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Vol 2 No 4 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2022 ISSN 2653-1550
COMMUNITY GROUP MAKES NEW PIPELINE PITCH
WE NEED WATER A NEW Loddon pipeline running from Campbells Forest to Derby would secure the area’s water future. Campbells Forest Community Action Planning Group wants better and more accurate data they say will prove groundwater supplies are not available to district farmers and back its bid.
Group secretary Toni Shea said a $10,000 grant from Loddon Shire to prepare a hydrology report and business case for a pipeline was a vital step in the community’s advocacy for a stock and domestic pipeline. “The community has been calling for a pipeline for 20 years. Back in the early 1900s there were plans to pipe water from Cairn Curran,” she said.
“Our district needed water back then, we’ve always needed water and we need it still.” Toni said despite a wet winter and summer, farmers still had to cart water to spray on cereal crops. “There might be full dams but that water is not of the quality to be used on crops,” she said. The community group was told by the State Government
in late 2019 that it should look to groundwater for future supply but Toni said: “If there was groundwater, we wouldn’t need a pipeline”. She said new studies and reports would improve the accuracy and integrity of data for government to consider a pipeline. “We know there’s no groundwater and have taken the lead to have a proper investigation,”
she said. “The current data on groundwater in the district has questionable integrity. “Currently, Campbells Forest sits surrounded by a lot of pipelines but connected to none.” Investigations in 2019 by the Government, Coliban Water, Goulburn-Murray Water and and Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water showed a pipeline would cost $27 million.
Cheers to Saturday soiree RACHEL Buckley and Lisa Calandro were a sparkling pair when theatrical gondoliers berthed in the Loddon on Saturday. The locals clinked champagne glasses before the Inglewood Town Hall performance of The Gondoliers by Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria. Rachel, from Dunolly, and Inglewood’s Lisa were part of a full-house audience, smartly decked out in traditional striped shirts of a gondolier and the boater hat part of the uniform since a 1950’s movie set in Venice popularised the head wear. For the society, Saturday’s performance came after scheduled shows had been cancelled three times in two years. LH PHOTO
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