The Northern Rivers Times
January 11, 2024!!!
10 NEWS
Clean water for village comes with nearly $300k price tag By Tim Howard The boil water alert for Glenreagh is over, but it has come at a cost of almost $300,000 to lease a water filtration plant for the village. On October 11 Clarence Valley Council informed the residents of the village between Grafton and Coffs Harbour, they should boil all tap water before drinking. The problem arose council began using water from Shannon Creek Dam when flows in the Nymboida River became too low, it introduced fine particles into the water supply which the existing filtration system could not handle. The council immediately took steps to hire a filtration plant, but it was not installed until late November
The boil water alert sign on the outskirts of Glenreagh was an unwelcome reminder for residents of the problems they put up with for more than two months.
and did not come into operation until shortly before Christmas. The prolonged alert was a frustration to residents and businesses in the village, who were initially told the alert might last two to three weeks. On December 21
the council informed villagers the water supply was safe to drink straight from the tap. “Our crews have flushed the water mains in the area to reintroduce safe, clean water to the local water supply system,” a release said. Residents were asked
to flush affected water from their pipes with running water for two to three minutes, including the tap most distant from their water meter. At the December council meeting the cost to get clean tap water to resident was revealed in a budget variation report.
“This report advises that a budget variation of $145,454.54 (excl GST) is required to fund the remaining 23/24 FY hire of the water filtration equipment at the village of Glenreagh,” it read. “The hired equipment is required to provide a drinking water supply that meets council’s Drinking Water Management System until the permanent water treatment plant can be constructed. An annual operations and maintenance budget variation of $109,090.90 (excl GST) is also required for the remainder of the 23/24 FY. The council voted to note a budget variation of $280,000 (including GST), to be funded from the Water Fund Reserve for the hire, operation, and maintenance of water
filtration equipment for Glenreagh. The report said the hired filtration system included chemical dosing to allow coagulation of the fine particles, a clarifier tank, glass filtration media and pressure booster pumps and was automated and remotely monitored. “The hired equipment provides a greater level of water treatment including the removal of solids known as filter backwash. The report noted Glenreagh was an unsewered village, requiring the backwash material to be hauled to the Clarenza sewerage treatment plant. The increased level of water treatment would also require additional staff time to undertake the associated operations and maintenance tasks.
EIS for major Byron Bay wetland project now on exhibition After many years of planning, the restoration of the degraded Sandhills wetland in Byron Bay is progressing with an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) now on public exhibition. The Sandhills wetland covers 1.8 hectares on the fringe of the Byron CBD, bordered by Massinger Street and Lawson Street. The area was extensively sand mined in the 1930s destroying the natural wetlands and a lot of the native vegetation. Project Manager, Chris Soulsby, said
the restoration of the wetland is one of the most significant environmental projects to be done in Byron Bay in recent years. “The restoration of the wetland will have enormous benefits for the environment generally and will improve the quality of stormwater and provide local flood storage,” Mr Soulsby said. “Importantly, we have designed this project in consultation with the Arakwal and Tweed Byron Aboriginal Land Council using an approach that respects
Photo: Byron Council website
the cultural significance of the area and improves the health of Country,” he said. The EIS identifies and assesses the environmental, social,
and economic impacts of the project and proposes measures to mitigate and avoid any adverse impacts. It is on public exhibition until 19
February 2024. “We acknowledge the exhibition of the EIS runs over the holiday period but we have extended the time for submissions to February, mindful people are very busy at this time of year,” Mr Soulsby said. “We would like to award a tender in the early part of 2024 to enable the work to be done in the middle of the year which is typically the dry season,” he said. When the project is completed there will be a network of paths through the wetland connecting the centre of Byron Bay
to the skatepark and up to the Cape Byron Lighthouse. People can review the EIS and make a submission by visiting Environmental Impact Statement Sandhills Wetland project on Council’s website. This project is funded by the NSW Public Open Spaces Legacy Program and the Australian Government through the Emergency Response Fund administered by NSW Reconstruction Authority’s Northern Rivers Recovery and Resilience Program 2022-23.
New Season Fashions
!"!"#$%&'()*+ #$%&"'()*+, !"-.+/01/"2(3)"40/5+. ,%-."/*.)0*$%)"%!"# !"6 78+.0+)9+,"'$.:+.&"'()*+, ,%-.*1021%3')*$%-'0+
Sugar Town The Label will be running a pop up shop in Coolangatta QLD from 1st January 2024 till Sunday 21st January at the strand shopping centre.
02 6642 8600 Shop 1, 31 Burringbar St, Mullumbimby
6/40 Richmond St Wardell Phone 02 6683 4078
