City ticks $1.6 million water project at golf course as Lynas looks to take its full quota of recycled water

The city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder will progress plans for a $1.6 million expansion of the Kalgoorlie Golf Course dam after councillors agreed more water storage was vital for the city’s development. While all councillors seemed to agree water was a priority for the city, it was not a unanimous vote for the dam project, after Cr Carla Viskovich raised a slight amendment that alternative locations at the golf course be investigated and all sites be presented to the council. However, the amendment still kept the original motion, which was to allocate funding through the mid-year budget review for implementation of the Golf Course Water Bank project. Crs Terrence Winner and Nardia Turner, who earlier in the discussion spoke in support of the original motion, spoke against the amended motion, with concerns it would delay the process further. They were joined by Cr Deborah Botica in voting against the motion. “I believe we need to be doing more than just considering locations,” Cr Winner said. “The hard fact is that we need more water if we’re going to continue to attract housing developments, industry growth and community asset development, and trying to stretch what we have now to cover all we have and all we want is not practical and quite simply just won’t work. “For the past two years or more I’ve heard that we’re going to have water bank projects up exploring options to have other catchments of water, and then we defer them for whatever reason — whether it’s funding, whether we think that there’s a better opportunity — and here we are several years down the track, and we have done nothing about enhancing our water catchment and our water storage,” Cr Turner said. “If we have . . . something that is ready to go, a project that is shovel-ready, and that we can allocate mid-year funds to, I want to look at proceeding there.” Mayor Glenn Wilson supported the amended motion, saying it would achieve the same result as the original motion as it did not look to delay any action, it would just provide alternative locations to the council. When asked on Tuesday by the Kalgoorlie Miner if the city had enough water to continue servicing local parks, schools and the golf and race courses once Lynas took its full contracted amount, Mr Wilson said the council was always reviewing its water supply and managing it to the best of its ability. He confirmed buying more water from Water Corporation could be an option if the need arose. The amended motion by Cr Viskovich came after Cr Wayne Johnson raised questions over alternative locations and how long the proposed dam capacity would last through the summer months, as he believed the area could capture closer to 300 megalitres of water. While he was unable to answer the second question at Monday night’s meeting, city chief executive Andrew Brien said alternative locations could be considered during the project’s detailed design stage. The project is a priority for the city as Lynas Rare Earths recently announced it would need its full contracted quota of 1.7 gigalitres of recycled water in “early 2025”. The city provides recycled water to various facilities, including the golf course, schools, parks and Kalgoorlie-Boulder Racing Club, and will need to find alternative options to maintain its commitments. The Golf Course Water Bank Project is expected to eliminate the course’s reliance on the city’s recycled water by capturing stormwater, which currently creates flooding problems in the area, and using it for irrigation. The project would enlarge the existing dam from 27.4ML to 45.8ML by excavating it to 7m, provide a transfer scheme for water from upstream golf course ponds and other catchment areas draining to the golf course irrigation dam. It would also upgrade the access track water crossing to the dam. The dam is estimated to meet the course’s demand 75 per cent of the time, with the Water Corporation likely to supply the remaining 25 per cent. Mr Wilson told the Kalgoorlie Miner on Tuesday a probity report into the water contract entered into by the city was continuing to progress. The report was endorsed by the council in January.