Sarah Elks and Andrew Fraser

November 26, 2008

LINING the highway that descends into the lush, green Mary Valley are dozens of hand-painted signs that leave no doubt as to what locals think about the proposed Traveston Dam.

“ArmagedDAM”, “Save our homes” and, painted on slabs of timber nailed half-way up trees, “Dam water level”.

As yesterday’s decision to postpone the construction of the unpopular dam filtered through the tight-knit community, residents — many of whom had felt pressured to sell their homes — celebrated.

Kevin Ingersole, chairman of the Save the Mary River group, spearheaded the vocal campaign to quash the dam plan.

Mr Ingersole, a retired management consultant who moved to the Mary Valley to pursue his passion for woodworking, said the state Government’s decision showed the fighting spirit of the community had won through.

“There’s a lesson for state and federal governments here: if you think you can get what you want by pushing around a community, you can’t,” he said.

He said in the beginning, the state Government tried to bully and cajole residents into selling their properties.

“I’ve watched families disintegrate, neighbours who have lived next to each other for 30 years without a harsh word almost come to blows, and marriages collapse,” Mr Ingersole said. “The tension in the community has been unbearable.”

That tension dissipated markedly yesterday as locals — many in beat-up cars with big yellow No Dam stickers on their bumpers — came together in the afternoon’s fading light to celebrate on the banks of the Mary River.

Glenda Pickersgill, a grazier whose property was just a kilometre away from the proposed dam’s wall, said she was overjoyed about the decision. “No money can buy what I have,” she said.

And on a hill above the river, the Robertson family was looking forward to getting their life back on track.

Parents-of-five Stacey and Stuart Robertson had moved their brood almost constantly until they settled on a 61ha property at Kandanga, in the Mary Valley, in April 2006. Stacey Robertson said the family was not far from fracturing before the move to the valley.

“I told my husband I was almost ready to take a chainsaw to the house — he could have one side, I’d have the other,” she said.

It was a family-saving move.

Son Angus, 14, sums it up. “Our doormat says ‘Done moving’ and that was our plan.”

Away from the jubilation of Mary Valley, Cate Molloy, the former state Labor MP whose political career was killed off by the dam proposal, said that while yesterday’s decision left her feeling vindicated, “it’s a pretty sad way of being vindicated”.

Ms Molloy was the ALP member for Noosa, close to Traveston, until the then premier Peter Beattie announced the decision to proceed with the dam in April 2006, just four months before the state election.

She campaigned against the dam, and left the ALP because of its insistence on pushing ahead with the plan, standing as an independent on an anti-dam platform.

“My personal tale of trauma and stress is insignificant compared with what the people of the Mary Valley have been through,” she said yesterday.

“I was hoping it would happen — but it’s so bloody-minded not to say they were wrong.

“But not cancelling the dam completely is just more damage control. It’s really all about taking away a platform for the Liberal National Party and the Greens in the next election.”