Communities on the Darling River are crying out for more meaningful consultation amid a rapid decline in local population and a lack of water security during drought.

Federal Nationals Senator Ross Cadell and Federal Member for Parkes Jamie Chaffey recently met with locals in Bourke and visited Louth's weir.

“What we heard was that communities don’t want things done to them, but rather want things done for them,” Cadell said.

“The people of Louth feel that they are not being included in planning for changes to the town’s weir infrastructure.

“Beyond that, these communities feel at the mercy of threats by State Government agencies who believe they know best for communities within the basin.

“It appears the Government is putting the environment before people.”

 A current proposal, put forward by the NSW State Government, intends to reduce the height of the weir by 10cm with an eye to the construction of a fish bridge.

“In times of drought, the people of Louth rely on this water source to continue doing business," said Cadell.

“By reducing the height of the weir, you’re compromising the water supply of local communities.”

A state inquiry into the Water Act chaired by Barwon MP Roy Butler visited Wilcannia on 14 August 14.

Community membesr told them problems in Bourke and Louth were also effecting Wilcannia, claiming the river has sunk to an all time low with cotton farmers over extracting water.

"The problems with weirs is a schemozzle and cotton farmers have got greedy further west," the chairman of Wilcannia Tourism said.

State member for Barwon Roy Butler at Wilcannia for an Inquiry hearing. [IMAGE SUPPLIED]

The NSW Department of Climate, Energy, Environment and Water has told the Western Plains App rhwey have been consulting closely with the community, Aboriginal Elders and other key stakeholders on this important project since 2023.

"Most recently, we held face-to-face meetings in Walgett and Collarenebri at the start of August and additional meetings are planned for Louth and Tilpa in coming weeks, after bad weather closed roads and postponed our recent visit," a DCEEW spokesperson said.

"We’ve heard loud and clear the community’s concerns about lowering the height of weirs and the need to safeguard local water storage.

"We’ve also heard protecting the environment, river systems and fish health are valued priorities in our communities."

 Federal Member for Parkes Jamie Chaffey described the situation as yet another example of how the current State and Federal Labors governments were disconnecting from regional communities and allowing those who are not democratically elected make the decisions.

“The Louth Weir could be raised with little to no effect on the environment, ensuring both water security for local communities, and a healthier environment for fish,” Chaffey said.

“Without a secure water supply, industrial and agricultural productivity has plummeted, along with local population.

“I’ve recently heard that in Bourke alone, the population has dropped by 40% since the turn of the century.’’

The Department spokesperson for Minister Penny Sharpe said the project aims to create a ‘fish highway’ by installing fishways on existing weirs at Tilpa, Louth, Calmundi and Banarway, reinstating 506km of connectivity along the Barwon-Darling, boosting the health of the system and benefiting all users.

Aerial view of a concept design for Calmundi Weir fishway as at March 2024. [IMAGE: DCEEW]

"While a slight lowering of the weirs is needed to install these partial rock-ramp fishways, we’ve revised the design in response to community feedback so the reduction in height is only 10cm in a small section of the weir, far less than the original 40cm proposal,"she said.

"It’s important to remember these weirs were built back in the 1950s and are leaking, resulting in millions of litres of water being lost every year.

"The work we are doing will not just install fishways, it will fix the leaks in the four weirs to bring water loss down."

The spokesperson said the independently reviewed water balance model shows the upgraded Calmundi and Banarway weirs will actually boost net water storage duration by an extra 164 days for Calmundi and an extra 4 days for Banarway.  

The model shows a small net loss of 3 days storage at Louth and 5 days storage at Tilpa.  

‘’To compensate for this, we are planning to build 0.5 ML off-river storages at both Louth and Tilpa which will more than cover any water loss, meaning there will actually be a net improvement in water capacity.

"This is great news for the community because it means more water security for dry times and a healthier river system for the long term."

The $56.8 million project is funded under the Australian Government’s Northern Basin Toolkit, supporting a 70 gigalitre reduction in Basin Plan water recovery targets.