Early works for upgrades to the notorious Cooroy to Curra section of the Bruce Highway started on Monday, June 29 and it appears they could not have started soon enough. Documents tabled in Queensland parliament in June by main roads minister Craig Wallace show the 64km stretch of the highway, familiar to emergency service workers throughout the region, has been the scene of 56 deaths in nine years. As well as the loss of life, 295 people have been hospitalised with injuries following 840 crashes between 2000 and 2008.

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The Sunshine Coast may be one Bligh government decision away from becoming part of a 250-kilometre-long “Noosangatta”, running from Noosa to the southern Gold Coast. The state government is considering plans to extend the Caloundra South area to accommodate another 50,000 people, on top of the 50,000 already earmarked for the area. Critics say the Labor government would be approving housing on land even the pro-development Bjelke-Petersen government vowed would never be touched. The open space standing in the way of “Noosangatta” is the environmentally sensitive Hall’s Creek catchment area south of Bells Creek.

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Updated on Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 01:08AM by stevem

Updated on Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 09:05AM by stevem

Updated on Friday, July 3, 2009 at 09:28AM by stevem

Updated on Friday, July 3, 2009 at 09:31AM by stevem

THE showpiece of the State Government’s $9 billion water grid, the Gold Coast desalination plant, is a $1.2 billion lemon. Rusting pipework, cracking concrete, faulty valves and leaching of contaminants from a rubbish dump on which the plant was built are among several serious defects revealed in a report to be given to the Government today. The Government is refusing to accept ownership of the Tugun facility and has threatened legal action against contractors if the faults are not fixed. This is after a Freedom of Information application by The Courier-Mail into problems that have plagued the plant since its official opening in November, when it failed to come on line as scheduled.

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I find it necessary to write this letter through the newspapers because previous correspondence to the Governor, received only a curt acknowledgment by a staff member but no reply or acknowledgment from the Governor whatsoever. I am appealing to the Governor who under the Constitution of Australia is the Representative of Her Majesty the Queen in the State of Queensland and as such the Guardian of our Constitutional and Democratic rights in this State. She is the Servant of the People, not the personal servant of the Government sitting there just to rubber stamp anything that the Government want. I am appealing to the Governor, to call to order the Government of Queensland, dismiss the Parliament and call a fresh election and at the same time have the new “Constitution” that Peter Beattie created in 2001 put to a referendum of the people as required under the Constitution of Australia.

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Updated on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 10:56AM by stevem

Updated on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 11:55AM by stevem

A leading Sunshine Coast environmentalist has accused the state government of deliberately downplaying last week’s lungfish kill at North Pine Dam which, he believes, should spell the end of the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal. President of the Conondale Range Committee, Ian Mackay, claimed SEQWater had both under reported the number of lungfish killed and over exaggerated the success of its “rescue operation” to return the relatively few survivors to the water. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time for the state government, with the Traveston Dam proposal now well overdue in being passed up to federal environment minister Peter Garret for approval,” Mr Mackay said. “There’s no way you can mitigate against this sort of catastrophe.”

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BILLIONS of litres of drinking water will pour through Victoria’s power stations after the state government dumped plans to use recycled water. Despite 12 years of drought and water shortages, the recycling project has been shelved in an announcement that coincided with rising water bills. The government has also abandoned plans to divert recycled water to the Yarra River, which would have freed up more drinking supplies. Releasing a $6 million business case report on the projects, Water Minister Tim Holding said they were too expensive.

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A SERIES of bungles that caused a fluoride overdose had dented public confidence in the drinking water supply, the State Government conceded yesterday. An independent report into the April overdose, which affected up to 400 homes and a school camp on Brisbane’s northside, has blamed equipment failures and human error for the incident. The case was bungled from the start with residents initially told the wrong date, area affected and fluoride dosage level a fortnight after the overdose occurred. The report, by Professor Mark Pascoe, was released yesterday and found Seqwater, which runs the North Pine water treatment plant, breached a raft of regulations including failing to immediately notify regulators of the malfunction.

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Infrastructure and planning minister Stirling Hinchliffe says people affected by resumptions for the water grid pipeline had a right to expect their properties to be returned to their original state. He said the Southern Regional Water Pipeline Alliance gained access to properties under the state development and public works organisation act of 1971 which stated that properties had to be fully re instated. The comments come as anger grows at the alleged theft of topsoil from a number of properties over whom water grid easements had been declared. The alliance denied yesterday that any of its workers or contractors had already been dismissed as a result of allegations of soil theft.

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The apparent positioning towards an industry bailout, with the Gunns mill as a centrepiece, follows intense lobbying from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union. Mr Burke used a ministerial statement to spruik economic benefits from the Gunns mill, in the clearest sign yet that the Rudd government has decided to back the project. “As the Minister for Forestry, let me state quite clearly that I want to see the Gunns Bell Bay mill built — provided the requirements of federal environmental law are met,” he said.

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Updated on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:24AM by stevem

Updated on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:27AM by stevem

NSW Water Minister Phil Costa said the new rules end five years of tough drought restrictions, after careful consideration of storage levels and additional water sources, like recycling and desalination. “Our dam levels have been on the rise over the past year and we have 20 recycling schemes across greater Sydney now recycling about 25 billion litres of water per year,” Mr Costa said in a statement. “These few simple rules reinforce the importance of using water responsibly and minimising waste.”

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