Dams drying up.

Families physically, emotionally and financially drained.

These are the symptoms of the worst drought in recent memory in the Bundarra area.

Commercial Hotel owner Geoff Higgins said prior to the recent rain, in the nine years he has had the hotel there wouldn’t have been more than five inches.

He said truckloads of hay for stock feed repeatedly travel through the town, dams are dry and the river stopped running - ‘people are hurting’.

“It’s very dry here,” he said.

“They’ve got to try to hang on.”

NSW Nationals Senator John Williams has taken up the Bundarra community’s case for urgent drought relief.

Senator Williams sent a submission to the NSW Minister for Primary Industries Ian Macdonald as the first step towards a possible review of a decision by the National Rural Advisory Council to remove the area from Exceptional Circumstances.

“The area lost its EC status at the end of March, but property owners have told me they had never come out of the drought conditions they had been experiencing for many years,” Senator Williams said.

“I attended a meeting in Bundarra earlier this month and I could see in the faces of the farmers and their wives the impact the drought is having.

“No feed, creeks drying up, dams empty for the first time in memory, breeding stock sold off and stagnant water holes being pumped for domestic use face these people every day.

“Thirty-two farming families, local business houses, Bundarra Central School, health workers, clergy, the RSPCA and the New England Livestock Health and Pest Authority have all provided information and support for this submission.

“I am pushing for the National Rural Advisory Council to visit the Bundarra district and see first-hand the dire circumstances, and I am confident if it does this it will recommend the area be given EC status again.”