My mate Tubby Allen is a hardworking farmer from Burcher in western NSW (Burcher is about 84km west of Forbes) A better bloke you’ll struggle to find. I’ve known him for years, but don’t ask for his real name. “Tubby” is all anyone has ever needed.
When Tubby reaches out, it’s because there’s a real problem. This time, it’s water.
Burcher is on Level 6 restrictions. But in Burcher, it’s worse again. The village water supply is raw, non-potable water and must not be used for drinking, cooking, or showering. In plain English, the water is only good for flushing the toilet.
Today, the village dam is completely dry.
So, the council is trucking in water on a 135km round trip to keep the village going. The overhead reservoir gauge hasn’t worked in years, and you need a cherry picker to access it, so a refill isn’t determined until the taps near run dry.
Burcher people are big-hearted, laying out a traditional home-cooked spread when I visit. But just picture these families sitting around their kitchen tables, budgeting for bottled water and fuel just to get through the week.
Then add bushfire risk. Burcher sits in a pine forest. The fire brigade has been told not to use the carted water to refill their truck; in a fire, they must call in a bulk tanker from nearly 70km away – not much chop when a north-westerly is fanning flames and every second counts.
Burcher should shock us. But they’re not alone.
Across NSW, towns are tightening water restrictions after a hot summer and little rainfall. Coonamble has faced town water failures and survived on council-funded bottled water for several weeks. Large towns still lack proper filtration and treatment plants, and the tap water flows the colour of an Australian Breakfast tea.
At the same time, the NSW Minns Government is shelving solutions faster than a ribbon-cutting in Western Sydney. Gone are the long-awaited weir replacement at Wilcannia and the Nyngan-to-Cobar pipeline, two of hundreds of critical town-water infrastructure projects that would ensure rural communities are afforded the dignity of safe, clean drinking water.
The water minister blames cost blowouts and a lack of support from the Commonwealth government – galling to small communities watching their city cousins enjoy water security without a second thought.
So where do communities go for help? The short answer is “nowhere.”
The Coalition-era $1.1 billion to fund town water infrastructure is now fully spoken for, and the Labor Government’s own documents confirm not a single dollar has been added to the kitty for three years. The Australian Government’s National Water Grid was meant as a backstop, but its door has closed too.
Worse still, it doesn’t have a fully costed backlog list for town water and sewerage projects across NSW. All accounts suggest the backlog sits between $1 billion, identified by the NSW Auditor-General, and $5.6 billion, identified by Local Government NSW.
Tubby and his neighbours aren’t asking for miracles. They’re asking for safe, reliable water – so their kids can drink from the tap, their towns can grow, and places like Burcher don’t disappear into the history books.
