Traditional owners welcome scrapping of plan to raise Warragamba dam wall

Gundungurra woman Kazan Brown at Warragamba dam. The decision not to raise the dam wall is ‘a big weight off our shoulders’, she says. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Indigenous groups are celebrating “a bit of a win” after the New South Wales government cancelled plans to raise the wall of Sydney’s main dam, a move that would have inundated more than 300 cultural heritage sites.

The proposal to raise Warragamba dam by 14 metres to reduce flood risks in the Hawkesbury-Nepean valley was formally extinguished this week with the government withdrawing its listing as critical state infrastructure.