The new truck wash facility soon to be installed at the Tenterfield saleyards will save drivers a 200km round trip to the nearest public truck wash at Glen Innes, Northern Tablelands Local Land Services (NTLLS) said.
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The facility is being funded by a $600,000 grant from the Fixing Country Truck Washes program, a joint initiative between the NSW and Australian Governments to build and upgrade truck wash-out facilities across regional NSW.
NTLLS District Vet Dr Lisa Martin worked with the Tenterfield Shire Council and members of the Tenterfield Saleyards Committee (representing livestock producers, selling agents and the broader community) on a funding application that was the first to be approved under the Fixing Country Truck Washes program.
“This is a great example of the Local Land Services Biosecurity Team working with the local community to improve biosecurity compliance as well as the social amenity of the district’s roads,” Dr Martin said.
“The saleyard is located close to the Queenland/NSW state border, at the crossroads of major livestock movement arterial roads, and sits at the head of a major national waterway, the Murray Darling River system.
“Tenterfield saleyards does not currently have a truck wash. Local producers rely on pumping water from local farm dams or creeks to wash out biosecurity pests, diseases or weeds from their trucks, returning biosecurity matter back into the local environment and water catchments, with a real potential for biosecurity risks to be dispersed across a large area.
“Alternatively trucks would have to make a 200 km round trip to truck washes located in Glen Innes, Casino or Warwick, again with a potential to disperse biosecurity risks along the road and adding increased heavy vehicle road use and fuel emissions to the environment.
“Council, agents, livestock transporters and producers all share the responsibility for managing biosecurity risks in the district, including at the local saleyards. However without a dedicated truck wash the Tenterfield community would find it very difficult to comply with the requirements of the NSW Biosecurity Act to prevent, eliminate or minimise biosecurity risk.”
For more information about biosecurity risk management contact Dr Lisa Martin at Northern Tablelands Local Land Services on 02 6739 1400.
