DAM building is on the agenda, and a NSW parliamentary inquiry is set to re-examine projects such as the Tillegra and Welcome Reef.

These projects were shelved over community opposition and environmental concerns.

The state's upper house committee on development will inquire into water storages under wide terms of reference that include "proposals for construction and/or augmentation", The Australian reports.

The inquiry will investigate flood-mitigation strategies in the wake of revelations by The Australian that managers of Queensland's Wivenhoe Dam may have contributed to last year's devastating Brisbane floods.

Nationals MP Rick Colless, who chairs the committee, said important projects had been shelved under the former Labor state government due to the "inordinate" influence of environmentalists, and those options would now be back on the table.

"In the past, the environmental movement has used its political influence to get an outcome that is out of kilter with the needs of the wider community," Mr Colless said.

But Labor MP Mick Veitch, the committee's deputy chairman, said his party had cancelled dam projects "primarily for environmental reasons", and argued: "You just can't plonk them anywhere. I think the days are gone when you can close down villages and put a dam on top of them."

Greens upper house MP John Kaye labelled the inquiry "clearly a National Party agenda" that would put ideology ahead of the interests of science.

"It's an inquiry that's driven by some sort of crazed ideology that we need more dams, rather than looking at the lower-cost water-efficiency options," Dr Kaye said.

The proposed Welcome Reef dam, inland from Shoalhaven on the NSW south coast, and the long-mooted Mole River dam close to Tenterfield in the state's north had already been singled out for fresh consideration, Mr Colless said.

The cost of the Welcome Reef dam has previously been estimated at between $430 million and $1 billion. The project was shelved indefinitely in 2001.

Tenterfield Shire Council expressed interest in reviving the Mole River proposal in 2007, but was knocked back.

"There no doubt will be others we will uncover as the inquiry goes on," Mr Colless said.

One of the state's most controversial water storage proposals is the Tillegra dam in the NSW Hunter Valley. The dam was proposed in the 1970s, but a definite plan did not emerge until 2006. It was finally shelved by Labor in 2010 following a concerted community campaign.

The NSW Coalition government has previously pledged not to revive the Tillegra proposal.

Full report, The Australian.