NSW Farmers President James Jackson has welcomed state and federal funding commitments for Dungowan Dam, saying people want to see action on water.
“Building more dams to secure agricultural production and community water supply makes a lot of sense in Australia,” Mr Jackson said.
“It’s good to see funding certainty for the new Dungowan Dam from both levels of government.
“It may sound funny to be talking about drought in the midst of all this rain, but farmers and regional communities want to see action on water security, and certainty for the future.”
Mr Jackson said dams can deliver a quadruple benefit for NSW: a mechanism for storage of domestic and irrigation water but also in an uncertain future they are flood mitigation tools and a critical part of the energy solution with pumped hydro being a great battery for reliable energy.
“We’ve got this cycle of drought and flooding rains, so we need to prepare for future dry years,” Mr Jackson said.
“It’s critical we get this right because a lot of people came very close to disaster during the last drought.
“We owe it to future generations to set them up with good water security.”
