What a 2012 NSW record says about a fuel plume in Dubbo, and why the date matters before you site a bore

What the record says

The background document to the Macquarie Bogan water sharing plan says a service station site in Dubbo has been declared a site of significant risk of harm to human health and the environment, due to storage tanks leaking and contaminating an area of alluvial groundwater.

It then says that, based on this information, water supply works will not be permitted within 500m of the contaminant plume from this site. The document names no street and no business, and this article does not guess either.

What has changed since

The document is dated September 2012. The plan has since been replaced, and the 2012 provisions were not read in the current plan, so the figure is a record of what was set then. The Department's water resource plan says the current rules have offset distances from known contamination sites and plumes, to limit mobilisation of a plume from pumping. It does not give the distance in the text we read.

What to ask before siting a bore

• The approval: A household bore needs a water supply work approval before drilling, the Department says. Ask whether your site is near a recorded contamination site.
• The distance: Ask the Department what distance applies today, not what the 2012 document recorded.
• The driller: Ask the driller whether they have checked the site against the contamination record, and keep the answer in writing.
• The date: Any figure from a plan document carries a date. Check the date before you rely on the number.