By ALENA HIGGINS
ALLORA’s water supply bores will remain in council hands after it decided to maintain ownership.
The recent completion and commissioning of a 25 kilometre water pipeline from the Freestone Road Reservoir in Warwick to Allora, called into question the future of the bores that used to supply water to the town.
But councillors decided at their November meeting the system was too lucrative to relinquish.
They heard a number of potential customers had already inquired about the availability of water from the bores.
These included GrainX for dust suppression, Allora Sports Club for watering the golf course, and access to water allocation by a farmer.
But deputy mayor Ross Bartley also acknowledged the underground water supply would be vital in times of drought and cautioned allocating the total supply to commercial use.
“This is … high priority water, we can take it when everyone else has pumping restriction,” he said.
“I don’t want to see it abused, we should be very mindful that there is only 146 megalitres available (per year).”
Councillors were also told the bore supply could provide an additional source for firefighting.
GrainX currently uses about 20,000 litres of town water per day five days a week for dust suppression, equating to about 5.2 megalitres per year, according to council’s business paper.
Meanwhile, the golf course requires bore supplies to supplement their water extraction allocations from Dalrymple Creek. Quantities required from the bore would be seasonal and could amount to five megalitres per year.
Cr Bartley said he definitely wants to see the bores operational and not run into disrepair.
“We own these bores and they are very valuable property,” he said.
Councillors resolved to maintain ownership, keep current licences and called for a report to be prepared for consideration at the February 2015 general meeting which would look at “the operational costs of decommissioning bores, retaining bores and water rights, projected income from selling bore water and selling water rights from each bore in Allora”.
