Paul Wettin --"Council wants the pipeline and that's it."

As Orange City Council’s controversial Macquarie River Pipeline project faces state government environmental scrutiny, its opponents have vowed to continue investigating alternatives to the $47 million scheme.

The Orange and Region Waster Security Alliance – an amalgamation of several local organisations opposed to the pipeline – believes the council hasn’t put enough time and effort into studying alternative water security resources such as stormwater harvesting and waste water management.

It says the project should be put on hold while a far wider probe into the options goes ahead.

The alliance is said to be particularly concerned that the pipeline issue itself was not tabled for discussion at a forum this week of the important Integrated Water Cycle Management Strategy Project Reference Group — representing the city council, consultants and community representatives – which presides over Orange’s future water security.

Says the opposition Orange Ratepayers Association secretary, Janette Churchill : “When we asked why the pipeline wasn’t on the agenda, we were told it now doesn’t need to be part of the management strategy because the city council has already formally approved it.

“In other words, it’s a done deal.”

The reaction of the alliance’s spokesperson,  hydrologist Paul Wettin, was equally blunt. “The city council wants the pipeline, and that’s it.”

The alliance held a workshop and another public forum of its own this week, attended by the Greens city councillor and NSW MLC Jeremy Buckingham and Cr Neil Jones, at which the non-pipeline options were discussed.

With both sides of the pipeline controversy now firmly squared off against each other, and the state government  environmental  assessments seen as the next major pipeline development, Orange News Now has conducted a full ONN Video interview with Paul Wettin which deals with the chief points that the opposition is citing in the controversy.

The interview covers such issues as Orange’s status as a city without a river or big standing water resource of its own, the trout cod environmental concern that’s now been injected into the debate, the capital and running cost of the pipeline project, the key alternative to the pipeline – increased stormwater harvesting – and whether the pipeline would actually guarantee water security in event of another severe drought.

It’s the other side of the Macquarie River row– in a full ONN interview: