This future could be one of permanent drought for the small rural community, should the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) recommend its proposed water recovery from the Namoi Valley under the northern basin review

This would involve taking 23,000 megalitres of water from farms in and around Wee Waa, which is estimated to result in the loss of 70 full-time jobs and $38 million a year from the region’s economy.

Faced with the very real possibility of becoming a ghost town, the community of Wee Waa has taken a very public stand against the MDBA with the launch of their Saving Wee Waa campaign.

Central to the campaign has been two short videos highlighting how the proposed review could affect the agricultural town.

Since the first clip was released in August, it has been viewed more than 300,000 times and shared more than 7,000.

Last week a petition was launched with the aim of getting 1,000 signatures before it will be sent to Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and NSW Water Minister Niall Blair. On Friday, the petition had received 972 signatures. 

“What we’re trying to achieve is to get the decision-makers to recognise that taking water away from the irrigation industry is not going to give the environmental outcomes that they’re looking for,” Wee Waa business owner Kerry Watts said.

According to Wee Waa farmer Daniel Kahl, the MDBA’s approach to river health is to keep adding water, with the aim coordinate the water that they recover into environmental flows which would run out the other end of the system – basically a simulated flood event.

However, the recent floods are proving this plan – to release 60,000 megalitres of water a day in environmental flows – is not viable.

“Mother nature has done us a bit of a favour at the moment,” Mr Kahl said. “There’s 36,000 megalitres of water crossing the South Australian border each day. If that sort of natural event has occurred, how can the MDBA possibly say we need to add more water when this is what’s happening?”

“The just adding water approach isn’t working; it’s not going to work and it’s not going to deliver the environmental outcomes that the MDBA want to see.”

The Saving Wee Waa campaign has come up with a number of alternative solutions to the just add water approach, such as installing fishways, getting rid of carp and addressing cold water pollution. These would improve the river health and achieve the MDBA’s desired outcomes without taking the water from Wee Waa, which is 90 per cent reliant on agriculture.

In the town of 2,000, water keeps people in school, keeps people in jobs and keeps businesses running.

Mr Watts’ business, Grown Agriculture, is just one of the businesses that will suffer if water is taken from local farms.

“My business is reliant on irrigation – if it wasn’t for irrigation we wouldn’t have a business in Wee Waa,” Mr Watts said. “We’re not a big business, but we employ three people who put money back into town.”

Mr Watts said if agricultural businesses start closing, the impact will be felt throughout the whole town and even further afield.

“Things like schools, engineering businesses, electricians, hairdressers, plumbers - there’s less people to keep them in a job and once they leave, you don’t get them back.”

“It’ll spread to Narrabri and Tamworth where people from Wee Waa go to shop.”

The Saving Wee Waa petition and videos can be found on their Facebook page.