Lithgow has for more than 20 years been drawing water transferred from underground at Clarence Colliery and treated in an award winning plant at Oakey Park before supplementing the town supply from Farmers Creek dam.

The project has been hugely successful thanks to a working relationship between council and Centennial Coal with the quality of the water meeting all standards.

It has also enabled Lithgow to avoid the severity of domestic and commercial water restrictions experienced in many regional locations in drought time.

But Lithgow was only drawing off portion of the water pumped from underground with the remainder left to flow down the other side of the mountain towards the Wollangambe and into the Colo catchment.

The constant flow came to be regarded as an environmental issue and a proposal to amplify the transfer system appeared the best solution with the added benefit of greatly increasing Lithgow’s water capacity.

But while the solution was not in question its implementation became a challenge with various initial stakeholders opting out of financial involvement.

Most notable among these was the then Delta Electricity who instead opted to supplement their Wallerawang power station supply from the nearer Springvale workings.

It became a long process but eventually became a work in progress after substantial funding was made available by the Commonwealth Government.

Problems did not end, however, with the availability of funding as the sections of pipeline that could not be placed underground were destroyed in last October’s bushfires, resulting in insurance claims and further delays.

Finally the amplified system was tested and commissioned a few weeks ago with Lithgow Council told that the project had been a total success.

Today it all becomes official with an official opening on site at Clarence Colliery by Member for Calare John Cobb and mayor Maree Statham.