BROKE residents have welcomed assistance from a local mining company in pumping stagnant water from their properties, but Hunter MPs are divided.
The yard of Michael Wilson's Singleton Street property was inundated during the floods earlier this month. He said the water came up to chest height in low-lying parts of the backyard.
Having been evacuated on the morning of July 6, Mr Wilson and his partner returned in the following days to begin the clean up of large pools of water.
"The RFS came, plonked a fire engine out the front, pumped water across the road and realised they were getting nowhere," Mr Wilson said. "Broke is a very sandy area and because the water table so high when you pumped the water across the road it was back the next day."
Following instruction from the Local Recovery Committee - comprised of Singleton council and agencies including NSW Police, SES, RFS, ADF, Fire and Rescue NSW, Resilience NSW, NSW Health, and Local Land Services - along with NSW EPA, residents in Broke stopped pumping water from their properties last week.
On Tuesday afternoon, pumping resumed in parts of Broke with assistance from Bulga Coal. Describing the mining company as "phenomenal" in the clean-up effort, Mr Wilson said the water on his property substantially reduced as pumps ran overnight.
"Whether it comes back is waiting to be seen."
NSW Police local emergency operations controller Joanne Shultz said water being pumped is an exception to the instruction because it is standing water which isn't impacting erosion holes and is "particularly dangerous".
Labor's federal MP in the Hunter Dan Repacholi has been vocal in recent days about the need residents have to remove "foul smelling" stagnant water from their properties.
"A number of property owners have been forced to turn off pumps that have been operating for the last two weeks," Mr Repacholi said. "They want to be able to pump the water out, whether by truck or along the natural causeways so they can get on with fixing up their home.
"But the NSW EPA have stopped residents pumping water off their properties and haven't offered a solution for how they will be able to get rid of the water."
Upper Hunter state MP Dave Layzell, Nationals, disagreed with Mr Repacholi and said he "fully supports" decisions made by the Recovery Committee.
"The pumping is still happening," Mr Layzell said. "We just don't want people pumping onto neighbours properties or pumping out of holes and potentially causing more problems."
