Save the Mary group in new fight

Arthur Gorrie | 9th February 2010

THE community group that successfully opposed the Traveston Crossing dam is urging Gympie Region people to make submissions against the pipeline which they say would do nearly as much environmental damage.

They were supported yesterday by Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbott, who said the Northern Interconnector Pipeline Stage Two, which will take Mary River water to the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, is now unnecessary.

Save the Mary River coordinating Group president, Glenda Pickersgill, said submissions to the State Government’s South East Queensland Water Strategy would close this Friday, coinciding with an expected announcement for or against the pipeline by federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.

Ms Pickersgill says the pipeline, which was to take water from the Traveston Crossing dam, is not needed, now that the dam has been rejected.

The group claims that the pipeline will effectively pump the Mary River dry by taking water from the Noosa hinterland’s Lake McDonald, which is fed from the Mary River.

Ms Pickersgill said yesterday the lake “is on Six Mile Creek (a significant tributary of the Mary) and is also topped up with Mary River water pumped from the Mary at Coles Crossing.

She says the pipe diameters involved in the project were designed with the dam in mind and would have the capacity to pump more water than allocations allow.

“This is unnecessary and of concern to people interested in the health of the Mary River downstream from this point,” she said.

Economic reports commissioned for the now defunct dam’s Environmental Impact Statement had identified the critical economic importance of water security along the Mary River.

She criticised as unsustainable the government’s plans for interbasin water transfers from the Mary to the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane.

Brisbane did not need the water because of the availability of numerous alternatives, would be “more sustainable and don’t deprive the communities and environment of the Mary River of much needed water.”

These alternatives included bringing forward the safety upgrade of the Wivenhoe Dam and improving commercial water efficiency, among others.

She said the organisation was “very concerned” that the Queensland Government had called tenders for Stage 2 of the pipeline before any federal approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, suggesting “that the Queensland Government is operating outside the law.”

Cr Abbott said the pipeline was “not necessary, can’t deliver what it was supposed to deliver, it’s way, way over engineered for the water supply that’s available to it and from my perspective no longer necessary,” he told ABC Coast FM.