Emu Swamp Dam
The Editor,
M$ 126.5 for the proposed Emu Swamp Dam (ESD) to the benefit of about 50 rich farmers and farming companies.
This must be the most egregious example of agrarian socialism in modern Australian history and another indulgent waste of taxpayers’ money by a coalition Government anxious to retain majority by any means possible.
After the GHD report cast doubt on the viability of the ESD project the proponents just went to another engineering consultancy that gave them the result they wanted, a dam and pipeline for M$ 84, “pie in the sky”. As it turned out the project was never going to get off the ground for that price and the proponents have gone to government and procured almost 1½ times that amount of EXTRA funding. Experience has shown with other multi-million dollar infrastructure projects, cost overruns are more than likely and the dam proponents will yet again go to Government for more handouts.
The writer is not opposed to dams per se but this proposed dam is a dud; it is shallow, leading to high evaporation losses, poorly located relative to the rich, potential users, it would be bone dry after a period of drought such as that which we have recently witnessed and would be of no benefit to the town of Stanthorpe under such drought conditions.
The proposed Petrie’s Crossing weir and off stream storage would have provided much greater water security for the town at a much reduced cost.
Christopher Gray
Stanthorpe
A second Emu Swamp Dam letter
Dear editor,
it doesn’t say much for the Federal Government’s fiscal responsibility that it is prepared to toss another $126.6 million into propping up the Emu Swamp Dam proposal on top of the $89 million that they had already commited to the project. This is an extraordinary waste of public money for a proposal that has not yet obtained a raft of approvals nor demonstated that it is value for money.
It doesn’t have the agreement of all of the landowners affected by innundation from the dam or impacted by the pipeline routes, nor acquired their land or necessary approvals. It has failed to meet the environmental conditions attached to past approvals nor demonstrated how it is going to minimise the impacts on threatened species and regional ecosystems. It does not even have approvals for the water allocations needed to make the proposal viable.
This project is not the most cost effective nor reliable source for Stanthorpe’s future water security and exposes the Council and its ratepayers to the potential to help pick up the tab for cost overuns. The original cost of dam construction was estimated to be $84 million and this has now blown out to over $200 million. If the government wants to genuinely assist agricultural development on the Granite Belt, then it could have invested its money in supporting water efficiency measures that would benefit all farmers and not just a select few.
There surely should be a limit to how much taxpayer and ratepayer money is commited to a project which by any fair and independent assessment fails to provide a net benefit to the community.
Yours sincerely,
Liz Bourne
Stanthorpe
