By Glenis Green (not available online)

27 OCT 2008

TOM Killen has just turned 80 but he still reckons it will take a squad of police officers to drag him off his beloved Carters Ridge property near Gympie to make way for the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam.

Lyndall and Neville Ensbey feel exactly the same about their family farm at Kandanga; as does widow Maree Wesener who lives with her two teenagers on a 5ha retreat within a stone’s throw of the planned dam wall.

Together the three families comprise just a fraction of the 20 per cent of land owners still digging their heels in - even harder now as doubts continue to surface on whether the controversial dam will ever become a reality.

Although the Queensland Govern­ment has already spent more than $442.5 million on land acquisitions and planning for the $1.5 billion project to date, the rumour mill went into overdrive this week that in the current financial climate, Traveston could end up facing the same fate as the dumped $1.7 billion North Bank project in Brisbane.

Gympie’s LNP MP David Gibson, who was elected on a wave of anti-dam emotion said it was interesting that Premier Anna Bligh’s language had changed in the past few months from “you betcha. We are going to build it” to “hopefully it will get the tick of approval”.

Mr Gibson said: “My view is that it’s been a political process from the begin­ning and it will be scrapped as a political decision because of the need to win Green preferences.

“If the Greens preference Labor and Traveston is still on the table, then they are hypocrites.”

Mr Gibson said he was very worried about how much money had already been spent on the un-approved dam which Ms Bligh was justifying as money mainly spent on voluntary property acquisition.

“But if it doesn’t go ahead they’ve already destroyed the whole social fabric of the Mary Valley and no money will ever be able to restore that,” he said. According to the Government’s monthly progress reports, the dam project is on schedule to be operational by December 31, 2011 “subject to obtaining approvals”.

More than 77 per cent of properties within the dam footprint have been purchased, preliminary work on the dam design has been finalised, an indigenous land use agreement has been registered and geotechnical work is continuing.

But with Federal Environment Minis­ter Peter Garrett stilI waiting to receive a report from the Queensland Co­ordinator General before he can even make the final environmental assessment on the contentious project, anti-dam campaigners are horrified at what they call “the indecent haste and expense”.

“The dam has not been finally ap­proved and all the land sales so far have been voluntary sales,” said Mrs Ensbey, who has been running a 94ha cattle grazing property with husband Neville within the dam footprint for the past 14 years. The farm was owned for 14 years before that by Mr Ensbey’s parents.

“We have always felt the dam wouldn’t be approved and right since its first announcement on April 26, 2006 we have stood vehemently opposing this appalling decision,” she said. “We want to save this prime agricultural land for future gener­ations. In today’s insecure financial cli­mate the government needs to realise that it has to get back to basics - this should be a food bowl to feed South East Queensland and Australia.

“This has been an exercise in haste and excess. (Former Premier) Peter Beattie made a hasty decision purely because they were in a crisis due to poor infrastructure planning for the future. I’m absolutely horrified at how much money has been spent so far, when it would have been much better spent elsewhere.”

“To see this extreme waste of money ­it’s just total arrogance to be pushing on with spending when the Federal Govern­ment has not even made a decision.

“We should be the Smart State and we feel the Government is just ripping the guts out of much of Queensland and the Traveston dam is one prime example.”

Mrs Ensbey said her family would not budge even if the Government moved to compulsory land acquisitions.

“A plan is already in place to proceed with legal action even if the Federal Government gives its approval,” she said.

Mr Killen said he and his wife Jill had sent anyone offering to buy their 8lha cattle property “packing”.

“I won’t even talk to them,” he said.

“All along 1 felt it (the dam) was the wrong thing to do. They had plenty of alternatives - one was a proposal for a bigger dam at Borumba which would have held an enormous amount of water on land already bought up by the Bjelke­Petersen Government. They planned to put in a power station and pump the water over the Blackall Range to run into Brisbane dams. It would have been the ideal answer.

“I won’t sell. I’ll take the brutes to court. It’ll probably break us but I feel very strongly about this. I don’t know if they intend for the police force to move us, but they’ll have to drag us away. We will fight this to the end.”

                            WE’LL not be dammed … the Killens survey the Mary ValleyMrs Wesener said she too would be staying put for as long as it took, defending the small acreage which had been in her late husband’s family for 20 years and where they had raised their two children, now teenagers.

“Why should I sell?” she said.

“We will dig in to the end. The money would be better spent elsewhere on hospitals and education where it’s need­ed.”

Ms Bligh sparked more speculation about the dam’s future this week when she refused to guarantee the issue would be resolved before the next state poll, due next September at the latest.

The State Government is getting ready to send the dam environmental impact studies to the Federal Government by December, with Mr Garrett then having 40 days to make a decision on the project.
However he can. request more time if needed.

While Ms Bligh said she expected a final decision around March or April, that could change depending on Mr Garrett’s timing.

Mr Garrett said last week he would not be rushed into making any stand on the dam proposal, after Greens leader Bob Brown presented a Senate motion calling on him to explain the project’s impact on lungfish in the Mary River.

He said he could not make any decision until he received the final report from the Queensland Co-ordinator Gen­eral on the dam and that he would be “scrupulously” observing all the proper environmental assessment procedures.

Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, Mr Garrett is required to consider the potential impacts of the dam on matters of national environmental significance.

                  The Ensbey family.