After enduring years of drought, farmers are suddenly faced with the prospect of flooding rains as the Burrinjuck and Blowering dams reach threatening levels.
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WaterNSW's Tony Weber said it was not yet a cause for alarm, but that they would have to keep a close eye on both dams to prevent towns from being flooded.
Burrinjuck is sitting at 82 per cent and Blowering is hovering at around 76 per cent, which is not far off from the levels they were at in 2016 when whole towns across the Riverina were inundated.
However Mr Weber said spring forecasts were looking sufficiently dry to allay fears, insisting it was not necessary at this stage to pre-release water to empty the dam.
"Neither the storage level nor the forecasts, give us any cause for concern at present - we're monitoring the situation and are talking to the bureau of meteorology," Mr Weber said.
"If there was a wet catchment and a forecast from the bureau that says there's a high probability of a significant inflow event, that might cause us to consider some pre-releases - at 82 per cent we probably wouldn't do that."
Farmer and lawyer Tim Abbott slammed WaterNSW for their inaction, claiming it was partially their fault his North Wagga property was flooded back in 2012.
Mr Abbott said WaterNSW should release water more proactively, that their refusal to do so was "the reverse of common sense", and that it had come at the cost of Wagga landholders.
"Whenever you get a river flood, people along the river like myself get flooded out, and it does have an economic affect," Mr Abbott said.
"The worrying thing would be to see North Wagga go under again - that would be absolutely devastating to see that happen again this year."
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However Riverglade Caravan Park manager Matt Pearce said WaterNSW had handled the 2016 floods exceptionally well, saying they managed to save his caravan park from being flooded.
"They were pretty good with their predictions and working out exactly how much water they could release without causing a major flood," Mr Pearce said.
"Had they not done what they did we would have had a major flood in the weeks following because they wouldn't have had the capacity in the dam to hold the rain we received."
However Mr Pearce said he was worried about the threat of flooding, saying it would be yet another blow to a region that was still hurting from a series of disasters.
"Given we've had the fires, COVID-19, and basically no winter income because of Mount Selwyn closing, we definitely need a big summer and October is our biggest month of the year," Mr Pearce said.
"We don't want to be evacuating people or having to cancel bookings because we've got concerns about the river - we definitely don't need that right now."