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Effective immediately, Tweed Shire Council has today lifted water restrictions for Tyalgum after recent rain provided a welcome boost to the village’s Oxley River water supply.
Water and Wastewater Business and Assets Acting Manager Elizabeth Seidl said Council had been monitoring inflows to the river for the past 2 weeks and was confident the river flow was now high enough to lift restrictions.
However, restrictions will be introduced again if there is no significant rainfall in coming weeks.
“We’re hoping it won’t come to that but the Bureau of Meteorology is continuing to forecast less rainfall than usual because the drier El Nino weather pattern remains active in our region and looks set to intensify over summer,” Ms Seidl said.
“As the weather gets hotter, it remains vital that everyone in the Tweed, including the Tyalgum community, continues to save water now to make our limited supply last as long as possible.”
Level 2 water restrictions came into force for Tyalgum on 26 October when the amount of water in the Tyalgum weir pool dropped to a critical level.
“Lifting restrictions is such a welcome relief for Tyalgum and I thank the community for working together to save water by following the restrictions for the past 3 weeks,” Ms Seidl said.
“While Tyalgum can now join the rest of the Tweed in using water at any time of the day or night, I encourage everyone to be mindful of their water use and do what they can to continue to save water.”
Go to tweed.nsw.gov.au/water-savings-restrictions for water-saving tips.
Ms Seidl said recent rains had made little impact on the water level at Clarrie Hall Dam, yet rainfall had increased the flow of the Tweed River.
“For now, we’re back to relying on the Tweed River as our source of water for most of the Shire,” she said.
“Without additional rain, the river flow will reduce again and we will return to releasing water from the dam. We started releasing water in late September and since then, the dam’s capacity has fallen from 100 to 95%.
“We will have to enforce Level 1 water restrictions for most of the Tweed when the dam capacity falls below 85%.”
Council is currently completing planning works for the proposed raising of Clarrie Hall Dam to increase the volume of water that can be stored, securing our water supply in the face of climate change and population growth.
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