Rally Protests Water Threat

Cudgegong Valley Water Committee president Trevor Crosby addresses the Defend Our Water Rally in Lawson Park yesterday.

The Cudgegong River system could collapse within seven or eight years if plans to draw 3.5 gigalitres of water a year from the river for the Cobbora coal mine go ahead, Cudgegong Valley Water Committee president Trevor Crosby told a rally in Mudgee yesterday.

Speaking to the Defend Our Water rally in Lawson Park, Mr Crosby said the Cudgegong River could not sustain the demands of the Cobbora mine, which were equivalent to the total extraction from the river for town water, stock and domestic licences, irrigation and the environment.

 

Cobbora Holding Company plans to transfer high security water licences from the Macquarie River catchment to the Cudgegong River catchment for the mine.

 

Mr Crosby said the move would jeopardise the conservative water sharing plan developed over the past 15 years, by transferring licences from the large Macquarie Catchment to the smaller, delicate Cudgegong system.

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Mudgee Guardian