Firstly, the proposed Traveston dam will not be constructed until 2012.  Assuming it takes two years to fill, it will not provide any water until 2014.  Brisbane will run out of water in 2008 based on current demand and rainfall projections.  Fortunately, the SEQWater Corporation (owned by state and SEQ local government) has already devised a program of improving productivity and efficiency in response to the current drought.  Their June 2006 report outlines thirteen short term projects involving a mix of recycling, desalination, restrictions and minor infrastructure that will see Brisbane through the current drought and beyond.

The proposed Traveston Dam will not secure future water resources for SEQ.  The current demand in SEQ is about 500,000 megalitres per annum (one megalitre is an Olympic swimming pool) – this will rise to 750,000 megalitres by the year 2050.  The proposed dam at Traveston will provide 70,000 megalitres per annum – less than 10% of the total water demand in the year 2050.  Stage 2 of the proposed dam at 110,000 megalitres is only a marginal improvement.

In April this year, the Government announced that the dam was selected on the basis of volume of water (yield) and cost.  The proposed dam was estimated to have an annual yield of 215,000 megalitres at a cost of $1bn (Source – SEQ Dam Options Report dated June 2006).  Based on these figures, the Capital Cost per megalitre of yield was $4,600, making the proposed dam one of the most cost effective of all options considered.

Less than two months later the official Government cost estimate is $1.7 bn with a yield of 70,000 megalitres.  The Capital Cost per megalitre of yield is now $24,300, making the Traveston Dam the most expensive of any dam option considered.

However, the real cost of the Traveston Dam will be far in excess of $2 bn for the following reasons:
·the cost of acquiring at least 1,000 properties alone will be $1 bn,
·the dam wall has gone from 800 metres to a massive 1.3 km, approximately 30 metres tall and another 30 metres below the ground,
·the cost of sealing up the dam so it does not leak will be high,
·there are three saddle dams to constrain the water behind the main wall,
·there is a 120 km pipeline to Brisbane plus pumping equipment,
·the dam will require relocation of major roads, power and telecommunications infrastructure and,
·to avoid flooding the historic Queensland pioneer towns of Kandanga and Imbil, the Government is proposing to construct bunds and levies which are highly questionable solutions to the increased risk of flooding in these communities.

Environmental flows in the Mary River will be a thing of the past, despite Government assurances to the contrary.  The recently legislated Water Resource Plan for the Mary River Basin only includes non-mandatory flow targets for the river at downstream locations.  As an example, the legislation allows there to be less than 1 megalitre of flow at Gympie for 20 years out of the next 100 years.  Currently, the driest month of the year has an average 171 megalitres of flow per day.  Additionally, the small freshes (floods every 2-3 years) that are critical for fishing and spawning in the estuary will be cut by 58% at Gympie – these freshes will be captured by the dam.  In effect, the legislation makes it legal to stop all flows downstream of the dam for any period of time, if the need arises.  Members of the Mary Basin Community Reference Panel, established by the State Government to provide input into the water resource plan, have formally advised the Government that they had been profoundly deceived during the formulation of that plan in relation to the Traveston Crossing Dam.

The proposed Traveston Dam will be located mid stream on the Mary River on an alluvial flood plain.  It will be a large, shallow dam (average depth just over 6 metres when full) with high evaporation losses and significant water quality and leakage problems.  Locating a dam in such a place is like ring barking a tree – the river will die from the branches down and from the roots up.  The dam will destroy 76 square kilometres of the most fertile agricultural land in Queensland – where will our food come from?  The dam will annihilate the habitat for a number of rare and endangered species which rely on the river, in its natural state, for their very survival.  According to world expert on the Queensland Lungfish, Professor Jean Joss, the dam will inevitably lead to the extinction of the Queensland Lungfish, which has survived on this planet for the last 300 million years and which is a sacred animal for the indigenous people of the area.

At the recent Earth Dialogues Conference in Brisbane, former Soviet President and Chair of the International Green Cross, Mikhail Gobachev, was asked what he thought of the Government’s proposal to build more dams.  His response was “Dams won’t work”.  He has been quoted as saying “this thoughtless tampering with nature has left a terrible legacy, not least of all in my own region of the world where thousands of acres of fertile land has been lost.  We desperately need to recognise that we are the guests, not masters of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism”.

Add to this, the proposed water grid – which will cost billions of dollars to deliver, with enormous energy costs involved in moving that water around the South East. One thousand litres of water, about what a house uses in one day, weighs one ton (you could carry it in the back of a one ton ute). One megalitre of water is 1 million litres and weighs 1,000 tons.  Imagine moving 500,000 megalitres (500 million tons) of water through pipes around South East Queensland.  How much greenhouse gas will this generate? How much is this going to cost and who is going to pay for it?

Wouldn’t it be smarter to produce the water where you need it and to have solutions which are less dependent on rainfall?  After all, most of the dams in SEQ are close to empty so what is the plan? – build another dam.

See also>> 

Millions “lost”