Lithgow City Council

The Fish River Water Supply - Drought Management Strategy formally adopted by the Fish River Water Supply Management Board.

The Drought Management Committee was formed when the level of Oberon Dam reached 60% capacity. The membership of the Committee is made up of the major consumers, including Lithgow City Council and any other parties deemed appropriate.

Fish River Water sources of water are the Oberon Dam capacity 45,400ML and the Duckmaloi Weir 20ML. Water gravitates to the scheme with pressure booster stations at Narrowneck and Mt Piper.

Description of Major Consumers Schemes

LCC have Farmers Creek Dam (FCD) 450ML which is fed from natural runoff and can be supplemented from the Clarence Colliery Transfer System. LCC generally allow FCD to go 1 metre down (88%) before requesting either supplementary water from Clarence or from FRWS via MV3. The choice of supply is dependent upon climate and other factors. The Clarence Transfer system can currently transfer up to 5 to 6ML per day.

Delta Electricity (DE)

Delta Electricity has 3 major storage's. Thompson's Creek Dam 27,500ML, Lake Wallace 3,230ML and Lake Lyell 31,500ML. Water can be pumped from Lake Lyell to either of the other storage's as required. Delta Electricity has a sophisticated control and monitoring systems used to control the movement of water between each storage. Delta has a set of operating rules in accordance with their Drought Management Plan, which is consistent with their overall water extraction licence issued by DLWC.

The SCA is supplied by FRWS's Stage 3 Pipeline to Leura reservoirs and then to the three Cascade dams at Katoomba. Gravity transfer is 10ML/d and this can be increased to 14 ML/d with the use of the Narrowneck booster water pumping station. The capacity of all three Cascade dams is 2181ML. The SCA supplies water sourced from FRWS and its own dams to Sydney Water Catchment's Cascade WFP. SWC has the ability to reduce demands on the Cascade WFP by re-zoning parts of the distribution system in the Blue Mountains on the Orchard Hills WFP.

The Oberon Council obtains water from the FRWS scheme via a pumping station capable of delivering 6.5ML/day. Oberon Council has a microfiltration treatment plant feeding two reservoirs of 1.1 and 3ML capacity respectively.

The aim of the FRWS Board is to only introduce restrictions by negotiation and agreement with all parties concerned. The basis of the restrictions are "That major centres should never run out water". Within this context, this means Oberon, Lithgow and villages, the Blue Mountains and the potable requirements for Delta Electricity.

Given the current water supply situation capital works will be constructed to ensure that the maximum water yield to the system is achieved in accordance with all other legislation, guidelines and Committee recommendations. Capital Works expenditure will need to be approved by the Management Board prior to construction. The timing and implementation of capital works needs to ensure that the FRWS does not fall to critical levels.

Lithgow City will need to meet 100% of its demand from the Clarence Colliery Transfer System by January 2004. This will mean the construction of additional transfer and treatment capacity within the Council system, as well as the construction of a booster tank on the western fringe of the Lithgow township to provide Farmers Creek/Clarence Colliery water to the Lithgow villages.

I am pleased to advise that major capital works have already been undertaken to ensure Council's ongoing water supply in the form of the recommissioning of the Clarence Transfer System including infrastructure to allow for the correction of the PH level as well as the removal of iron and manganese.

These works have been carried out over the past four-month period and as such very few water quality complaints have been received through the Engineering Services Division.

It is intended to provide Council with a detailed three weekly report pertaining to the Fish River Water Supply Drought Management Strategy until such time as water storage levels return to normality.