1879-1968) who led the Parks and Playground Movement’s call for protected green, open spaces, bushland reserves and national parks across Greater Sydney including the Nepean-Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains area.
• Paddy Pallin AM (1900-1991) bushwalking and camping equipment retailer and founding member of the National Parks Association of NSW that was instrumental in creating the NPWS Act (1967) that led to the gazettal of the Blue Mountains national parks including the Kanangra-Boyd National Park.
• Alex Colley (1909-2014) secretary of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness and FOKE member who worked to ensure the Greater Blue Mountains was World Heritage Area in 2000.

FOKE calls on the NSW Government to immediately abandon the Warragamba Dam Raising Project.
FOKE also calls on the Federal Government to intervene if the NSW Government decides to proceed with the Warragamba Dam Raising Project as required by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. If the Federal Government does not intervene in this project then every world heritage site in Australia is under risk.

To whom it may concern,
I am writing to oppose the plan to raise the Warragamba Dam wall. Not only is this a pointless waste of money in terms of flood mitigation but the impact on the wildlife and indigenous cultural artifacts would be devastating.
How much more habitat needs to be destroyed so that greedy people can build cheap and ugly black roofed houses to make a quick buck?
Shameful!!
We have a chance to conserve our wild places for future generations to enjoy and for the health of our planet. I want my grandchildren to be able to walk in the beautiful places that would be flooded by raising the wall, as I have had the pleasure of doing for many years.
Raising the dam wall would be a costly and ultimately appalling mistake.
At the very least a proper Environmental Impact study, and consultation with Traditional owners, needs to occur before any decision is made.

To whom it may concern,
As someone who grew up in the Blue Mountains it shocks me to hear that this government is considering extending the dam wall, further damaging precious ecosystems and sacred cultural sites, wild rivers and threatening the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater.
Australia is a signatory to the World Heritage Convention and required to do everything in its powers to protect the ecological integrity of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
This proposal blatantly ignores these obligations and favours overdevelopment of Western flood plains. If floodplains have already been dangerously overdeveloped then the government needs to compensate owners and buy back this land. If these flood plains are yet to be developed then they should be left undeveloped and managed as green corridors and wetlands.
The EIS was completed before the catastrophic 2019/20 Bushfires which burnt 81% of the Greater Blue Mountains. Those fires changed the the Blue Mountains and drove many species to the brink of local extinction. The EIS is inadequate and a new survey is needed.
The Commonwealth Department of Environment and the International Council on Monuments and Sites have both pointed out very serious failings in the assessment of the impact on the cultural heritage of the Gundungurra traditional owners.
I oppose the extension to the Dam. I believe other flood mitigation strategies need to be explored.

I object to the raising of Warragamba Dam. This appears to have a political and developers dream. How can the NSW people and government allow an EIS assessment undertaken by a company who are barred from the world bank. Therefore environmental and cultural assessments for the project can be taken with the established history of this company for abusing Indigenous rights, recently as being skewed to suit the 'money' who pays it. I worry about the sheer greed of a project like this to ignore Aboriginal Cultural Heritage, the threatening of wildlife and loss trees and a faulty environmental assessment. This area is part of The World Heritage listings. At risk are wilderness rivers and National Parks - the Kowmung River - Camden White Gum - Grassy Box Woodland the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater and the last Emu population in the area. The concept of raising the dam wall to prevent flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley is flawed. Kind regards Maeve Platt

To whom it may concern,
I grew up in the Blue Mountains and my mother still lives there. It's a unique area of NSW that's recognised as having significance on a national and international scale through its World Heritage listing.
I oppoose this proposal to raise the Warragamba Dam wall to facilitate more housing on the Western Sydney floodplain. Raising the dam wall will threaten upwards of 1540 identified Aboriginal cultural heritage sites (and there has been a paucity of consultation with the Gundungurra Traditional Owners); inundate the wild Kowmung River; and threaten ecological communities especially the habitat of the Regent Honey eater and emus.
There are alternatives to protect existing residential communities on the Western Sydney floodplain that would cost less and prevent flooding into the long-term. These options should be properly assessed and taken to consultation with the community prior to any construction of the dam wall.

To whom it may concern,
I am very distressed to think that you will be raising the dam wall. I have learnt to love the Blue Mountains and its beauty. It is a heritage area, one that should not be threatened when it is avoidable. Whilst I live on the South Coast I do go to the Blue Mountains for festivals and bushwalking. I love coming up for this.
The recent bushfires have had a huge impact in the area. We don't even know how badly it has impacted but it was a huge fire!!!! Loss of wildlife and habitat that will be made worse by raising the wall. We have the same difficulties here following the fires. The same problems with destruction of waterways and flood plains. We have to address this in more constructive ways.
There are other alternatives to raising the dam that have not been properly assessed- we can do that!
It's a worry because the engineering company that was used is of concern, the integrity of the environmental studies is questionable, the Indigenous peoples concerns are not addressed and it is a world heritage cultural site that should be preserved.
Thank you for attending to these concerns.

To whom it may concern,
Over the past 3 years I have followed what has been written in the papers about raising the dam wall. I was astounded to read that at a cost of $1,000,000,000 this would protect 5,000 residences. This means $200,000 per residence. Are there alternatives? With weather forcasting more accurate than in the past if the dam is thought to be full, water could be released before large downpours. Sydney has had a desalination plant built and will probably need another. Where will the money from this desalination plant come from? What can be done for people who built their home in the floodplains? Is dam wall raising the one and only option available? It seems so. As a resident of the Blue Mountains I care about the National Park nearby. It is beautiful, unique and world renown. Let us keep it so. Thank you

To whom it may concern,
I write to oppose the porposal to raise the Warragamba Dam wall.
The environmental and heritage damage that would be done is unacceptable.
The Kowmung River - declared a ‘Wild River’, protected for its pristine condition under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974;
Unique eucalyptus species diversity recognised as having Outstanding Universal Value under the area’s World Heritage listing such as the Camden White Gum;
A number of Threatened Ecological Communities, notably Grassy Box Woodland;
Habitat for endangered and critically endangered species including the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater and Sydney’s last Emu population.
There are many alternative options to raising the Warragamba Dam wall that would protect existing floodplain communities. A combined approach of multiple options has been recommended as the most cost-effective means of flood risk mitigation.
Alternative options were not comprehensively assessed in the EIS. Any assessment of alternatives does not take into account the economic benefits that would offset the initial cost of implementation.
On average, 45% of floodwaters are derived from areas outside of the upstream Warragamba Dam catchment. This means that no matter how high the dam wall is constructed, it will not be able to prevent flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley downstream.

To whom it may concern,
I live in Sydney and visit the Blue Mountains often, I'm in awe of its natural beauty and what it represents in terms of the indigenous history.
There are many reasons why the Warragamba Dam Wall should NOT be increased, but the most important ones are:
- areas like the Blue Mountains have been listed as World Heritage and we are the custodians of this magnificent area. We are not entitled to shave off pieces of it when it suits us. When species of flora and fauna are being made extinct (by humans) at an ever accelerated rate, we must find ways to move in the other direction.
- both the Heritage Assessment Report and the EIS are deficient in many aspects. They should not be relied upon by the Minister for future decisions about the wall. Some of the deficiencies are:
No Post Bushfire update after a significant impact on the Blue Mountains NP; less than 30% of the Aboriginal Cultural sites were included; No modelling on the flood plan or the economic benefits; various threatened species would be affected such as the Grassy Box Woodland and Regent Honey Eater; etc
- around 45% of the flooding comes from upstream areas outside the Dam catchment. Even if the wall is raised it will not protect the downstream communities.
- although many options are available as alternative solutions that would provide similar or better protection for the flood plain communities, they were not comprehensively reviewed or assessed in the EIS.
For these and many more reasons I object to the raising of the dam wall.

To whom it may concern,
A few points:
• The engineering firm (SMEC Engineering) who undertook the environmental and cultural assessments for the project have an established history abusing Indigenous rights, recently being barred from the world bank.
• Severe fires during the summer of 2019/20 devastated 81% of Blue Mountains Heritage Area. No post-bushfire field surveys have been undertaken.
• Only 27% of the impact area was assessed for Aboriginal Cultural Heritage.
• Threatened species surveys are substantially less than guideline requirements. Where field surveys were not adequately completed, expert reports were not obtained.
• No modelling of the stated flood and economic benefits of the dam wall raising are outlined in the EIS.
• The integrity of the environmental assessment is fundamentally flawed, and cannot be accepted as a basis for further decision-making by the Minister for Planning.
• There are many alternative options to raising the Warragamba Dam wall that would protect existing floodplain communities. A combined approach of multiple options has been recommended as the most cost-effective means of flood risk mitigation.
• Alternative options were not comprehensively assessed in the EIS. Any assessment of alternatives does not take into account the economic benefits that would offset the initial cost of implementation.
• On average, 45% of floodwaters are derived from areas outside of the upstream Warragamba Dam catchment. This means that no matter how high the dam wall is constructed, it will not be able to prevent flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley downstream.

To whom it may concern,
Australians are sick of corrupt governments making dodgy deals with property developers. Moving more people onto flood plains is a recipe for disaster with or without a bigger dam. We may as well all move on to the slopes of volcanos and complain when they erupt.
The planet is made up a of an intricate system of ecological processes and thinking we can control them all is arrogant and pernicious. This is especially so if our attempts to lord ourselves over nature means destroying swathes of unique and valuable lands along with the varietal species that call them home.

The Blue Mountains were only recently ravaged by the worst bushfires we have ever seen, and considering the way the climate is going we are going to have to fight to maintain the integrity of the region to allow it to recover and withstand future threats.
We are talking about a region that is the only home to prehistoric Wollemi Pines, along with many other threatened species. The mostly untouched wild areas of the Blue Mountains likely hold other undescribed or undiscovered species, which could be wiped from the face of the earth in one fell swoop - and all because a handful of amoral tycoons want to make fistfuls of cash while their back room colleagues are still holding the reigns of government.
This is a case of ecocide, and if the dam wall is raised all involved in letting it happen should be drowned upstream along with the countless flora, fauna and fungi for which they signed the death warrant.