It was set to be the largest and most expensive water security project in New South Wales. But after four years of delays, the state government has announced the expansion of Wyangala dam near Cowra won't proceed. Labor has blamed spiralling costs and unacceptable environmental impacts, but some farmers believe it's politically motivated.
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00:00 When millions of litres of water poured from Wyangla Dam during last year's major flooding,
00:08 it devastated farms and forced the evacuation of towns.
00:13 A plan to double its capacity was designed to prevent future disasters.
00:17 But the state government says the price tag is now simply too high.
00:22 The final cost of delivering this project was likely to be over $4 billion.
00:28 The project involved raising Wyangla Dam's wall by 10 metres so it could hold more water.
00:34 The minister says the environmental impacts couldn't be justified.
00:39 Terms like significant, catastrophic, irreversible are used repeatedly in the expert business
00:45 cases.
00:46 It is just not foreseeable that a project with that level of environmental impact was
00:53 ever going to receive planning approval.
00:56 The former coalition government announced the expansion in 2019 to improve water security
01:01 in dry periods but also reduce flooding on the Lachlan River.
01:06 Since then, the plan has faced repeated delays due to COVID and soaring costs.
01:12 We think it's a very sensible decision.
01:14 The environmental impacts on the Lachlan River, both upstream and downstream, would have been
01:19 extreme if the dam wall was raised.
01:24 But farmers who backed the expansion are outraged.
01:27 At the change of government last year I was very sceptical that it would ever get up.
01:33 There's no votes out here for the Labor Party.
01:35 The minister says $74 million was spent on pre-planning works.
01:41 I'm sorry that so much time and money was wasted on projects that were never going to
01:45 deliver.
01:46 The state government says it will now prepare a strategy to try to identify other options
01:51 to improve water security.
01:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]