Dam will gut Mary Region
13 JAN 2007
Story: Arthur Gorrie
A MARY River dam at Traveston Crossing would rip $70 million a year out of the Mary Valley regional economy, the Wide Bay Burnett Conservation Council claimed yesterday.
Spokesperson Roger Currie said that if the State Government took a conservative 70,000 Megalitres of water from the Mary each year for consumption in Brisbane, the economic impact on the region would be substantial.
“If that water’s going to Brisbane, then its use for agriculture, industry and consumption in this area is removed.
“The opportunity loss from that water can be very conservatively estimated at $1000 a Megalitre.
“That’s a $70 million hole in the regional economy and a $70 million benefit to the Brisbane economy from us,” he said.
Mr Currie said this sort of value for water was the basis for State Government assessments of of the projected economic benefits for the Paradise Dam on the Burnett River.
However, the Paradise Dam was supposed to provide water along with with associated economic benefits to its own local area.
This would not be the case with Traveston Crossing and, even at Paradise Dam, the promised benefits had not eventuated.
“You don’t need a doctorate in resource economics to know that the benefits of Traveston Crossing go to Brisbane and the costs go to us, and that’s just the economic not the environmental costs,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Currie said government promises of benefits from the Paradise Dam had “evaporated, just like the water in the dam.”
AT A GLANCE:
• $70 million a year ripped from region
• “Brisbane gets benefits, we get costs”
• Paradise Dam’s economic “failure” cited
He said the government had projected annual economic production of $2 billion from the dam, with 8500 full time jobs.
“The government-commissioned 2001 report claimed that the Burnett region would have enormous economic benefits from increased agricultural production, yet nothing has happened except a decrease in production - and water allocations which no-one wants due to the cost.
“The Mary River dam is the complete reverse of the Paradise situation, where the Queensland Government was trying to sell the project by claiming that the cake and the icing would stay in the Burnett region’s economy.
“The cake and icing from the proposed Traveston Crossing dam yield will flow out of the Mary catchment’s economy.
“Farmers are having to walk off their farms due to global warming and the drought, yet the Government is determined to flood thousands of hectares of viable food production land and to remove its economic benefits from local regional economies,” he said.
CONCERN: Roger Currie looks out over the Mary River at Maryborough.
stevem
by Glenis Green
December 12, 2006
DROUGHT-stricken citrus growers in the Burnett region have called for an inquiry into SunWater after being left tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket for water they never received.
While the State Government announced last week that it would provide a rebate on some water tariffs for rural irrigators this financial year and into 2007-08, irrigators who bought non-deliverable water entitlements before then want their money back.
Queensland Citrus Growers President Nick Ulcoq said the government-owned water provider SunWater had been charging growers in the Mundubbera and Gayndah districts for water allocations they either did not get or had paid to retrieve themselves.
Farmers also said that even as water supplies in irrigation weirs dwindled to bedrock, SunWater was still selling off new water allocations.
Mr Ulcoq said the payment parameters had long been a problem for growers, but when they complained they were told that SunWater was a business, regardless of whether there was a drought.
“But if I was in business, no one would be paying me for something I didn’t supply,” he said.
Mr Ulcoq said he only farmed a small orchard of 16ha of citrus trees, but he knew of bigger growers in the same situation who had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for water never delivered.
The anomaly was addressed last week when Premier Peter Beattie and Treasurer Anna Bligh announced $32.5 million in additional State Government drought assistance measures, including a rebate – capped at $10,000 per annum – on Part A water tariffs for supplemented rural irrigators who were getting 20 per cent or less of their announced allocation.
The rebates were for the current and next financial years. Irrigators pay a Part A tariff for access to water and then a Part B tariff for actual usage.
Peter Marshall, who runs one of Mundubbera’s main citrus orchards, Margrams Farms, said it was cruel blow to farmers when they had to pay in advance for water that was not available.
“With the dry weather and cracks appearing in the ground, some big cracks are appearing in SunWater’s management and delivery – or in most cases non-delivery – of water,” he said.
Mr Marshall said it appeared the loyalty program for old irrigators who paid for existing infrastructure “got the boot” when SunWater was formed several years back.
“(It was formed) not to improve the reliable supply of water to existing customers but to improve the financial yield of systems with no regard for the sustainability of anyone using the system,” he said.
stevem
24 JAN 2007
Govt quizzed over Mary River wildlife protection
The Queensland Government is being asked how it expects to be able to protect rare wildlife species that live in the Mary River if it proceeds with the Traveston Crossing dam project in the state’s south-east.
Roger Currey from the Wide Bay Burnett Conservation Council says safeguards to protect the same species in the Burnett River have largely failed.
He says it is a question that needs to be raised in reviewing the State Government’s environmental impact statement on the Traveston Crossing proposal.
“Unfortunately it seems that the Beattie Government is using the Paradise Dam as a role model to project onto the Traveston project,” Mr Currey said.
“We’ve got two species linked to both dams, that’s the lungfish and the turtle species, and both of those species have not been effectively protected under the Paradise Dam project and we’re worried that the same issue will occur here.”
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