Wheatbelt NRM project officer Don Woodcock.
Camera IconWheatbelt NRM project officer Don Woodcock. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Grants on offer to Wheatbelt towns

Staff ReporterHills Avon Valley Gazette

York, Northam and Toodyay are among the seven shires that have access to the funding.

Lake Grace, Kulin, Nungarin and Merre-din will also share in the funding from the Wheatbelt Natural Resource Management group.

The seven shires can use the funds to help build infrastructure to harvest rainwater and then use it on recreational sites in the towns.

PerthNow Digital Edition.
Your local paper, whenever you want it.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

Wheatbelt NRM project officer Don Woodcock said infrastructure included dams, the installation of tanks, drainage and curbing.

‘Each year hundreds of thousands of litres of good quality water is lost during rainfall events as run-off and evaporation,’ Mr Woodcock said.

‘By harvesting this we can then put it to good use on our sporting ovals and recreational areas.

‘We already know Wheatbelt towns use on average 50 per cent of their bought water on gardens and parks.

‘This storm water would then help to replace this expensive, high-quality scheme water that is now pumped from Perth to do the job.’

The Shire of Nor-tham received almost $1 million through the project.

Shire president Ste- ven Pollard said the money would go to its Wundowie storm-water harvesting project.

‘We already use storm water from the Wundowie dam to reticulate ovals in the area, but we now want to increase this to include Bakers Hill,’ Mr Pollard said.

‘A part of the project is fitting a cover to the dam to help stop evaporation.

‘The extra water will then be piped to Bakers Hill to reticulate the town oval and used to top up water supplies for fire fighting.’