Queensland water raiders turn their eyes to the Clarence River once more

Calls to dam and divert water from the Clarence River system resurfaced last year.

ABC News, 25 April 2018:

It is an idea that just keeps bubbling to the surface — pumping water inland from the Clarence River in northern New South Wales. 

The latest group to float the proposal is the Toowoomba Regional Council in south-east Queensland. Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio said it would be in the national interest to seriously investigate the plan. 

"I think the Clarence has a fair bit of water in it," Councillor Antonio said. 

"I think a very, very small percentage of the Clarence water would make an immense difference to the parched, dry areas of the Darling Downs. 

"One of the things we have on the Darling Downs, I think we've got some of the best soils that you would find anywhere. 

"As a farmer from this particular region, I think they're the best soils that are available for agriculture in Australia. 

"What they lack is reliable water," he said. A similar idea was successfully put forward by the Griffith City Council, in the New South Wales Riverina, at last year's National General Assembly of Councils.

It called for federal funding of a feasibility study to explore the practicalities of diverting water inland from the Clarence River. 

But Page MP Kevin Hogan, whose federal electorate takes in much of the Clarence Valley, said he would never support the proposal. 

"There's water piped all over the country and there are pipelines that go for hundreds of kilometres, but I don't think for cost or for environmental reasons it's feasible," he said. 

"I have heard many proposals over many decades about this. 

"I think for people out west it will never end. 

"I think they will always flag this idea, but they've been flagging it for multiple decades. 

"It hasn't happened and I don't believe it ever will. 

"There's always if there's a will there's a way, but I don't believe there's a will for that to happen in Canberra. 

Clarence Valley Mayor Jim Simmons said there was no support for the move at a local level either. 

"I can't see the current councillors supporting the diversion of water to Toowoomba or anywhere else from the Clarence River," he said. 

"It's a natural resource for the Clarence Valley, fishermen depend on it, farmers depend on it.".....

Then the wannabee raiders began again this year.

Southern Free Times, Warwick, 16 May 2019: 

Mayor Tracy Dobie addressed the media today, Thursday 16 May, during a meeting in Warwick with Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio, Western Downs Mayor Paul McVeigh and representatives of Tenterfield Shire. 

The meeting of mayors was to discuss future water supply security for the Darling Downs and Tenterfield regions, including a plan to pipe water from the Clarence River system in New South Wales which has been talked about for decades.

The Daily Examiner, 19 August 2019, p.1: 

With water supplies dwindling across Tenterfield, Toowoomba, and the Southern and Western Downs, councils across southeast Queensland and western NSW have blown dust off their plans to dam the Clarence River. 
However, Clarence Valley Council Mayor Jim Simmons has said they had not been involved in any of these discussions. 

At a Southern Downs Regional Council Q&A session last week, the Mayor Tracy Dobie said her council was looking into securing a diversion of the Clarence River in the upper catchment. 

Cr Dobie said the four councils of Tenterfield, Toowoomba, Western Downs and Southern Downs were working together on the proposal to receive an allocation of the river. 

“If you look at Toowoomba, they’re going to run out of water in 30 years, they need supplementary water, that’s why we’re looking at the diversion of the Clarence, where only seven per cent of that water is allocated at the moment,” Cr Dobie said. 

While this idea has been raised since the 1980s, Cr Simmons said Clarence Valley Council had not been involved in any discussions to dam the Clarence River. 

“These councils have not involved Clarence Valley Council in any discussions, and we’ve had no input into these discussions,” 

Cr Simmons said. “If they’re looking at it seriously, they need to seriously get the people that it affects involved in their discussions and we’ve not been approached to date, and the Clarence Valley would very much be affected by it. 

“The message we’ve got in the past is that people are opposed to any proposal to dam or divert the Clarence River, it’s a pretty big subject so I would like to see some more details if this is something these councils are seriously looking at.” 

In May this year, the Warwick Daily News reported Cr Dobie joined Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio, Western Downs Mayor Paul McVeigh and Tenterfield Shire councillor Gary Verri in Warwick to discuss a plan to secure an allocation from the Clarence River. 

Cr Dobie said a pipeline would be used to move the water to Queensland using gravity. “If you look at the Clarence there’s only a small percentage that is allocated out for urban and industrial use and the rest goes out to sea,” she said. 

Water security in southeast Queensland is a major issue, with many councils enforcing severe water restrictions.

The Daily Examiner, 20 August 2019, p.11: 

OUR SAY 
TIM HOWARD 
Chief of staff  

Calls to redirect Clarence River water inland to save drought-stricken farmers is another example of emotion trumping logic. 

Plans to divert coastal river water inland have been around at least since 1938, when Dr John Bradfield came up with a scheme to drought-proof western Queensland and South Australia by sending the waters of the Tully, Herbert and Burdekin rivers inland. 

The benefits were enormous. Massive areas in Queensland could be farmed under irrigation, it could produce massive amounts of hydro-electricity and cut erosion problems in central Queensland.

It would create beneficial change in central Australia as the cooling effects of a permanently filled Lake Eyre brought higher rainfall and vegetation growth. 

Except none of this would happen because just about everything in the planning was wrong. 

Bradfield’s estimate of the amount of water needed was more twice what the rivers could supply, the evaporation rate was likely to exceed water flows. 

Most damning was the damage the loss of the water would cause to the existing eco-systems, including the Great Barrier Reef. 

The mighty Clarence produces nothing like the flows of those tropical northern rivers. It shows there are many simple answers to complex problems and they’re invariably wrong.

Is it any wonder that local communities are against damming and diverting water from the Clarence River system?

Partly by happy historical accident and partly by good management strategies, the Clarence River system is relatively healthy and its water a sustainable resource for the est. 128,196-strong combined population in the Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour City local government areas, along with businesses in the 19 industry sectors identified as supplying employment across the two regional economies with a combined worth of est. $5.58 billion in a wider Northern Rivers regional economy worth in excess of $15.64 billion annually.

Clarence Valley communities have a right to feel that they have already done their bit for state water sustainability by supplying water to the Coffs Habour region which is outside the Clarence River catchment area.

The Valley does this in times of high rainfall and in times of drought, such as now  in late August 2019 when roughly half the Clarence Valley land area is officially listed as "Drought Affected" and the other half listed as a mixture "Drought" and "Severe Drought".

Any further water diversion has the potential to place Clarence River water sustainability and water quality at risk, thereby affecting the aesthetic, environmental, cultural, social and economic amenity of local urban and rural communities.

It should also be noted that Native Title exists over the lower Clarence River and estuary and it seems the wannabe water raiders, besides not consulting Clarence Valley Council, haven't thought to approach the traditional owners either.