19 June, 2014 2:56PM AEST

Proposed dam will destroy 'significant' caves: scientist

If a new dam is built on the Belubula River at Needles Gap, chances are, a network of virtually untouched caves will be flooded, and valuable information will be lost forever.

  • Print Print page
  • Email Email this
  • Permalink Permalink
  • Share

That's the warning from a leading scientist and caving society in the NSW central west.

Earlier this week, the NSW Government announced a $1m funding allocation in the state budget for a feasibility and scoping study to be carried out for a new dam to be built on the Belubula River at Needles Gap.

While the project is in its infancy, there's concern that the construction of a dam will wipe-out geologically significant fossil deposits, a hot spring, and the Cliefden Caves.

While the caves have remained virtually untouched, as they're located on a private property, there's a fear that valuable scientific information will be lost.

"Once the caves go under water, they'll basically fill up with silt and it'll destroy all the beautiful decorations and a lot of the fossil records," says the Vice President of the Orange Speleological Society, Denis Marsh.

"It's quite renowned as a significant fossil site. There's been 32 new species of fossil identified in the area and a lot of universities come up to do studies and teach students."

The potential Needles Gap dam will fill with water from the Carcoar Dam's downstream runoff.

"It's questionable whether there'll be enough flows to warrant putting a dam at the site," says Denis.

"The National Parks and Wildlife Service have done an assessment of the caves. They've been identified as quite significant and have been listed on the register of the national estate as needing [ongoing] protection.

"They've been well protected and well preserved. They're still in pristine condition because they've been located on private property and there's not access to the caves."

Armstrong Osborne is an Associate Professor and caves specialist at the University of Sydney.

He did research into the Cliefden Caves in 1976 when the idea for a dam was initially floated, and says the caves have high significance.

"These are some of the oldest marine fossils in New South Wales," he says.

"There's a whole range of different sorts of fossils; there's what might be the world's oldest reef- it's not a coral reef, it's a reef made-up of large shells.

"What's important about the Cliefden area is not just the caves, but also a very important, internationally significant fossil deposit on the site; and the caves also contain some rather unusual mineral deposits."

The site is also home to a rare 'maze cave'.

"This is a cave that has a pattern like criss-crossing lines. Inside the cave there are right-angled junctions with small passages running almost at right-angles to each other.

"Caves contain evidence of events that aren't preserved in the general geological section, so you can find out information about climatic information that we don't know about."

Assc. Prof. Osborne says there're a limited number of things that can be done to save the caves from inundation.

"When the dam disappeared in the 1970s, people never thought it would come back again.

"[The caves] are listed on the register of the national estate, but it was sort of de-commissioned a few years ago, and sites like Cliefden were supposed to be transferred to the State Heritage Register, but it simply didn't happen; so they're in this weird sort of limbo.

"The government is hardly likely to buy [the site] if they want to flood it."

With a lot more scientific research on the caves still to be done, Assc. Prof. Osborne says the dam shouldn't go ahead.

"What we're doing now is mobilising a group of people to try and catch-up on the science. Things will be happening and we're expecting to have a scientific seminar [about the site] sometime next year.

"The present arrangements work extremely well, [and] we don't need them flooded. Lots of really important sites aren't converted into tourist attractions."

Assc. Prof. Osborne spoke to ABC Central West Mornings presenter, Kia Handley.