GMW gave a briefing to councillors on October 2, providing data on what it says is the amount of water which flows through, and is taken from, the aquifer each year.

Cr Larry Goldsworthy put forward a motion on Tuesday night to have that data published on the council website and have GMW staff conduct a community forum, but it was defeated 4-2.

“It is enlightening information, the community should have the benefit of the document that we saw,” he said.

“We should be putting it out to the community, we should get Goulburn Murray Water to come and explain it in a presentation.

“Good, bad or otherwise, that can only be a good thing when it comes to transparency and an ongoing commitment to the Stanley people to ensure they’re informed.”

The Border Mail has seen a copy of the GMW data which states 22,168mL of water flows into the aquifer each year, 1321mL is made available through licences to farmers and commercial entities, and 19mL is used by Black Mountain Spring Water for bottled water each year.

But the accuracy of that data has been disputed by hydrologist Peter Dahlhaus, who says the town’s water comes out of a different aquifer than the company is measuring.

Mayor Bernard Gaffney questioned Cr Goldsworthy about the qualifications of GMW staff.

“(Dr Dahlhaus said) the proposed annual removal of 19mL of groundwater … will impact on the availability of water to sustain agricultural activity,” he said. “That’s a complete contradiction of what the (GMW) staff members with unknown qualifications told this council.”

Cr Sophie Price said she was not opposed to people seeing that data, but did not want it used to undermine the debate.

“I don’t think I or, as a council, we need to inform the community,” she said.

“They (Stanley residents) came to us very much informed and they’ve been pursuing this of their own accord very well and they’ve certainly sought to inform us.”

Only Cr James Trenery supported Cr Goldsworthy’s motion to release the data to the public.

“We should be open. In a debate, these facts need to be debated ... It’s a serious issue for a lot of different reasons,” he said.

“All the information that’s available to us should be available to the community.

“We’re talking about truck movements, we’re talking about water, we’re talking about plastics - it’s very important we have all the facts out there.”

Cr Goldsworthy said GMW published the data itself on its website on Thursday, but claims when he tried to post this update on the Beechoworth Community Facebook page, the council asked the administrator to delete his post.

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