Indigo mayor Bernard Gaffney considers the water issue in Chiltern “alarming” and believes its cause is much more complex than an isolated incident of construction.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A spokesperson for North East Water said in a statement that the organisation became aware of the issue in August last year, and that they believed “another party dug a hole to enable the installation of signage during street scaping work – since then, water has been observed around the area on an intermittent basis”.
Testing of the water indicated the water was most likely to be from a groundwater spring, “disrupted during the original post-hole digging activity”.
But Cr Gaffney told The Border Mail the cause was yet to be determined.
“The suggestion that putting a sign 10 to 15 centimetres into the ground has disturbed a spring seems a bit strange,” he said.
“There has been groundwater issues in Chiltern for a number of years.
“We first became aware of it when the water was coming up through the road in a small area.
“There is conjecture about where the water is coming from; Chiltern’s water supply used to be from a number of bores and North East Water changed that into a system from the Murray.
“I’m unsure whether the bore water pipes are still under the ground in Chiltern; I suspect they would be and there’s also the current water supply … and an amount of groundwater.
“North East Water and the shire are working together to try and establish the cause.”
After The Border Mail’s reports on the issue on Tuesday, Cr Gaffney visited the Chiltern IGA and The Black Dog Antiques businesses.
“Council is concerned, because Chiltern is a heritage town,” he said.
“I was there this morning … I was alarmed.
“The first matter is to find out the cause and council has engaged an expert consultant.
“Once we have that report – I’ll be asking for it to be prepared as soon as possible – and we’ve found a cause, we can seek a remedy.
Cr Gaffney said he and chief executive Trevor Ierino would be meeting with North East Water next week.
Leigh Shannon, owner of The Black Dog Antiques, said more needed to be done and quickly.
“I wouldn’t want to know what’s underneath my shop at the moment,” he said.
