Wagga's civic leaders believe an angle grinder was used to "sabotage" another part of Lake Albert's water infrastructure in an act of vigilantism that has cost the city thousands of dollars.
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Mayor Greg Conkey and council general manager Peter Thompson have condemned the "deliberate destruction" of a set of gates on a weir that forms part of the lake's dam wall, appealing to the public to help locate the vandals.
Cr Conkey said the removal of the gates disabled the weir, which would have prevented the lake from filling during a major rain event because water would have been diverted into Marshalls Creek.
Cr Conkey said council staff discovered the destroyed gates - which have since been repaired - about a week after unauthorised steel shutters were temporarily erected at Tatton Drain and then removed on January 7.
"We don't know when they were destroyed ... but basically that was sabotage of the lake," he said.
"Not only did the destruction of the weir gates mean the lake could no longer fill to capacity, but it is also a criminal offence to destroy public infrastructure."
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However, Mr Thompson, who has lived in Wagga for three years, was unable to confirm today whether the weir was actually functional before its gates were removed.
"I've not had the pleasure of seeing it work because the lake hasn't been full for a very long time. And maybe that's right, maybe we're all overreacting and someone's taken them off as a stunt and they actually don't perform a function," he said.
"But I find it hard to believe that that would be right. They seem to be to have been built for a very deliberate and specific purpose: to hold water in the lake."
Mr Thompson said a police investigation was ongoing into the destruction of the gates, which council is treating as a separate incident to the Tatton Drain shutters "protest".
Wagga Boat Club commodore Mick Henderson has publicly admitted he was behind the shutters and has been fined $750 by the Natural Resources Access Regulator for the stunt.
Mr Henderson has been bolstered by other members of the community who are similarly frustrated about a lack of action on fixing the lake's low water levels, with supporters crowdfunding to more than cover the cost of the fine.
Cr Conkey said council had "worked extremely hard for quite some time" with politicians and NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment bureaucrats to find a solution to the lake's ongoing water issues.
Council's preferred solution would involve receiving an annual credit for the 5000 megalitres of treated effluent it returns to the Murrumbidgee River and using that credit to pump an additional 2000 megalitres of water into Lake Albert when required.
Mr Thompson said the Tatton Drain shutters had been discussed at a recent meeting with NSW water minister Melinda Pavey, who has agreed to review a proposal from council on its water solution.