Several councillors and community members have expressed outrage following the Central Western Daily’s report on Monday that revealed Cadia was disputing the terms of a decade old agreement.

Under the 1998 agreement, council would provide Cadia with approximately eight megalitres of treated effluent per day free of charge for the lifetime of the Cadia Hill goldmine, which was stated to be 12 years.

However Cadia believed the contract applied to the entire Cadia Valley Operations and is understood to have argued the effluent be provided for free for a potential further 30 years.

Councillor Jeremy Buckingham said yesterday early suggestions the mine might pay $300 per megalitre for the effluent were “way short of the mark” and suggested Cadia at least be made to pay the same amount for water as Orange residents do.

According to Cr Buckingham, the current charge per mega litre for households is in the order of $1500 per megalitre.

If such a sale price was realised, Cadia could be forced to pay Orange City Council a whopping $4.3 million per year, a huge financial windfall for ratepayers.

“From my perspective that is the rate that residents have to pay so we should be looking to charge that amount at the very least,” Cr Buckingham said.

“Or the other alternative is that we recycle that effluent, clean it up and put it back into raw water drinking supplies for the city similar to the Toowoomba proposal. All these options should be put to the community to have a discussion about it along the lines of how we should proceed and what price the community expects because it is after all their water.”

Negotiations between council and Cadia are continuing with neither party willing to comment in-depth on the matter.