DEAR News Of The Area,
DUNGOG Council’s Mayor Digby Rayward’s comment in your recent issue that: “requesting money for Chichester Dam Road was not a request for special treatment, it is about fairness”, is absolutely spot-on.
That is exactly the case, and has been the case for more than 100 years.
Dungog LGA, because of Chichester Dam, has been supplying the Lower Hunter with the very Elixir of Life. Water.
In return, Dungog and its people have been disadvantaged in many ways.
Most of them are just small inconveniences, but some, while not obvious, are real and onerous.
Some years ago I told one of Hunter Water’s senior functionaries that perhaps a tiny royalty should apply, say .01 cents per litre, payable to Dungog Council.
He reacted with horror. “Oh”, said he,”water is a natural resource.”
My reaction to that is, then what is coal? Governments reap billions from royalties on coal.
With Hunter Water and, by extension, the State Govt, there is a great deal of Take, but very little Give, as far as Chichester Dam is concerned.
While the idea of a royalty – call it what you will – may be never likely to happen, some kind of recompense, if fairness has anything to do with it, must
and should happen.
The restructure of Chichester Dam Road should be the very least to be done by the NSW State Government.
Regards,
Tom Boorer,
Dungog.
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