Warragamba Dam Raising

October 2021


Submission Opposed to the Raising of the Warragamba Dam
I am strongly opposed to the proposal to raise the Warragamba Dam.
I have been told that a Regent Honeyeater appears as a fairly ordinary bird when spotted in the wild. However, if you are lucky enough to see the bird in flight and to see the sun light up the gold plumage on the underside of its wings, the sight is breathtaking and you understand why it has been named as the regent of Australia’s honeyeaters. I am hoping that my children and grandchildren will have the chance to see that sight.
My husband and children and I have taken part in the Regent Honeyeater Project in the Capertee Valley since at least May 2008. Once or twice a year when we could over that period, my husband and I and often one or more of our children, made the long drive from Canberra’s border after work on a Friday to reach accommodation in shearing huts for the weekend arriving close to midnight. As early as possible the next morning, we joined the other volunteers on land farmers had made available to the project to revegetate the area to improve chances that the Regent Honeyeater could breed and survive. Frequently, a busload of children came with support from Taronga Zoo to assist and be part of the project. People worked hard in wind and heat and cold to get seedlings raised in the area into the ground and protected by shields while others watered them in. This project and others to support breeding, releasing and tracking the regents have been backed by state and federal funding for years. All this effort and investment to save this bird would be completely undermined if this proposal to raise the dam goes ahead.
The draft EIS concludes that the project poses potential significant impacts to contemporary breeding habitat for the Regent Honeyeater that “cannot be avoided or minimised.”
The Regent Honeyeater is listed as Critically Endangered at both a state and federal level, with as few as 350 individuals remaining in the wild. 
There are only a handful of contemporary breeding sites for Regent Honeyeater and during the assessment of the project a total of twenty one (21) Regent Honeyeaters, including active nests, were recorded within the impact area.
I strongly oppose the Project’s offset strategy for the Regent Honeyeater. There is no evidence that breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters can be successfully offset and any offsets would be unlikely to provide direct benefits for both the local affected population and the species.
This proposal has the potential to negatively impact a World Heritage Area and one of the last remaining areas this iconic Australian Honeyeater is known to be using as a breeding site. It is inconceivable that we would allow a loss of this magnitude to occur when we have invested so much to try and save this beautiful bird.

I object to the proposal to raise the Warragamba Dam wall due to the major ecological and cultural impacts of the World Heritage area that will be flooded. As a Blue Mountains resident and bushwalker, I have a deep connection to the Blue Mountains and Kanangra-Boyd National Parks, and have a great appreciation for the Aboriginal cultural heritage value of the area. The proposal will result in many unacceptable, irreversible impacts. In particular, the inundation of the Kowmung River, inundation of thousands of Aboriginal cultural sites relevant to the Dreaming stories of the Gundungurra people, and the impacts on threatened species including the Camden White Gum and Regent Honeyeater. The NSW Government needs consider the many alternative options to mitigate the risk of flooding to the Hawkebury Valley communities which will not result in the unacceptable impacts of the current proposal.

I have looked at the EIS document produced by SMEC in 91 files. If I had written that document, I might be pretty satisfied with my effort. The fact that the EIS process is continuing, indicates that WaterNSW has an intention to proceed with the dam raising.
I believe that the following submission comes from a rational and professional viewpoint, and is worthy of consideration regardless of its authorship. In other words, it has not been written primarily for statistical purposes.

• The EIS is not just a piece of paper. It is information for decision-makers.

• Lake Burragorang is a drinking water reservoir for Greater Sydney. SMEC however, justifies the raising on the basis of dam safety and PAR. It doesn’t really matter whether the discussion is about storage or flood routing, the driver of these works is population. Do you want to argue CC instead? Return to square one!

• Please note the following unsolicited quotation: “For those of us in NSW, there is little else in the news today other than the resignation of the Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Whatever her failings, we will be forever grateful for her calling for a halving of the state’s migrant intake, citing concerns about population growth in Sydney. This was three years ago when Sydney’s population was growing by 87,000 a year. Note the news item below about Sydney likely to face water shortages in 20 years if the current growth continues.” (SPA October 2021)

• I am pleased to add my voice to those of fellow members of Birdlife Australia in requesting that vital habitat should not be destroyed by this Project. Further, I endorse the points in the submissions made by that organisation, to the extent that they can be verified.

• It is proposed by SMEC that the acknowledged environmental damage will be handled by “offsets”. I understand that concept and have been happy to use it when working for a developer such as WaterNSW. There are however, times when offsets are not appropriate, and it appears that this proposal represents one of those times.

• Senior managers of WaterNSW will have participated in ANCOLD discussions, and similar forums, as dam owners. They will be aware that risk management principles have shifted from a balance of Likelihood and Consequence, to one where Consequence dominates. Particularly when that consequence is measured in human lives, but also in dollars. This time there are Environmental and Social consequences. In fact it is coming to a competition about whether homo sapiens as a species is more important than other fauna. Homo sapiens is not endangered, population-wise at least.

• Wivenhoe lessons. From the SMEC description, Warragamba has similarities to Wivenhoe. Simply put, a water-storage dam is erected upstream of an uninhabitable flood plain and then developers conspire with regulators to inhabit said flood plain. As if the direct costs were not bad enough to write Wivenhoe into the history books and engineering research papers, politicians and lawyers in Brisbane committed such malfeasance that they had to be independently brought to account. By their actions, they betrayed the trust of their community.

• Juukan Gorge lessons. The paperwork was in place to justify the destruction of cultural heritage, and no laws were broken when those caves were destroyed. Does that make it right? Apparently not. Also apparent is the fact that Rio did not have a social licence for its actions.

• Chapter 21 of the EIS does not appear to address the possibility of “offsets” for the downstream human communities which are the stated drivers for this project. Nor does that possibility appear to have been explored elsewhere. The Board of WaterNSW COULD seriously consider the scenario where the perpetrators of the problems which are to be addressed by this Project are the ones who actually pay for the solutions. And THEN the Board could report to the Government just what would be the financial, social and environmental impacts of removing buildings, people and infrastructure which are “at risk” and relocating them to a location where they are not at risk. There might even be a cheaper engineering solution which could achieve the same “offset”. “Bonus offset”: the resources which were to be expended to raise the dam can be offset against the costs of alternative risk mitigation. Or would they rather take the easy way out and report that it would be far cheaper to send some other species to extinction? I submit that it is past time for us to relinquish our biblical right to exploit our natural environment to the point of utter destruction. If that requires legislative changes, then they should happen. If not for this Project, then when? How many more Wivenhoes and Juukans will it take before there is nothing left?

• Sydney leads the Nation financially, socially and environmentally, mostly for the wrong reasons. We’re grateful that we don’t have to live there. WaterNSW and the State Government have an opportunity in the Warragamba matter to move towards good leadership. Alternatively they can choose to ignore the learnings from Wivenhoe, Juukan, and many similar situations at smaller scale.

Stuart Barwick SEng CPEng

I oppose the proposed raising of the dam due to the following reasons:
1) The project cannot be justified on scientific grounds based on historical flood data.
2) Scientific and other independent professional bodies have questioned the need to the project.
3) It will unavoidably lead to the degradation (at best) or destruction or of one of the last wildness areas in NSW and including the pristine Kowmung River area.
4) It will lead to unavoidable degradation of species habitat and therefore potentially risk extinction of certain bird species.
5) Any decision to allow property developers to profit at the expense of irreplaceable ecosystem is morally questionable at best.
6) The plan is a regressive step given that it will impact an existing world heritage area.

I strongly oppose the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam due to the project’s unacceptable potential impacts on the environment including to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and threatened species.
The draft EIS concludes that the project poses potential significant impacts to contemporary breeding habitat for the Regent Honeyeater that “cannot be avoided or minimised.”
The Regent Honeyeater is listed as Critically Endangered at both a state and federal level, with as few as 350 individuals remaining in the wild. 
Modelling by BirdLife Australia suggested that up to 50% of contemporary Regent Honeyeater foraging and breeding habitat was burnt in the 2019/20 bushfires. Protecting remaining unburnt breeding habitat is of the highest conservation priority.
There are only a handful of contemporary breeding sites for Regent Honeyeater and during the assessment of the project a total of twenty one (21) Regent Honeyeaters, including active nests, were recorded within the impact area.
Any breeding habitat is considered habitat critical for survival of the species under the National Recovery Plan for Regent Honeyeater and it states “It is essential that the highest level of protection is provided to these areas and that enhancement and protection measures target these productive sites”.
The destruction or degradation of a contemporary breeding site for Regent Honeyeaters would have dire consequences for the species as a whole.
The destruction and degradation of breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters is incongruous with the time and money that the Federal and NSW Governments have invested into the recovery program, including the Regent Honeyeater Captive Breeding and Release program.
I strongly oppose the Project’s offset strategy for the Regent Honeyeater.
Offsets are rarely an appropriate response to proposed biodiversity loss and especially for critical habitat for the survival of a species, in this case breeding habitat for the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater.
There is no evidence that breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters can be successfully offset and any offsets would be unlikely to provide direct benefits for both the local affected population and the species.

I am a resident of Western Sydney and an active bushwalker in the Western Sydney and Blue Mountains areas. I object to the raising of the Warragamba dam for the following reasons:
- Social and cultural. The traditional custodians of the land and water, the Gundungurra people, have not approved this project. In fact, the company who conducted the EIS assessments (SMEC Engineering) have a history of disregarding communities when developing large water infrastucure projects. If the project were to go ahead, over 1000 known cultural sites would be flooded. Gundungurra people in particular, and Australian indigenous people in general, have suffered great cultural loss since European settlement. Any infrastructure projects should be developed with the most care to existing cultural sites, to ensure Gundungurra people continue to cherish their rich heritage.
- Environmental. The integrity of the Greater Blue Mountains UNESCO World Heritage Area would be harmed. The EIS fails to discuss the impact on the values that define the Blue Mountains as a World Heritage area. The damage to flora and fauna, including individuals, species, habitat and connectivity, would be great on its own, but it would also compound with the devastation caused by the 2019/2020 bushfires. The dam raising would negatively affect the natural state of the last wild river in Sydney - the Kowmung River, and this is not discussed in the EIS. The EIS also fails to meet survey guidelines on threatened species (including koala and platypus).
- Safety. Western Sydney would still flood even if the dam was raised. Only half the flood water in the Hawkesbury-Nepean is spill from the dam. A raised dam would not have been able to contain the March 2021 floods anyway. Such damaging floods can and will happen again. Loss of lives and homes would still happen even if the dam was raised. The EIS fails to provide modelling of flood extents and community benefits, and does not comprehensively compare alternative solutions.

For all of these reasons, I propose to not raise the Warragamba dam, not develop flood plains any longer, and instead investigate alternatives to protecting existing homes.

I wish to register my dismay at the manifestly inadequate EIS on the plan to raise the Warragamba Dam wall. This project would flood precious country and endanger unique species of birds and trees, in order to allow property developers to build multiple houses on a dangerous flood-plain. The EIS downplays and in some cases denies these disastrous consequences. Please don’t do it!

To the authorised persons assessing submissions concerning the EIS relevant to the raising of Warragamba dam wall.

I wish to object to the findings of the EIS regarding the proposal of raising the Warragamba dam wall, ("the project"). I will explain below my argument as follows;
1: The impact the project will have on the World Heritage listed wilderness, especially the lower Kowmung gorge, ("the area").
2: My personal connection to the area and my assessment of it's value.
3: The existing threats to the area.
4: The flaws in the process of the EIS
5: The alternatives to the project.

1: Raising the dam wall will intermittently flood a vast area of World Heritage wilderness, including the lower Kowmung gorge, and a total of 65km of wilderness rivers. In doing so it will permanently destroy over 5000 hectares of habitat, and the flora and fauna that lives there, including critically endangered species. Furthermore it will destroy current and future recreation opportunities.

2: I have been walking through the Kanangra wilderness since I was 15 years old, i.e. for 37 years. I have travelled across the lower Kowmung river, through the legal walking routes allowed by Sydney water, and as such, I have a personal appreciation of, and connection to, that wilderness area, and that river, which as you know, if the last wilderness river in NSW. I appreciate the natural beauty of the area, I value the health benefits of experiencing wilderness, and I appreciate the value of an intact ecosystem, especially the unique wildlife that exists there. I have personally seen many species of animals, including threatened/endangered species such as the Sydney Emu, Rakali, rock wallaby, Regent Honey eaters, powerful owls, and platypus.

3: This area is already significantly under threat. The fires of 2019/2020 has devastated this area. There is still no substantial survey of the extent of the impact of those fires on the fauna and flora. In addition, these ecosystems are already under significant threat from feral species, especially feral pigs and dogs, and the weeds they introduce. The funding for the protection and maintenance of this area, a World Heritage listed area no less, has been grossly insufficient for years.

4: The EIS for this project is seriously flawed. The firm who undertook the environmental assessment, SMEC, are so discredited, they have been barred by the world bank. The assessments for endangered species or for Aboriginal cultural heritage do not come close to meeting the legal guidelines, and there have been no post bushfire surveys upon which to update critical environmental data.

5: The project has been explained as necessary to protect Sydney floodplain from rare serious flooding. Modelling shows that it cannot protect that floodplain from rare severe flooding. The only way to do so is to prevent development on those areas. Furthermore, there are more effective ways to protect the existing development which has already occurred on the floodplain.

In summary, the proposed project threatens to permanently destroy World Heritage listed wilderness, including critically endangered species. The project will not adequately protect the floodplains if development is allowed to proceed, and there are more effective ways to mitigate flood risk, especially limiting development on floodplain. Finally, the EIS for the project does not meet legal guidelines and is fundamentally flawed.

I will vote on this issue alone in upcoming and future elections. I will never forget any decisions which result in the destruction of such a valuable place. I will make every effort to ensure I inform as many people as I can of my viewpoint.

Yours sincerely

Dr Michael Law

Australia has a long and sad history of species extinctions and environmental damage, unfortunately on par with, or even worse than, many third world countries. I am opposed to the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam because I believe the project will have unacceptable long-term impacts on the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and threatened species. In particular, I am concerned about the potential adverse impacts on one of our rarest creatures, the Regent Honeyeater. With climate change likely to cause repeats of our recent devastating bushfires, even the slightest reduction in this species' habitat could have devastating consequences. The draft EIS says that the potential significant impacts of the loss of breeding habitat “cannot be avoided or minimised.” The National Recovery Plan for the Regent Honeyeater states that “It is essential that the highest level of protection is provided to these areas and that enhancement and protection measures target these productive sites”. To proceed with this project would be in direct conflict with this objective.
While offset strategies sound good in theory, and may have positive results in some instances, I know of no evidence that demonstrates just how effective they are. The situation with koalas is a good example, where it has been shown that to simply move a colony from one location to another does not work. With a species as rare as the Regent Honeyeater, it would be foolhardy and negligent to assume this type of strategy would work.
While the impacts on the Regent Honeyeater are my main concern, there will clearly be adverse effects on many other species of flora and fauna, and potentially on areas of cultural significance to our first people.

Enlarging the dam as projected would be disastrous for the Regent Honeyeater, already Critically Endangered, by severely reducing one of its few remaining breeding sites, which would be inimical to the National Recovery Plan for this species. There is no evidence that breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters can be successfully offset and any offsets would be unlikely to provide direct benefits for both the local affected population and the species.

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.
World Heritage and cultural sites under attack
The Blue Mountains World Heritage area is not just a world class National Park, in 2000 it was inscribed on UNESCO’s prestigious World Heritage list in recognition of the Blue Mountains Outstanding Universal value for the whole of mankind. Raising the Warragamba dam wall and consequent damage to natural and cultural values would be a clear breach of these undertakings and Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Convention. 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. This includes:

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.
Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Convention mean it is critical for the Blue Mountains World Heritage site to be managed to protect its ecological integrity and authenticity. Any damage within its boundaries is completely unacceptable and inconsistent with World Heritage management principles.

Gundungurra Traditional Owners have not given Free, Prior and Informed Consent for the Dam proposal to proceed.

Over 1541 identified cultural heritage sites would be inundated by the Dam proposal.
The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Assessment Report has been severely and repeatedly criticised by both the Australian Department of Environment and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) for not appropriately assessing cultural heritage in meaningful consultation with Gundungurra community members.
Alternatives to raising Warragamba Dam wall
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.

Modelling by BirdLife Australia suggested that up to 50% of contemporary Regent Honeyeater foraging and breeding habitat was burnt in the 2019/20 bushfires. Protecting remaining unburnt breeding habitat is of the highest conservation priority

I strongly oppose the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam due to the project’s high likelihood of severe detrimental impacts to the precious ecology to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. I am particularly concerned about impacts to threatened species. Of major concern is the threat to Endangered Regent Honeyeater as the area impacted by the proposal dam raising included absolutely critical breeding habitat for the species. I note that the draft EIS states that the detrimental impacts to this critical habitat “cannot be avoided or minimised.” And that impact will be just one of many detrimental impacts to the natural ecology of the area. In total these impacts would be a disaster for this world heritage area.
Clearly this proposal is totally unacceptable. Instead of raising the dam wall, here's an alternative...why not getting genuinely serious about water conservation for the Sydney region. The management of water by the government is this region is just lamentable. This option along with prioritising the expansion of the Sydney Desalination Plant should be pursued and not this disaster for our precious natural world.

As far as I am concerned we should not be looking at increasing the Dam size. What we should be doing is teaching large & small communities how to reduce their water consumption to so many litres per day. If we do not change our over usage and carefree behaviour on one of the driest continents on the planet I feel we are heading for disaster.
There is no evidence that breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters can be successfully offset and any offsets would be unlikely to provide direct benefits for both the local affected population and the species. It has yet to work for any other species if managed by large bodies.
Sadly due to ruthless Government bodies I have learnt over decades that it takes small groups of dedicated Australian to commit their whole life body, soul and heart to the preservation of a waterway, a forest, a species of plant, a species of bird, animal, reptile, insect or a reef. YOU ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
It is unacceptable and inconsistent with the National Recovery Plan for any avoidable loss or degradation of breeding habitat to occur. Once they are gone they are gone. As Australian we have an appalling history for caring for our Flora and Fauna from Federal and Local Governments. It has to stop we have to consider future Australian and their ability to enjoy what a broad variety of nature can offer let alone the fact that all of what is here was here for centuries before westerners arrived and set off on a complete and utter destruction of what makes Australia unique.
I am not the most educated person but I feel passionately about all that is flora, fauna, oceans, waterways and reefs. This wonderful man from our past say it all....
……“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” Henry Beston

I am opposed to the proposed raising of the Warragamba Dam.
I have a cottage in Wentworth Falls, and have been a keen bushwalker in the area for years.
Everything I have read about this proposal suggests it has not been thoroughly researched and should be scrapped. It would seem to privilege the interests of developers, way above those of the environment and its precious, threatened wildlife and vegetation.
There has not even been an investigation of the area in the aftermath of the savage devastation of 81% of the Blue Mountains National park! How can one possibly envisage flooding such a huge area? The effects of further massive habitat destruction would be catastrophic.
Sometimes I wonder whether our government and planners inhabit the same country. This is our mutual land - held in trust for our descendants. It is already clear beyond doubt that our country faces climate-induced threats of nearly unimaginable proportions. Please - let us not add to these by further unnecessary and wilful destruction.
Sincerely,
Virginia Duigan

I object to this project on the basis of the severe and unacceptable impact it will have on the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater breeding habitat. As a species that has only ~350 individuals remaining in the wild, and whose habitat was seriously impacted by the 2019/2020 fires, it is imperative that all remaining breeding habitat is protected and retained, to ensure the future genetic diversity, breeding potential and numbers of the species. Offsetting habitat will not be effective in protecting this species, and the continuation of this project will undermine the extensive work and funding that has been invested in conservation efforts for this species.

I live in Moss Vale in the upper catchment of Warragamba Dam. It is Gundagurra country.
Last week we walked as a family up Mt Penang at Canyonleigh – beautiful views to the canyons of the Wingecarribee and Wollondilly Rivers, Mt Jellore in the distance and the craggy cliffs above Wombeyan Caves are all on display.
The area was covered in flowering Boronia and is Koala habitat.
The State Government recently established a new National Park to cover Mt Penang - the Guula Ngurra National Park – specifically to protect this beautiful area and create Koala corridors. I do not understand how the same State Government could then propose to damage areas just downstream of this new National Park.
We have desalination plants for drinking water and an existing dam to protect the Hawkesbury Nepean flood plains. There is therefore no need to raise the dam wall from a safety perspective.
The only plausible commercial justification for raising the dam is to open up productive farm land to residential development – no doubt in the great NSW tradition in return for kick backs to dodgy politicians.
Raising the dam will cause irreparable damage to the landscape and destroy countless indigenous sites. This is the conduct expected of the 20th Century but should be left behind in that Century.
I strongly oppose raising the dam wall. There are no safety reasons to do so, the commercial reasons must have the smell of corruption and the damage caused to the environmental and indigenous heritage of the area would be irreparable.

Governments walk a fine line between human progress and environmental decay. Their record of maintaining an acceptable balance on this fine line worldwide is abysmal and it is a rare instance when both of these critical needs are balanced and satisfactorily met. Promoting human progress (technology, profit, wealth, jobs, exploitation) traditionally has the upper hand over avoiding environmental decay (environment, climate, clean water-air-soil, pollution, extinction), in my view for two reasons: First, as humans we want what we want both individually and corporately, at the expense and to the detriment of all else. Second, by definition the truths inherent in environmental decay are indeed "inconvenient" and are easily disregarded by those we elect, those who should most defend them.
We need to conserve and correctly manage our natural resources, in this case water. But not at the expense of other critical environmental factors. Specifically, enough has been raised elsewhere regarding the detrimental impact on the Regent Honeyeater. Each threatened species that suffers at the hands of human progress is one too many. Australia has a terrible track record regarding the defence of our natural environment and this is a typical example. On a broader scale, Governmental tinkering with natural water supplies and flows usually has unacceptable and long term consequences, eg the Murray Darling basin mess promulgated by three opposed states and the Feds, Tasmania's attempt to wreck the Franklin and Gordon Rivers, the pitiful state of Snowy River flows and the inability of the Murray River to even reach the sea. There are many other examples: Agricultural run-off, salinity, water thirsty industries that should never have been established in this country, the list goes on.
As I suggested initially, Governments, both State and Federal, Liberal and Labour, have little to boast about environmentally since we took up residence on this continent. And we appear to have never demonstrated the foresight beyond the next election and the most aggressive lobby group. Government in this country is running out of time as is government worldwide, and this exercise is one where some responsible leadership and management can make a difference, to everything. Tread carefully, dot you I's, cross your T's and cut the spin, for everyone's sake.

I strongly oppose the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam due to the project’s unacceptable potential impacts to contemporary breeding habitat for the Regent Honeyeater that “cannot be avoided or minimised.”
The Regent Honeyeater is listed as Critically Endangered at both a state and federal level, with as few as 350 individuals remaining in the wild. 
Up to 50% of Regent Honeyeater foraging and breeding habitat was burnt in the 2019/20 bushfires. Protecting remaining unburnt breeding habitat is a high conservation priority.
Any breeding habitat is considered habitat critical for survival of the species under the National Recovery Plan for Regent Honeyeater and it states “It is essential that the highest level of protection is provided to these areas and that enhancement and protection measures target these productive sites”.
The destruction and degradation of breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters is incongruous with the time and money that the Federal and NSW Governments have invested into the recovery program, including the Regent Honeyeater Captive Breeding and Release program.
It is unacceptable and inconsistent with the National Recovery Plan for any avoidable loss or degradation of breeding habitat to occur.
I strongly oppose the Project’s offset strategy for the Regent Honeyeater.
Offsets are rarely an appropriate response to proposed biodiversity loss and especially for habitat critical for the survival of a species.
There is no evidence that breeding habitat for Regent Honeyeaters can be successfully offset and any offsets would be unlikely to provide direct benefits for both the local affected population and the species.

The justification for raising the Warragamba Dam wall is that it required to reduce the risk of future flooding to residents and businesses across Western Sydney. This is simply not the case. The project rationale is deeply flawed, with nearly half the floodwaters that have historically impacted the floodplain coming from rivers outside the Warragamba catchment. Raising the dam wall will encourage further ill-advised development in vulnerable areas without providing any guarantee of future protection. What we need is better urban planning, not short-sighted fixes that will only encourage development in flood prone areas.

As well as this, The World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Parks have been given the highest possible international status and protection in recognition of the area’s extraordinary biodiversity and ecological integrity. The Commonwealth and NSW Governments made a commitment to future generations to protect the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area forever. This is the last place that any government should sacrifice to enable further expansion of floodplain development.
Raising the Warragamba Dam wall will inflict terrible damage on the environmental and cultural values of the catchment. It will decimate 5,700 hectares of National Parks, 1,300 hectares of World Heritage Area, more than 60 kilometres of wilderness rivers and thousands of Aboriginal sites and places of cultural significance. The area that will be destroyed contains some of the best remaining grassy woodland ecosystem in NSW, complete with healthy populations of dingo, quoll, woodland birds and many other native species. The rising water will drive threatened species into extinction, including NSW’s rarest bird, the 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 falls far short of that obligation, and if the EIS is approved it will confirm our growing international reputation as environmental vandals.
No consent has been obtained from the Gundungurra Traditional Owners for the work that will significantly impact their cultural heritage. 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.

The purpose of raising the dam wall is to hold water at a level up to 17 metres higher than the present dam. Even if the water is only held at these elevated levels for a few months, the unavoidable reality is that the habitats, flora, fauna, cultural sites and soils within the inundation zone will be devastated. Despite the EIS having been in preparation for more than 5 years, the environmental and cultural surveys on which it relies are woefully inadequate. The EIS relies upon biodiversity and cultural surveys conducted before the unprecedented wildfires of 2019/20, which burnt 81% of the Greater Blue Mountains. Those fires changed the face of the Blue Mountains and drove many species to the brink of local extinction. It is not sufficient to do a ‘desktop’ analysis of the impacts of the fires on the project area, a new survey is needed.

The proposal relies upon the payment of biodiversity offsets to mitigate the irreparable environmental damage to the biodiversity of this unique and internationally significant area. Calculations based on the NSW Government’s own biodiversity laws and offsets trading scheme suggests that the total cost of biodiversity offsets will be around $2 billion.

NSW is still reeling from the 2019/20 mega-fires, record levels of land clearing and a species extinction crisis. If there is any time and any place where the protection of nature must be prioritised, surely it is in now in World Heritage listed National Parks? Has the NSW Government learnt nothing from the desecration of Juunkan Gorge about the importance of protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage?

Aboriginal cultural heritage, National Parks, World Heritage and threatened species need protection, not destruction.