LNP RENEWS CALLS FOR DAM AND ITS PIPELINE TO BE KILLED

January 9, 2008 LNP RENEWS CALLS FOR DAM AND ITS PIPELINE TO BE KILLED
 
The State Opposition says recent information shows the Labor Government still plans to go “full steam ahead” with Traveston Crossing Dam after the 2009 State election.

Member for Maroochydore and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure Fiona Simpson said Labor revealed in an answer to an Opposition question in Parliament tabled this week it was pressing ahead with the 2011 finish date for the controversial $560 million connecting pipeline to the dam.

“It’s time this destructive dam and its connecting pipeline were dumped once and for all,” Ms Simpson said. “That’s the LNP policy and it’s the right thing to do.

“Premier Bligh still intends to have this huge pipeline finished by December 2011 which shows that Traveston Dam is still going to happen sooner rather than later under Labor.

“This is a pipeline you wouldn’t build in your right mind to connect to existing small water supplies. It is designed to take a lot of water from a very big dam,” Ms Simpson said.

“The Bligh Government has spent taxpayers’ money like drunken sailors. However, even for them, they wouldn’t be so dumb to spend $560 million to construct a 200 ml/day 50km pipeline simply to take a teaspoon of water from the pelican puddle of Lake Macdonald unless they still intended to hook it into a new bulk supply at the nearby Traveston Crossing Dam site.

“Lake Macdonald and the current water licence from the Mary River yield up to 44.44 ml/day, of which about 19.04 ml/day is used by Noosa residents, leaving only about 25.4 ml/day available from this source , well short of the 200 ml/day planned from Traveston Crossing Dam.

“The Labor Government has made some pretty dumb mistakes with water infrastructure expenditure but even with all their spin doctors on the job, they can’t honestly sell this 200 ml/day pipeline running to the far north of the Sunshine Coast as being anything else but a Traveston Crossing Dam dependent project.”

The LNP’s policy is to scrap the Traveston Crossing Dam and the connecting pipeline (NPI-2) and reintroduce water tank rebates and other water harvesting incentives as well as a desalination plant on Bribie Island under its climateproof.com.au policy.