'Fair go' says anti-dam Ron | Gympie News | Local News in Gympie

Craig Warhurst

RON McMah says the State Government now has no ethical choice but to reconsider his plan to save the Mary Valley from the Traveston Crossing dam.

The advocate of one important dam alternative says there is no further excuse for dismissing his proposal - a major upgrade of Borumba Dam.

Now that the Queensland Co-ordinator-General has ruled out Stage Two of the dam, because of environmental concerns, Ron McMah says his plan easily stacks up against the Traveston Crossing proposal and will deliver more and better quality more easily and cheaper.

He says a 300m high wall at Borumba would provide far more usable water than the Traveston Crossing proposal, would cause much less environmental damage and would not involve any resumptions or private property.

Speaking at Borumba yesterday, Mr McMah produced a January 2007 letter from Premier Anna Bligh explaining that his proposal would not have the yield projected to be able to be obtained from the dam at Stage Two levels.

However, Mr McMah says that, with Stage Two now ruled out, his proposal easily stacks up better than the Stage One Traveston Crossing dam plan.

That letter was in reply to one Mr McMah wrote six weeks previously, in which he accused government consultants “whose employment and contracts depend on Traveston going ahead” of giving the government wrong and self-serving advice.

He also accused the then-Co-ordinator-General of taking a jaundiced view of his alternative dam by insisting it be compared to the Stage Two capacity of the dam, despite the fact that this had not been planned for submission to the federal government for environmental approval.

He said the government had described Stage Two as a “maybe” in order to avoid it having to be assessed by federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett until after the environmental damage had been done by Stage One.

Now, however, he says the COG's rejection of Stage Two means his plan should be revisited. I've got engineers working with me in Brisbane.

“I've got engineers and accountants. It all adds up,” he said yesterday.

Mr McMah's plan, in summary, is to build a new Borumba Dam wall between two peaks in the solid granite valley, raising the dam's capacity to make it one of the largest in the near-Brisbane region.

It would need only a few kilometres of piping to deliver water to the Brisbane River system, where it would flow down to Somerset and Wivenhoe dams.

“We've engaged serious and experienced dam engineers,” he said.

“We've got the size of pipes needed, the size of pumps needed and it all looks a lot better than the pipeline to nowhere they have now.

“It will be better, colder water, there will be less evaporation because it is deep and, best of all, there are no threatened species that would be any worse off and the government already owns the land.”

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