Dear Editor,
In response to the decision by the Office of Environment and Heritage to include in its listings The Ben Hall Sites – Cliefden (Cleifden Caves et al).
We now have a situation where a small group of people, most of whom have no other association with the Belabula Valley and its economic survival, have engineered the locking away of an area that might have become part of an economic benefit to the Belabula River and Valley in the construction of the Cranky Rock Dam. This dam would have held water for the dry times experienced in the future because of diminishing rainfall generally across Australian agricultural areas, and some of those effects will be drinking water shortages in all the tablelands towns and villages.
The reality is that this ‘screeching’ group have dictated their objectives onto the wider affected population in the area of Canowindra and similar without any input from the communities affected other than from a small number of small intellect people who will have their way at the expense of rational behavior.
I think that if the question was put, ‘Do you wish to continue to receive fresh, clean, drinking water into the future’, the answer might be a resounding ‘YES’, as against the realisation that water rationing could be their future when the present storage at Carcoar is depleted in dry times with no backup storage.
Regards
Bob Sherwood