Tweed Shire Council has revised the water restrictions it would implement in the event of a drought and is seeking community feedback on those provisions.
“The restrictions have been revised in line with Council’s Water Supply Drought Management Strategy and expanded to include greater detail and more information for residents,” the Director for Community and Natural Resources, David Oxenham, said.
“They identify a greater number of measures to curb water use during a drought, to share the burden and help achieve targets for reduced water consumption.”
Mr Oxenham said a draft of the revised restrictions was on public exhibition from December 5 to Januray 31, 2012 and the community was invited to assess the proposed changes and provide feedback.
“All water users connected to the town water supply would be affected if restrictions were implemented during a drought,” he said.
“Those impacts have been kept to a minimum in the proposed restrictions, while still aiming to achieve the required demand reductions.”
He said the review sought to achieve a number of objectives, including greater consistency with the measures in place for neighbouring regions.
“It also seeks to take advantage of more opportunities to reduce water demand, so the task of cutting consumption is shared among users,” Mr Oxenham said.
“The new restrictions will also provide thorough descriptions of water-saving activities, so they are easier for people to understand and follow.”
He said the amended restrictions also sought to enable Tweed businesses and commercial premises to operate as normally as possible, for as long as possible, without undue hardship.
“The revised water restrictions reflect a desire to minimise the impact on business and commercial water users, while reducing unnecessary water use as the restriction level increases,” he said.
“The residential sector accounts for almost three-quarters of water use in the Tweed. So to be successful, drought restrictions will obviously need to focus on reducing water use in this sector.
“Council’s Demand Management Strategy has other measures which target non-residential water users, to ensure these premises are already efficient water users.”
Copies of the draft water restrictions and an accompanying fact sheet are available to view at Council’s Customer Contact Centres in Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads, as well as the libraries in Kingscliff, Tweed Heads and Murwillumbah.
They can also be viewed and downloaded from Council’s website at www.tweed.nsw.gov.au.
For more information, contact Council’s Demand Management Program Leader, Elizabeth Seidl, on (02) 6670 2400.
