With plans for a new dam stalled by a public backlash, a water supplier from the NSW far north coast is setting its sights underground.
Rous County Council supplies drinking water to the Lismore, Ballina, Richmond Valley, and Byron shires.
A recent report from the organisation showed it expected demand for water would outstrip "secure yield" next year.
"Security is factoring impacts associated with climate change, the variability of rainfall pattern, things like that," said Rous general manager Phillip Rudd.
"It doesn't mean we'll run out of water.
"It does mean we run a higher likelihood of needing longer and more water restrictions unless we improve the security of our water supply."
The Rous County Council voted this week to put its draft operational plan on public exhibition on its website.
It includes $156 million for a future water program, with the vast majority — more than $130 million — to be spent investigating and establishing a water supply from underground aquifers over the next decade.
An extensive and controversial public consultation period in 2021 led to Rous setting aside plans to build a new dam at Dunoon to secure its water supply in the short term.
Work is underway on bores near Alstonville as part of the early stages of the program, with bores sunk into the deep Clarence-Moreton aquifer.
Mr Rudd said Rous was investigating sites around Woodburn and Tyagarah as part of a longer-term strategy.
"We've got a number of investigations that are underway, which would look at additional groundwater sites, potentially desalination, recycled water, and other surface water storage systems, so it's quite a large number of options that we're going through," he said.
Land acquisition on the cards
The operational plan set aside $19 million for land acquisition for the groundwater supply network.
Mr Rudd said land for acquisition could not be identified until investigations were complete.
He said he was not planning to make compulsory land acquisitions.
"Our approach is always voluntary first," he said.
"Historically, that's been quite successful in our approach. But until we're at that point, I'm just not in a position to comment that it's going to be a problem or not."
'A wicked problem'
Byron Shire Mayor Michael Lyon said he had serious concerns about the environmental effects of sourcing groundwater from Tyagarah, a coastal area just north of Byron Bay.
"We're only at the stage now of starting the investigation as to whether that is viable," he said.
"It is next to a sensitive coastal area and wetland, so I certainly have my doubts."
But he said long-term water availability was a challenge the community would need to address.
"It's a wicked problem," he said.
"We've got projected demand in the area in terms of the growth of the natural population and our water usage [and] we're experiencing over time what's expected to be a drying climate.
"Doing nothing isn't an option and we are going to be facing some difficult choices, I would suggest, in the not-too-distant future."
