The second in a series of three 'Traveston Dam' presentations for the Hervey Bay Chamber of Commerce took place this morning. Last month (June 25) Roger Currie (pictured) spoke on behalf of the campaign, trying to cover as many of the downstream impacts - particularly economic - as possible in a short space of time. Today it was the Government's turn, and Hervey Bay's Labor Member, Andrew Macnamara, attempted to explain how the dam will benefit the community and the future of Queensland.
Here's a quick summary of the key points given by both presenters ...
Roger Currie outlined:
- the Cost Benefits Analysis (CBA) carried out on the dam and the substantial economic loss to the region should the 70,000mgl annual yield of the Mary Catchments be allocated to Brisbane
- the potential ecological losses to the region - how the dam will mean reduced ‘essential triggering flows' entering the RAMSAR Great Sandy Strait
- the potential indicative economic values of the Great Sandy Ramsar Wetland
- that the statement that the environmental health of the Mary River will not be significantly affected by a large dam at Traveston Crossing because 'end of system' flows will be maintained in excess of 85% of pre-development flows, is simply not supported by the comprehensive scientific investigations that have already taken place during the formulation of the Mary Basin Water Resource Plan.
He also referred to Paradise Dam (which, incidently, has been voted by the World Commission on Dams as one of the most disasterous dams in the world) and the Government's failure to successfully mitigate for Lungfish there. In doing so they breached the conditions of approval under the EPBC 1999.
Read Roger's submission to the Senate Inquiry here.
Today, Andrew Macnamara said:
- He supports the Traveston Dam because (he says) it is vital for Queensland's future
- The dam will produce economic benefits that will offset the losses
- If the Environmental Impact Study stacks up the dam will go ahead; if it doesn't, it won't
- Anyone who opposes the dam is arguing for zero population growth
- He only supports the dam on the basis of Government flow reports (referred to Roger's calculations as the 'back-of-envelope' sort)
- That those against the dam are suffering from NIMBYism, which hinders progress
As the latter 'Anna Bligh' style remark indicates, the speech offered nothing but the usual party spiel, with very little acknowledgement of the negative impacts.
There was time for questions after today's speech, and the issues raised by chamber members were encouraging. Referrence was made to some of the points made in Roger's presentation and they clearly had serious doubts about the wisdom of this dam.
The third in the series of presentations will be given by Graham Newton, speaking on behalf of Queensland Water and Infrasture (QWI) in August.
Stayed tuned.
1 comment:
Andrew Macnamar is off course pathetic - he is a weak minister more concerned for his relationships with local power brokers than sustainabilty - the environment or the Mary River.
Hence his suport for Traveston.
He is the Hervey Bay local member but has all but abandoned the Burrum River and Wongi Waterholes - off course he will be no different with the Mary River.
His relationship with the local water authority has been more important than ensuring environmental flow to the Burrum - his postion with the Mary River is no different. (note reports in Fraser Coast Chronicle Andrew Mcnamara shares bottles of wine with Tim Waldron)
The great sandy straights and our marine park are threatened by the damming of all of our rivers that is damming to the Burrum River was completed in December 2007.
The gates installed at Lenthalls Dam on the Burrum River were supposed to release flow from september through to march.
The gates failed to lower to provide environmental flow to the Burrum River from January 2008 to today. The gates do not work as designed now in September 2008 and your local member has done little about this. The affects for the marine park are silting of seagrass beds and mangroves and silging of the mouth of the Burrum River - this is happending right now on your doorstep.
The failure of the gates to lower to release flood flow shows the kind of infrastructure management the people of Traveston will experince when the mary is further dammed.
This is our story and your future story:
I have concerns that queenslands water infrastructure managers may not be up to the responsibilities involved.
By this I mean the states, water corporations like Wide Bay Water
and local government. I belive our local water operator may be handed more power by the Hervey Bay City Council and that they have Andrew Mcnamaras full support.
Our own experience of dam gate failure at Lenthalls Dam on the Burrum River is telling - it is indicative of an inability to understand environmental performance, risk or to manage public saftey issues
You would imagine that Dam infrastructure in Australia is safe - however our experience on the Burrum River in QLD shows just how easy it is to become a fatality when Dam Infrastructure fails.
Gates constructed in December 2007 at Lenthalls Dam on the heavily impounded Burrum River failed to lower to release flood water as designed in Febuary 2008.
Wide Bay Water was the constructing authority and responsible for the design and operation of the dam gate infrastructure.
Our upstream farm house, where the tributaries join the dam proper was cut of when flood water continued to back up much higher than the constructing authority Wide Bay Water had predicted the water levels would ever go.
Three family members were stuck at our farm house. The emergency evacuation plan found in the Lenthalls Dam Emergency Action Plan called for evacuation after water levels reached RL26.91 - water levels reached 27.4 at the dam wall flowing over the blocked gates and backed up to RL28.5 at our house. No one evacuated the famuily members stranded in rising water.
No one from the constructing authority Wide Bay Water contacted us to undertake evacuation or explain the risk we faced due to Lenthalls Dam Crest Gate Failure.
We believe the CEO Tim Waldron was overseas at conference when the event happed. The Operations manuals for the dam place responsibilty with the CEO as does the action plan. He has not been called to account for his failure to take responsible action to ensure an evacuation would occur in his abscence if required.
If the rain event had not stopped the three people cut off at our flood impacted farm house would have been inundated by metres of water.
We heard about the dam failure from other locals close to the dam wall who had heard the gates have failed - we now have full evidence to verify the dam gate failure.
We were very lucky the rain event that caused the flooding to back up over the failed dam gate, stopped.
see the article as ABC reported it:
Resident fears dam gates risk flooding
Posted Wed May 21, 2008 8:26am AEST
Updated Wed May 21, 2008 8:25am AEST
• Map: Hervey Bay 4655
A land-holder upstream of a major dam south-west of Hervey Bay says multi-million dollar barriers on the storage are broken, putting her family at risk of flooding.
Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas will officially open the $16 million project at Lenthalls Dam, which is designed to more than double the storage’s capacity.
In what is claimed to be an Australian first, the two metre high crest gates sink when the dam reaches capacity to prevent flooding upstream and provide for environmental flows.
But Esther Allan says in February the gates jammed, causing water to back up onto her property.
“This is an extremely expensive piece of infrastructure. Ratepayers paid for this and their expectation would be that it would be operable,” she said.
“If it wasn’t, we need to know why - not only because our family’s safety was put at risk, but because ratepayers expect to get a result from the infrastructure they pay for.”
The local government corporation that runs Lenthalls Dam says the gates do not work, but it was monitoring the rising water.
Wide Bay Water general manager David Wiskar says adjustments were needed during the dam’s commissioning and are continuing.
“The gates were all needing some fine-tuning. At the moment we were able to complete that tuning on three of the gates,” he said.
“There’s two that remain to be done, but we’re waiting until the level in the dam falls to an adequate level to [do] those final two.”
The Lenthalls Dam Gates are still not fully operational today September 2008 and heading into the QLD summer flood season.
Climate Change will continue to place increased pressure on infrastructure in Australia the frequency of extreme storm and weather events will be a counterpoint to extreme drought.
If the infrastructure like Lenthalls Dam cannot be managed safely now - those who live in areas affected by damming have much to worry about.
Climate change will increase the risks posed by failed dam infrastructure.
The risks remain for all of those who live on dammed river systems - the Mary River and the Burrum.
Post a Comment