• The National Parks Association – Milton Branch objects to the proposal to raise the wall of the Warragamba Dam.

• The reasons for objection are set out in the attached submission. In summary the key objections are:
o the project is fundamentally flawed;
o it will lead to intolerable environmental impacts;
o there is no consent from traditional owners and a lack of protection for cultural heritage;
o the Environmental Impact Statement is unreliable and inaccurate;
o and the concept of comparable biodiversity offsets for a World Heritage Listed area is fundamentally unsound.

The raising of the dam wall will cause irreversible damage to the environment, destroying habitat, wildlife, and many sites of great cultural significance to the indigenous community. The better way to minimise impact of flooding would be to restrict development within the floodplain.

Please see attached letter outlining my concerns regarding risks to water quality.

Dear Committee
I am responding to the Warragamba Dam raising wall proposal in a written submission with an attached document.
I object to this project for the following reasons-negative environmental and cultural issues, valid concerns raised by different organisations and agencies, systematic failings of the EIS process, community safety concerns and an attack on a world heritage site. There are alternatives that I strongly urge the government to explore further to reduce flooding of low-lying areas. Raising the dam wall will not completely solve the flooding issue and these communities will continue to suffer.

We believe that the whole study area is of highly significant to us Aboriginal people, for tens of thousands of years our people have worked, managed, and occupied the land that we stand on today. We have a spiritual connection to place, land, water ways and the sky. Our creation stories that shaped this land and flow through us till this day and continue to be passed down from generation to generation are written within the land scape around us. Our old people were the first agriculturist, scientist, astronomers, artist, bakers etc. we once lived a life where we survived of mother earth, as she provides us with all the resources we need to survive, and we would in return care for her and mange her the ways we acquired knowledge over tens of thousands of years of practices such as fire knowledge to rejuvenate mother earth.
The study area is highly significant to us as there are hundreds of sites that will be destroyed if this project goes ahead. Such as rock art, grinding grooves, stone tools, scared trees, rock shelters, sacred sites, and most importantly our burials etc. These sites are highly important to us just like the town hall in Parramatta is important many, a two-hundred-year-old building that will not be destroyed, yet our tens of thousands year old sites are under treat to be destroyed if this project goes ahead. This is an example of how wrong this project is, we understand that the dam needs to be raised but we ask for there to be adequate testing and surveying of the whole study area not just a sample. We need to act accordingly to capture what is still out there today and recorded as much as possible if not all for the benefit of our future generation’s knowledge of the area.
There are tangible, intangible, and aesthetic aspects that must be considered with in the study area. There are places that have significant to us for instance the jumping lady which was not a dreaming story but happen and it is areas like this that have great importance to our cultural heritage of the area. There are dreaming stories about the creation of the land that are of great significance to us and by visiting these sites we can once again be connected to the place and have a spiritual awaking or connection to these places. It is important that we as the Aboriginal community have access to these areas to learn and practice our traditional ways of knowledge and rejuvenate areas that have been neglected since Colonisation and due to the disposition of our land. To be able to walk the land of our old people is a way to reconnect, they guide us and teach us along the way. The inundation of the dam will have catastrophic impacts on the study area and will affect many ecosystems the flora and fauna will be majorly affected. Endangered spices plant and animals will be at risk, the homes of animals will be destroyed having dangerous effects on the ecosystem.
We would like to agree to your recommendations but, we do not agree to the project unless all recommendations are meet. We understand that the inundation of the dam is needed along with the raising of the dam but, in saying that there are other ways to protect residents downstream from flooding such as flood mitigation and flood evacuation plans. We believe that the project should be fully assessed when it comes to cultural heritage within the study area. There needs to be more done in the form of testing, and surveying of the whole study area, documenting as much as possible before the dam in inundated, as a last chance to capture our rich cultural heritage before it is lost.

Dear Assessment Team
Please find attached Floodplain Management Australia's submission in support of the Warragamba Dam Raising Project.
Yours faithfully
Glenn Evans
Executive Officer
Floodplain Management Australia