Member for Goulburn, Wendy Tuckerman, has reaffirmed the state government's commitment to upgrade the Yass water treatment plant.
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Ms Tuckerman said the Safe and Secure Water Program was made to ensure regional communities had access to high quality, reliable and affordable water that met modern environmental and health standards.
"The election commitment to Yass water is subject to the guidelines of the Safe and Secure Water program," Ms Tuckerman said.
"This requires a rigorous design and procurement process as well as ensuring any level of co-contribution from council doesn't overburden rate-payers or require a significant increase in water rates unless approved by the community.
"I am just as frustrated as the community on why these matters take so long to commence.
"After requesting a briefing from the department and council, it was clear to me that councillors needed to be briefed and that a decision to commence stage one was needed to be made by council to progress.
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"Stage one will see improvements to the Raw Water Pump Station, Bubble Aeration and urgent works at the Water Treatment Plant.
"It is agreed that these works will provide a significant improvement to the quality of water, whilst further discussions and planning works on detailed design and Business Case continue.
"While Council are currently in discussion with the department on their preferred option, I believe that consideration needs to be taken on the impacts to local household water charges from a greater project cost.
"These decisions being made need to be challenged, and justified, to ensure the best possible outcome now and into the future.
"Yass residents deserve the water quality issue to be fixed sooner rather than later but they don't need to be paying excessive water rates if it's not needed."
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