IN THE shadows of anti-dam celebrations, a Wide Bay conservation group has this week continued its legal challenge to the suitability of a fishway for lungfish at Paradise Dam, north-west of Biggenden. Sunwater is being challenged in the Federal Court by the Wide Bay-Burnett Conservation Council which claims the State Government utility breached Federal Government environmental controls by operating the dam since 2005 without an effective fishway for lungfish.

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Updated on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 08:09AM by stevem

THE bowls players of Kandanga will happily have to make do with their present digs, after news the cancellation of the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal has also meant the end of a proposed replacement bowls facility. This week’s Gympie Regional Council Planning Committee meeting was told the proponent of both the dam and the replacement bowls club building, Queensland Water Infrastructure Pty Ltd, has withdrawn the bowls club application.

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Updated on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 07:46AM by stevem

Updated on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 08:02AM by stevem

Updated on Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 07:20AM by stevem

Mayor Bob Abbot wants the state government to stop draining the Sunshine Coast’s water supply after Baroon Pocket Dam this week came close to its lowest level in more than two years. The controversial northern interconnector pipeline has siphoned 7800 million litres of water since it was completed in March, while the Coast region experienced less than half its normal rainfall during a long dry winter. The Bureau of Meteorology has also predicted below average rains this summer, with a similar El Nino effect forming to that experienced in 2002, which preceded the worst drought in Queensland’s history. Baroon Pocket’s level dropped by nearly 10% in the past two months and an average of 1% a week to its current level of 86%.

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This is a prime example of the old adage that nobody’s life liberty or property is safe while parliament is sitting. While property rights are generally secure from private encroachment, they have no security when the government invokes “the common good.” It seems incredible to me that in the long run the destruction of the Mary Valley was only averted due to the presence of some fish, turtles and frogs etc. I am not in any way attempting to denigrate those who led the campaign on these issues, indeed we would all be poorer for the extinction of these species, and these people promoted the issue that saved the day. Congratulations to them on that. It is shocking though that the enormous economic costs, social disruption, waste of resources, incredible stupidity of the concept, and the crushing psychological burden to the victims of this outrage, counted for nothing. Right up to the announcement of the decision the Premier was waging psychological warfare on landholders attempting to force them to sell.

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It defies “carrying capacity” constraints. One windy day blows our onion paper-thin soil 1400 kilometres. Our rivers are mere creeks compared with those fed by the Alps, the Rockies or the Andes. Two capitals, Adelaide and Brisbane, have come perilously close to running out of water….. …..In the meantime I would like Canberra and big business to level with us about the implications of soaring immigration. Will they, for example, stand shoulder to shoulder with state planning ministers when prime farming land on the city fringe has to be ploughed up for housing and low-density suburbs rezoned for high-rise? Residents of Ku-ring-gai opposed to flats along their rail corridor should remember these rezonings were to help facilitate a Sydney population of 5 million. Now we are headed for 7 million. Their placards belong outside the Department of Immigration, not the Department of Planning.

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Updated on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 11:36AM by stevem

A MAJOR economic analysis of the State Government’s $15 billion asset sale claims the plan has no credibility, could cost millions and is based on poor economic advice and manipulated Treasury figures. The report, by Sydney University Professor Bob Walker and his wife Betty Con-Walker, a former NSW Treasury boss, rubbishes the need for the privatisation and claims it would be fundamentally foolish. It describes the Government’s strategy as a “Magic Pudding” which could somehow reduce debt and build infrastructure with the same money. The report, commissioned by the union movement which is opposed to privatisation, also claims the Government manipulated figures to provide an economic picture that was far worse than in reality.

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Updated on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 02:24PM by stevem

Updated on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 05:16AM by stevem

Updated on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 01:38PM by stevem

YEARS back I had to go to San Francisco to learn that the famous sea lions in the bay smell worse than week-old sardines and that the Australian lungfish is about as exciting as Kevin Rudd. A murky tank at the California Academy of Sciences has been home to Methuselah the lungfish since 1938 and I presume he is still going strong, although I am yet to receive confirmation from the Ichthyology Department. But if he’s still on duty, I hope they treat him with the respect due to a creature that can demolish a $1.2 billion dam.

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Campaigners who have successfully stopped the construction of the proposed Traveston Crossing dam were today calling on the Premier to “stop the scaremongering” over the price of water in the wake of Minister Garrett’s decision regarding the proposed dam. “We are responding to the repeated claims by the Premier that now that the Traveston Crossing dam has been knocked back by Garrett, water prices will have to go up in Brisbane,” said Glenda Pickersgill, president of the Save the Mary River Coordinating Group. “The independent assessment Minister Garrett commissioned found the economic analysis used to justify the failed Traveston Crossing dam to be seriously flawed. This report vindicates criticisms that we, and many other groups have made over the last three and a half years.” “Are they using the same flawed economic analysis to support the statements made last week about the increase in water costs? - asked Ms Pickersgill. “The figures suggested by Minister Robertson last week certainly don’t stack up in our view and we are very concerned that the Premier is making the same mistakes all over again.” “If prices go up, the numbers show it would be no fault of Minister Garrett but the fault of the Queensland Government for their dogmatic approach to water management, their consistent economic bungling and repeated cost blowouts in their water infrastructure projects.” The Coordinator General himself admitted in his report on the Traveston Crossing dam proposal, that even with the highest population growth predicted only 20 billion litres more water would be needed in South East Queensland by 2026.

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Updated on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 07:57AM by stevem

Updated on Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 07:17AM by stevem

Premier Bligh has outlined a six month buy back scheme for the Mary Valley landowners who sold their properties so that the Traveston Crossing Dam project could proceed. Ms Bligh said normal rules had been waived so that tenant farmers and other former Mary Valley landowners could buy their land back at the same price they sold it for. Under normal State Government buy back rules that opportunity normally only exists for 12 months after the original sale of the property and many of the landowners in the Valley sold their land up to two years ago.

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LAST month’s announcement that the federal government would demand a say in planning the future of Australian cities saw Queensland premier Anna Bligh immediately jump in with a suggestion. Ms Bligh applauded prime minister Kevin Rudd’s approach but said her state already had the answers. Lauding her government’s infrastructure plan as an international award winner, Ms Bligh said it could be the model to guide the growth of the “big Australia” Mr Rudd envisaged. There is fat chance of that now. Central to that SEQ infrastructure plan was her government’s $9 billion water strategy which now lies exposed as an exercise in pure folly.

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