NSW Opposition Leader and Shadow Minister for Western Sydney Peter Debnam and Liberal Candidate for Londonderry Bart Bassett today promoted the NSW Liberal/Nationals plan to help restore the health of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.

“Today Bart Bassett and I have kayaked up the Hawkesbury-Nepean River to inspect the river’s health first-hand,” Mr Debnam said.

“The recent rain in the area has increased the river’s flow and washed some of the weed away,” he said.

“This highlights the importance of maintaining environmental flows to improve the health of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.

“Our ‘New-Water Network’ in Sydney will provide up to 86 billion litres of high grade drinking quality water per year, while maintaining and enhancing environmental flows in our rivers.

“As a first priority we will use this new purified recycled water to take the strain off the existing drinking water supply in our dams by substituting it for water currently used for agriculture, industry and environmental flows in the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.

“The increased environmental flows in the Hawkesbury-Nepean River will help improve the health of the river, helping to tackle the salvinia and alligator weed and the egeria densa.

“The Hawkesbury-Nepean River has been destroyed by 12 years of Labor inaction and only our plan can help restore this wonderful river,” Mr Debnam said.

Mr Bassett said in order to help restore the health of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River we will:

• Purchase a permanent weed harvester for the river;
• Significantly increase environmental flows; and,
• Conduct a Commission of Inquiry into Long-Wall mining of the Nepean and Bargo Rivers.

“A permanent weed harvester will be able to respond to outbreaks of salvinia and alligator weed as they occur and is able to remove the egeria densa growing from the river bed,” Mr Bassett said.

“However, a weed harvester only eases the symptoms rather than cures the disease. The real cause of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River crisis is the lack of environmental flows,” he said.

“Our water plan will help cure the disease by significantly increasing environmental flows down the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.