The most topical conversation in our LGA, without a doubt, is water. It seems that we either have too much or not enough. And herein lies the challenge. How can we store enough water for long-term supply, and slow the inundation of water that Lismore suffers when we get too much rain?

Let's start with water security.

There's no doubt we all have to be smarter about how we use water. But we also need to think about the supply of water to our growing population.

Rocky Creek Dam, built over seventy years ago as Lismore’s primary water source for a population of around fifteen thousand people, is quite simply too small. Now, under the control of Rous County Council, the dam services a population in excess of one hundred and twenty thousand regional residents.

Its size of fourteen thousand mega litres categorises Rocky Creek as a small dam, and the only possible way it can service the number of people it does, is because of our high average yearly rainfall. If we had zero rainfall for nine months, our dam would be dry.

Water security needs to be approached regionally, and funded by state and federal governments, but we in Lismore should be driving this forward. Previous terms of council have sold us out on water security by not fully exploring all options and pushing individual agendas.

You will remember only a few years ago, when Councillors Ekins and Cook were our Rous Council representatives, they both voted to move the head office of Rous to Ballina, taking many jobs out of Lismore and down to the coast. Forget the fact that all of Rous’ main water assets are in the Lismore LGA!

Councillor Ekins, who is currently standing to be the next mayor, is openly saying that she encourages business in the CBD and wants the CBD to thrive, yet voted to take forty jobs away from our CBD only three and a half years ago.

Not only that, they also removed water storage options from the future water strategy. Many would think of this as being the Dunoon Dam, but all water storage options need to be scientifically considered, and the best outcome reached for the long term growth and benefit of the region.

Top of Councillor Ekins's agenda is recycled water, which is basically filtering our wastewater treatment plant and putting it back through your taps to drink, wash and play in. We live in an area with the highest rainfall in the state. The Greens and Labor want to build an incredibly expensive filtration plant, made from mined products and powered by fossil fuel, to filter our wastewater. Why don’t we just capture what falls from the sky? I know what I would rather drink!

And then there's flood mitigation. What do we do when there’s a flood?

Again, a very complex issue, which has multiple layers to be a successful strategy. For the first time in our history, our catchment is being analysed by the CSIRO, in a report called the Northern Rivers Resilience Initiative (NRRI).

Previous councils have spent countless ratepayer funds getting small reports done to mitigate against small to moderate floods. Finally, we are getting a funded report by Australia’s eminent scientific body, to help our region combat major flooding.

The report is due to be released in June of 2025, with practical solutions to potentially reduce the impacts of major flooding for Lismore and the region. I look forward to the findings of this report, as it gives council a measure of how to better protect our businesses and homes. Personally, I will be strongly advocating for every recommendation in the report to be implemented, to give our businesses and ratepayers the confidence and security in the future of Lismore.

My team and I are backing the future of Lismore through sensible and affordable water security and best-practice flood mitigation to enable our city to grow and thrive for generations to come.

Water Water Everywhere by Mayor Steve Krieg