General News
7 May, 2026
Great water mystery continues at Hermidale
The mystery of the missing water at Hermidale is no closer to being solved.
The mystery of the missing water at Hermidale is no closer to being solved despite a dedicated investigation by Bogan Shire Council staff which has included the placement of meters on the village tanks.
Roughly 89 Olympic swimming pools of water apparently passed through the meter at the Hermidale village offtake on the Nyngan to Cobar pipeline between July and December 2025.
The sudden increase in the amount of water being used by the village, which has around 30 households, has confounded council staff.
Bogan Shire Council's director of infrastructure services, Grayden Curry, updated councillors on the intriguing matter at the March council meeting, but was unable to shed any new light on where such a large volume of water had gone.
Council was alerted to the issue when it received an unusually expensive bill ($65,000) from the Cobar Water Board for the period.
Although the sudden increase in water extraction coincided with a dry period when there was little rainfall to fill the village dam, Mr Curry said this could not explain why such a large volume of water would be taken from the pipeline.
There are two relatively small overhead tanks in the Hermidale village which draw from the pipeline and council has now placed meters on these.
Mr Curry said the amount of water taken this year was small and did not suggest residents were in the habit of using them excessively.
Hermidale residents are not metered for water consumption, but pay a flat rate to be supplied with untreated water.
The overhead tanks can be accessed by the public, and cannot be locked as they are used for firefighting purposes.
Councillors at the March meeting discussed the issue at length and resolved to alert residents to the excessive water use.
Councillor Karl Bright was concerned by the cost to all Bogan shire ratepayers if the amount of water apparently being used at Hermidale continued.
Cr Richard Bootle said one explanation for the surge in water being used could have been farmers filling spray rigs or water trucks – and said suggested there be a way for them to pay for accessing bulk water.
Cr Doug Menzies took to his calculator and said even farmers with water trucks couldn’t have used such a high volume of water without it being noticed.
“[$65,000] is like [200] million litres of water. Now, it's not getting leaked out. If there were trucks taking it out to tanks, there'd be a stream of trucks going in and out. It's not something you would miss. There's either something wrong with the meter or it's getting out of the pipe somewhere else.”
Councillors resolved to place signage on the overhead tanks in Hermidale for those requiring bulk water to contact its department of infrastructure services.
It also resolved to continue to closely monitor the situation and to ensure the meter on the Hermidale offtake is calibrated and correct.
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