The proposal was criticised as impacting Indigenous heritage and cultural sites in the area. State Emergency Service planner Chas Keys stated that the government should rather focus on evacuation routes and decelerating population growth in the flood plains between Penrith, downstream of Windsor in the valley of south creek and the valley of the Hawkesbury proper. Western Sydney minister Stuart Ayres supported the idea, saying that a higher Warragamba Dam wall "will have a profound impact on the amount of people who would have to be evacuated and the amount of properties that would be inundated."[1]