The New South Wales government has scrapped one of the largest and most expensive water security projects in the state.  Key points NSW government abandons the proposed expansion of Wyangala Dam near Cowra The project was announced in 2019, with an initial price tag of $650 million  The state government has made the decision after reviewing the final business case Water Minister Rose Jackson has announced Labor will not proceed with an expansion of Wyangala Dam near Cowra in the state’s Central West.  The minister was presented with the project’s final business case several weeks ago and has been reviewing its recommendations.  “Robust investigations show that while raising the wall by 10 metres is technically feasible, it could cause substantial and irreversible environmental impacts,” Ms Jackson said.  “Hydrological modelling also found raising the wall, with a five-metre flood mitigation zone, was also likely to have devastating impacts on the internationally significant downstream environment, resulting in excessive biodiversity offset costs.”  Ms Jackson said $74 million had already been spent during pre-planning works.  “The final cost of delivering this project was likely to be over $4 billion dollars which was 600 times some of the original estimates,” she said. “Terms like significant, catastrophic, irreversible are used repeatedly in the expert business cases, it’s just not foreseeable that a project with that level of environmental impact was ever going to receive planning approval. “The beneficiaries of this project were likely to be less than 1,000 landholders and for $4 billion and catastrophic environmental impact that™s just not justifiable.” The expansion of Wyangala Dam near Cowra was first announced in 2019. The expansion was announced in 2019 by the former state and federal Coalition governments.  They promised $650 million towards the expansion, but the bill ballooned and is now estimated to cost billions of dollars. The project was designed to improve water security and flood management in the Lachlan Valley.      Irrigators at the eastern end of the Lachlan River have been calling for the project to be approved and construction to start in the wake of the 2022 flood disaster . Tom Green from irrigators group Lachlan Valley Water said the government had made the wrong decision.  Tom Green says the decision removes a chance to manage floods and water security into the future. Central West Gavin Coote “Very disappointing and not surprising from a city-centric government and minister who have no interest in the regions,” Mr Green said. “They’ve signed us up to buybacks under the [Murray Darling] Basin Plan and now removing any chance that we had at trying to manage floods and water security into the future.” But farmers on the lower end of the Lachlan raised concerns about the project’s potential impact on downstream water users.  “Anybody who had taken a detailed look into the project realised that it was an ill-conceived project from day one,” Gordon Turner from the Lower Lachlan Wetlands Group said.  “The damage to the environment and the costs and the legal situation [and] engineering factors were pretty nonsensical.” Bev Smiles from the Inland Rivers Network said the expansion did not provide value for money. “The whole project was going to be so expensive that it couldn’t be justified,” she said.  “And particularly in the amount of environmental damage that it was going to cause both in the upper Lachlan and downstream to the lower Lachlan.” The state government said it would now seek feedback on how to address water security, reliability and flood mitigation through the draft Lachlan Regional Water Strategy.  The document is due to go on public exhibition at the end of September.  Find more local news Browse for your location and find more local and information