Thursday 17 October 2019
The real reasons behind the push to dam and divert water from the Clarence River catchment
Whenever
local government areas within the Murray-Darling Basin decide
to renew their almost perpetual lobbying of federal and state
governments for consent to dam and divert one or more rivers within
the Clarence River catchment they usually have a hidden agenda
accompanying their public call for fresh water for inland towns
during times of water scarcity.
It
has never been about needing water for towns which might run out of
water by late 2020. Any new dam couldn’t even be ‘shovel ready’
in less than two to three years, while rushing construction would
take a similar time period to complete and filling a dam would take
more than three years on top of that – if it could be achieved at
all in an Australian climate which has been drying for the last sixty
years.
What
these councils are really seeking is the means to grow their own
local businesses and expand their own regional economies at the
expense of Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour City current
and future businesses and regional economies.
One
of the mayors openly states that “water is the new currency”
- echoing that other sentiment doing the rounds, ‘water
is the new gold’.
Take
these latest water raiding schemes……….
1.
MARYLAND RIVER DAM AND DIVERSION SCHEME FOR THE BENEFIT OF
ONE NSW AND THREE QLD LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS
According
to Daily
News in
Warwick Qld, Southern
Downs Council
has a wish list for growth; “Councillor
Marika McNichol said the council had a wish list of significant
infrastructure projects that would shape, steer and secure the
region’s future.“This is an ambitious list of projects, but also
a list of essential infrastructure projects that will benefit our
region and build a sustainable future for the Southern Downs,” Cr
McNichol said.“Council has a strong long-term vision for the region
which involves major infrastructure projects.”
On
its own
website
this council stated; “Southern Downs Regional
Mayor, Tracy Dobie said a number of exciting projects in the Southern
Downs were due to commence or be completed, creating employment
opportunities, encouraging population growth and stimulating strong
economic activity,”
One
of those proposed
major
infrastructure projects to allow economic expansion in this
particular
local
government areas is a “Pipeline
diversion of water from the Clarence River in NSW to Tenterfield,
Southern Downs, Western Downs and Toowoomba”.
This
proposal is being
submitted to Infrastruture
Australia
seeking funding to progress the
interbasin-interstate
water transfer scheme.
Access
to water
is seen as a key economic driver by Western
Downs Regional Council.
This includes being a driver of industry and business development
as
well as optimising tourism growth in the
local government area.
Toowoomba
Regional Council
Mayor Paul Antonio told
a journalist
that; “water
is the limiting factor in population growth and food production in
this area”.
His
letter of support for the application to Infrastructure Australia for
a dam in the Clarence River catchment reads
in part; “As
chair of Darling Downs South West Queensland Council of Mayors … I
write to give the strongest of support to your council’s submission
to the Australian Infrastructure Audit regarding long-term water
security on the Darling Downs and NSW Border Ranges.”
Tenterfield
Shire Council’s
mayor told The
Daily Examiner
in Grafton NSW; “I
have no problem supporting populations to support industry, but you
cannot do it without infrastructure to secure water. These
towns need to be supported, and especially where they are looking to
expand.
(Towns like) Warwick and Toowoomba should have had adequate water
supply years ago and now we are playing catch up.” [my
yellow highlighting]
Tenterfield
Shire Council as
part of
the Northern
New England High Country Regional Economic Development Strategy
2018-2022 supports
the position that; “There
is potential to dam both the Mole River in the western part of the
Region and possibly one or more of the headwater tributaries of the
Clarence River for irrigation water and the generation of
hydroelectricity.”
Tenterfield’s
Mole River proposal was tentatively costed sometime in the 1990s on
the basis that private capital would build this dam and lease it back
to either local or state
government.
The current proposal for a Mole River dam (20-40 per cent smaller than the original proposed water storage) is an
initial 50/50 split between state and federal government.
2.
ABERFOYLE
RIVER DAM AND DIVERSION SCHEME TO
BENEFIT GWYDIR
SHIRE COUNCIL, GWYDIR
RIVER AND COPETON DAM, NSW
The
NSW Berejiklian
Coalition Government’s
State
Infrastructure Strategy 2018-2038
points
to a need to “Identify
investment options in the priority catchments of Gwydir and
Macquarie”.
Gwydir
Shire Council
in its Gwydir
Shire Economic Development Strategy 2017-2020 states
an aim to; “Manage
water resources for a growing economy and environmental
sustainability”
as
well as to
improve/expand
the Shire’s
product
base which
includes the
tourism potential of the Gwydir River and Copeton Dam.
The
river and dam are seen as part of providing a “Strong
basis for growing the tourism sector and building visitation to the
Shire’s towns and villages”
- as
well as being seen as “lifestyle
advantages of the Shire.”
The
development strategy also sees
“access to plentiful water”
as a prerequisite to growing local businesses and
establishing new ones.
Seeing
water as a mere commodity these Murray-Darling Basin councils and the federal government are
pressuring the NSW Berejiklian Coalition Government to such a degree
that it is now considering altering
planning and water legislation to allow NSW Water to have planning
control over dam building and also allowing environmental safeguards
to be overridden –
in particular removing environmental/biodiversity assessments of
proposed dam sites and
potentially commencing construction before a cost-benefit analysis
has been completed.
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