Traditional custodians, the Blue Mountains mayor and even the UN are concerned about the impacts of the NSW government move

'So much that will be lost': concerns grow over plan to raise Warragamba dam wall

'So much that will be lost': concerns grow over plan to raise Warragamba dam wall

Kazan Brown’s father helped build Warragamba Dam – under a kind of duress – after he was forced off his land by it.

The first walls went up in 1948, 138m high, flooding the Burragorang Valley. The Gundungurra people had known it for over 50,000 years, as a place, in creation stories, carved out by a battle between two spirits: Mirragan and Gurangatch.

It took 12 years to trap all that water, a greater volume than in Sydney harbour, and the toil of 1,800 workers – 15 of whom died. And they lost the valley. The government evicted some of the Indigenous occupants, acquired land, and put it underwater.

Brown’s great-grandmother refused to leave, and her sons had to walk in and carry her out, leaving all the furniture behind.

“My mother was born there. My grandfather was born there. We go back before settlement in this area,” she says.

“We grew up looking after it. We lived here. My family came out of the valley and moved into Warragamba and it has just been part of us – part of our life.”

Warragamba Dam now provides water to the 4.5m people of greater Sydney and surrounding areas. In the 1980s, they raised the wall by 5m. Now the state government is planning to raise the wall again – by 14 or 17 metres, the figures differ.

This would create an extra 995 gigalitres to store flood waters and mitigate the flood risk to the houses of the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain – suburbs like Richmond and Windsor, which lie just east of the Blue Mountains.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Warragamba dam wall which the NSW government is proposing to raise. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

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But a leaked report said this would also “permanently” change the Blue Mountains – which are world heritage listed for their beauty, biodiversity and Indigenous sacred sites.

Over 40 endangered plant and animal species are found there, and while the impact estimates vary and are incomplete, the change would increase the severity and frequency of floods in parts of the world heritage areas.

It would “have an overall high direct (physical) impact” on 1,300 hectares and “result in permanent environmental changes”, according to a draft impact report prepared for the government. The UN has said the move will “likely have an impact on the outstanding universal value” of the mountains, and have warned the government they will be watching.

Brown is a Gundungurra woman, a traditional custodian of the land.

“What could be lost?” she says. “We’ve got burials, art sites. Ceremony sites, camp sites, you name it. It’s all there. It’s our culture – that’s what will be lost.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kerswell Hill art shelter will be affected if the proposal to raise Warragamba dam wall goes ahead.

Brown’s daughter, Taylor Clarke, 21, is with her at a lookout over the dam. A university student who spends her free time with her mother on the campaign, Clarke just wrapped up six months working in the office of the former Greens NSW upper house MP Justin Field.

She speaks quickly – the figures at the front of her mind. “Also at risk are two more of the waterholes sacred to the creation story. Eleven were inundated when the dam was made. There are only 15 altogether.

“I think part of the problem is that we don’t know the full breadth of what will be lost. When the dam was made, a lot of people moved out of the area, and they took with them their knowledge and custodianship of these areas.

“Mum spent her whole life researching it and finding family members again, and neighbours to figure it all out again. If the dam wall goes ahead there is so much that will be lost that we don’t even know.”

An Aboriginal canoe tree estimated to be 500 years old (Henry the VIII was king when this was a sapling).

Brown and Clarke say there are alternatives to raising the dam wall. A September 2018 report, from the Australian National University, says the same.

Prepared by associate professor Jamie Pittock, the report recommends lowering the storage level of the dam instead – which would provide space for floodwater. Desalination plants and other water saving measures would then make up the shortfall.

Stuart Ayres, the minister for western Sydney, has stressed that no final decision has been made to raise the wall. “[It] will only take place after financial, environmental and cultural assessments have concluded,” he said in a statement.

But Ayres and the government say the proposal has to be looked at, and the positive impacts on the floodplain balanced with the negative impacts on the Blue Mountains.

“Raising the dam wall is a key part of the strategy to reduce the existing risk to life and property on the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain … While there will be environmental impacts from temporarily holding flood water from behind a raised dam wall, they must be measured against the social and financial impact a catastrophic flood would have on Western Sydney communities.”

Both the Blue Mountains’ valleys and the Hawkesbury-Nepean plains are naturally prone to flooding – and flood mitigation needs to be taken – that much is agreed.

But Pittock’s report says the government ignored other options that would have less of an effect on the world heritage sites.

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In May 2017, announcing the dam raising plan, Water NSW described the floodplain as “the most flood-prone region in NSW, if not Australia”.

“While major flooding has not happened in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley for more than 25 years, it can occur at any time. Sometimes, extreme weather events will strike without warning, so we all need to be prepared.”

If the worst flood on record struck today, 90,000 people would be evacuated, 12,000 homes flooded and it would cause $5bn in damage.

Raising the wall, the government says, would reduce flood damage by 75% on average.

Any resulting flooding of world heritage areas would be “temporary inundation”, which already “occurs now during flood events”. “The duration and depth of temporary flooding would vary”, it says, depending on the location and size of the flood.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The view from Lincoln’s Rock at Wentworth Falls. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

But the Pittock report says the alternatives are better.

“Lowering the full storage level of Warragamba Dam by 12 metres would free 795 billion litres of airspace for flood control [and] would have no upstream environmental impacts and can be implemented immediately,” it says.

“This option was briefly mentioned as part of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Risk Management Strategy but dismissed on the grounds that it would compromise Sydney’s water security.”

But according to the report, analysis from the University of Technology Sydney says the alternative would be “more cost effective” than raising the dam wall and “also enhances Sydney’s water security”.

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The report slammed the NSW government, saying these alternatives had been discarded in favour of developments.

“Flood risk has been exacerbated by local councils and the NSW Government approving housing developments on low lying lands over several decades,” it said.

“The NSW Government’s strategy is constrained by two overriding policy decisions, namely that it will not reduce the 5,000 houses on the most flood-prone lands, and that it will allow an additional 134,000 people to settle in harm’s way on the floodplain over the next 30 years.”

As Brown says: “There are alternatives. There are plenty of alternatives that the government should look at rather than just flooding it.”

A spokesperson for Infrastructure NSW said the dam raising was “assessed as the most effective infrastructure option to reduce the risk to life and property on the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain” after “more than four years of detailed investigations into a range of options”.

The mayor of the Blue Mountains, Mark Greenhill, opposes the government’s plan, and describes it as “insane” and “diabolical”.

“If the government is concerned about the floodplain, and it not being safe, then don’t develop there. Don’t propose major housing growth in the floodplain.

“This whole development explosion, uncontrolled, with no seeming strategy around it is swamping Sydney. I defy anyone to go into Kedumba [in the Blue Mountains] and not feel a sort of spiritual impact of this beautiful place. It is culturally significant, it is a stunning place. It is one of many places that will be impacted by this insane proposal.”

From here it is a long journey. The dam must jump through a series of regulatory hoops. It could take years.

The Environmental Impact Statement – a mandatory state-level requirement – has not been completed, and has a deadline for later this year. The UN has also requested to see it. And, as is standard for so many state projects, after the EIS the plan will be open to community input.

Aboriginal kangaroo traps at the Gungarlook waterhole in Wollondilly.

Brown and Clarke stress that a lot of the assessment isn’t even complete. “The government came to us with a plan and told us they were going to survey this area,” says Brown. “Now they have come back and said they have only done 26% of the area, and they have said they are not going to do any more. I don’t think they can release a full comprehensive report when it hasn’t been completed.”

And outside Australia, Unesco will soon meet to discuss it. It will pass a draft decision on the plan in July. After that, it will also look at the finished EIS – and will decide whether to recommend or oppose it – though their decision is not binding.

And even if NSW approves it, the nature of world heritage listing means the federal environment minister must also approve it, and has the power to veto the plan.

The campaigners are hopeful that these are enough hurdles in the way that the momentum stalls. Energy is now being directed to the federal government.

Greenhill hopes the UN will have sway. “The UN are people of mild language,” he says. “And when they indicate real concern, that means real concern. We are at a crossroads. Very soon this won’t be recoverable, once that work begins.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Aboriginal grinding grooves in the Wollondilly.

Back at Warragamba, Brown and Clarke say they will see this through to the end. “I expected to have my whole life to learn about this,” says Clarke about the area, her family and its history. “All of a sudden there is a time limit. That’s what I’m working against. I’m fighting for that opportunity to keep learning and to have my kids keep learning as well.”

“She’s been learning since she was little,” says Brown.

Naturally, the conversation circles back to their family. It underscores the connection – their family lived here, saw the dam start, were dislocated by it, helped build it, and know this place and its importance. They say they know what is best for it now.

Brown stresses that her father built the dam out of necessity – it is a bittersweet connection.

“He worked on the dam because he wanted to stay close to home,” she says. “It would have been pretty hard for him. He lost everything. He’d just been kicked out of his home.

“It’s strange, I know,” says Brown. “But if it was up to me, they would leave it as it was. It wouldn’t be touched.”